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As this is published in the Guardian, it's fair to point out that David Graeber was very much outspoken against the Guardian in the last couple of years and ref

by k1m 6y ago

As this is published in the Guardian, it's fair to point out that David Graeber was very much outspoken against the Guardian in the last couple of years and refused to write for them again. > as for the Guardian, we will never forget that during the "Labour #antisemitism controversy", they beat even the Daily Mail to include the largest percentage of false statements, pretty much every one, mysteriously, an accidental error to Labour's disadvantage - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 > these venues only allow people like me on to legitimate themselves; i.e., the Guardian would systematically refuse to allow me to say anything about the Corbyn antisemitism charges, but simultaneously beg me to write about trivial matters like Black Friday. I finally was forced to face up to the reality: they wanted the name of prominent intellectual lefties associated with them so their systematic attacks on the political left would be taken more seriously. We were being used. - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1256291019542401024 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1256291019542401024 > oh I'm definitely not writing for the Guardian again - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1214619782991040512 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1214619782991040512

dang 6y ago
And what a classic "journalistic" cheap shot they're taking at him with that photo (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e901f036a105724595e106ace3d67e5bf65e525/0_1233_3123_1873/master/3123.jpg?width=605&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3c819c1017308ddbadfb349c488fd927 https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e901f036a105724595e106ace3d6...). I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, but the text itself is quite good. No doubt the photo was chosen by someone other than the author. A pity to lose him. Graeber was unusually fresh, with a talent for provoking interesting discussion, whether one agreed or not. He also got into flamewars on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidgraeber https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidgraeber.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  On the contrary, I thought that photo showed him with a quizzical, skeptical look, which is something I would bet he'd appreciate were he here to do so. Any chance we can get a black bar for him? His ideas were so interesting that I think it would be appropriate, even though he wasn't involved in the history of computing per se.
  - Tarsul 6y ago
    I agree with your take on his look in that picture. Additionally, while his views of the Guardian have soured, it's more to the left than the quotes above might suggest. E.g. this opinion piece from today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/left-britain-radical-alternative-injustice-progressive-reform https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/left-b...
    - k1m 6y ago
      I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this gives the Guardian a kind of fake left cred that then makes their attacks on the left (which can be relentless, as in the case of Corbyn) much more powerful. Below his pinned tweet on the Guardian is this tweet from him, mentioning the writer of the opinion piece you link (Aditya Chakrabortty): > this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty - all of whom I very much respect. They used us so no one would believe they would simply lie to destroy any chance of a left gov't. But that's exactly what they did. - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704 I actually respect David Graeber a whole lot more than the others he mentions here because he didn't let his access to the Guardian stop him from calling them out. Going as far as to say he wouldn't write for them again.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        So much this. The anti-Corbyn smearing was practically Soviet in its intensity, and directly contributed to the appalling political situation the UK finds itself in now. You expect it from the right, but when it's also coming from the supposed left - in sync with obvious social media astroturfing - it's impossible not to question what's really going on. I know a number of people who will never trust the Guardian again. Unfortunately I know more who simply believed the lies. I'm glad Graeber said all this because he confirmed what a lot of people suspected was the case. So an especially sad loss, as well.
        6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- FatalLogic 6y ago
  I feel that you're rushing to judgement and assuming the worst. The article sings his praises. The photograph isn't the best, but perhaps it was an attempt to illustrate his quirky and iconoclastic nature. I fully agree with you that this is a sad loss. Much too soon.
  - dang 6y ago
    You may be right - I'm certainly making an interpretation there. Edit: I realized something about my priors in this case. I've long had the sense that flattering vs. unflattering photo choices are a powerful way by which newspapers (or some faction of editors within them—I don't know how newspapers work) express a pre-existing agenda.
    - k1m 6y ago
      The photo choice struck me as a cheap shot too. But I don't know who's responsible for that at the Guardian. I assumed knowing his views on the Guardian they didn't try very hard when it came to the photo.
      - phs318u 6y ago
        It’s worth remembering that The Guardian, like most large organisations, is comprised of individuals who may vary quite significantly from the position of the entity overall. This article may be a reflection of that. DISCLAIMER: I’m a subscriber.
    - BitwiseFool 6y ago
      I think you're probably right. If the subject's photograph is unflattering the content of the article skews negative. For example, just look at any article where the person has their mouth open and is making the 'Ch' or the 'Ooo' sound - it's always negative.
    - echelon 6y ago
      This is why it's hard to be a human. We jump to conclusions, but we're not always unwarranted. It'd be better to live in a world where we didn't have to suspect ulterior motives. But alas, hill climbing in an adversarial landscape while continually being preempted and distracted seems to be our lot in life. It's no wonder we're a bit grumpy.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  The photographer was [name redacted]. His portfolio [0] has several posed portraits of famous people that might be considered less than flattering but which were clearly posed with their agreement. [redacted] has produced work for news sources across the political spectrum including The Telegraph (diametrically opposite from the Guardian). It's certainly possible that the author didn't choose it but it is possible that Graeber himself didn't object. [Edit - totally agree about the sadness of his loss] [0] [link redacted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fkangaris 6y ago
    I am the photographer who shot his portrait. Sorry to hear he has passed. He was a lovely and friendly man as far as I recall from the few mins I had with him many years ago. He was very keen to pull some “quirky” expressions, his own choice. Other more “flattering” ones were also taken and provided to The Guardian. There’s no stitch-up intended here and it’s a shame that’s what’s being interpreted from his expression.
    - KineticLensman 6y ago
      Great reply, thanks. I personally really liked this portrait and wanted to suggest to other commentators that it was intentionally quirky and not a stitch-up
  - fkangaris 6y ago
    P.S. The majority of my portraits were shot for The Guardian and The Independent. The fact that I‘ve also shot a few assignments for The Telegraph and Wall Street Journal doesn’t indicate or imply a particular political affiliation. It’s probably best to not make assumptions that a photographer or even a writer holds the same views or political stance as the publication that commissioned them.
  - dang 5y ago
    I've redacted some personally identifying information from the comment above. It's clear that the comment wasn't malicious; it's just that these things can have unintended side effects (e.g. when they show up in search results) and we do our best to take care of people about such things.
- cynicalkane 6y ago
  "He also got into flamewars on Hacker News" It's disappointing to see 'flamewar' contexualizxed after 'provoking interesting discussion'. Reading through Graeber's long, contradictory, insult-filled, self-important rants, I'm not sure what would motivate this contextualization. Normally, I might assume good faith, but Graeber's polemical behavior characterizes both a significant part of his work and a significant part of his participation on his site. The contextualization of this kind of unhinged and hateful behavior as some sort of intellectualism is something I find especially repulsive and pernicious.
  - s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago
    Can you provide examples please? I've followed Graeber for years, and this sounds nothing like the person I came to know.
    - cynicalkane 6y ago
      You can refer to dang's link to Graeber's flamewar with Brad DeLong on here. It begins and ends with insults sandwiching a suspiciously uncharitable characterization of the subject. This suspicion is founded: many of Graeber's claims are also false; in particular, Delong provided a litany of elementary falsehoods in Debt, in which Graeber's inaccurate claim about Apple is merely of especial characteristic inaccuracy--but that's beyond the scope of this post. Zooming back out, if one leads and ends with hateful insults which they cannot justify, that ought to be viewed with deep suspicion. No, DeLong is not a "con-man" who "suckers" people because he wants to call out a book which he feels, and can earnestly argue, is deeply wrong. Near the end of this long, screenfilling rant, Graeber claims he has been trying to "ignore" DeLong. I didn't know such fits of apoplexy were how you ignored someone.
      - gord288 6y ago
        Well no, here's what Graeber actually said at the end of his comment (emphasis added): > I've honestly tried to just ignore the guy, hoping he'll eventually go away, but since he won't, I guess I have to explain what's really going on.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with the photo.
- FpUser 6y ago
  I suspect he would be heavily downvoted should he be posting in HN (anonymously of course). All in all sad to see him go.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    It looks like he was a poster here, but alas, he never commented himself on the Graeber vs Thiel debate or "Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit", his most HN-relevant pieces of work.
- werber 6y ago
  I personally really like the photograph, it feels like it’s in the spirit of his work. Anarchism is a bit cheeky
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- samizdis 6y ago
  > I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, ... This is more tangential than it is better, but it is a nice read: https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed-way-see-money https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed...
samizdis 6y ago
You might want to read this. It is short and respectful: https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rip-david-graeber https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rip-da...
ChickeNES 6y ago
Wait, just to be clear, he was taking Corbyn's side? I don't know anything about Graeber whatsoever (I honestly thought he was some CS pioneer I had forgotten before clicking the link), but that's a pretty bad look
- kunai 6y ago
  Why? It's pretty evident at this point that the whole Labour anti-Semitism thing was a cheap way to generate clicks and tank Corbyn-led Labour. Criticism of Israel's genuinely awful human rights record is not anti-Semitic.
  - monoclechris 6y ago
    I think it is very unlikely the Equality and Human Rights Commission will come to this same conclusion.
  - mft_ 6y ago
    It wasn’t just related to criticism of Israel. There were plenty of examples [0] of unpleasant statements coming from people on a Labour party platform or at their events, which were not dealt with sufficiently quickly or seriously by the Labour Party. They could’ve made this problem go away by just having a proper policy and dealing with these cases swiftly and appropriately. They didn’t. [0] https://news.sky.com/story/12-shocking-claims-of-abuse-in-leaked-labour-antisemitism-dossier-11879053 https://news.sky.com/story/12-shocking-claims-of-abuse-in-le...
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Oh good, another English dossier. Those are entertaining! One notes that at that link there are no specific accusations against Corbyn. It's all "Corbyn-supporting groups" and "concerns about Corbyn's leadership". Seems a bit thin! We would have seen this fiction in USA too, if voters would have just forgotten that Bernie is actually Jewish.
      - mft_ 6y ago
maerF0x0 6y ago
> refused to write for them again. Reminds me of Christopher Hedges and his experience on the CBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4XlPxvi9F4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4XlPxvi9F4
eli_gottlieb 6y ago
>> as for the Guardian, we will never forget that during the "Labour #antisemitism controversy", they beat even the Daily Mail to include the largest percentage of false statements, pretty much every one, mysteriously, an accidental error to Labour's disadvantage - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 Can't say I really agree with Graeber about this at all, one Jewish leftist to another. Told him so over Twitter at one point. Think someone blocked me after this conversation, but it wasn't David. Gonna miss him.
tacheiordache 6y ago
In think the whole antisemitism saga is nothing but a pro palestine labor party policy which bothered some key people and hence the tarnishing campaign begun. Being critical of Israel is a nono, you will eventually be punished somehow, that state had long arms

by k1m 6y ago

dang 6y ago

And what a classic "journalistic" cheap shot they're taking at him with that photo (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e901f036a105724595e106ace3d67e5bf65e525/0_1233_3123_1873/master/3123.jpg?width=605&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3c819c1017308ddbadfb349c488fd927 https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e901f036a105724595e106ace3d6...). I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, but the text itself is quite good. No doubt the photo was chosen by someone other than the author. A pity to lose him. Graeber was unusually fresh, with a talent for provoking interesting discussion, whether one agreed or not. He also got into flamewars on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidgraeber https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidgraeber.

pmiller2 6y ago
On the contrary, I thought that photo showed him with a quizzical, skeptical look, which is something I would bet he'd appreciate were he here to do so. Any chance we can get a black bar for him? His ideas were so interesting that I think it would be appropriate, even though he wasn't involved in the history of computing per se.
- Tarsul 6y ago
  I agree with your take on his look in that picture. Additionally, while his views of the Guardian have soured, it's more to the left than the quotes above might suggest. E.g. this opinion piece from today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/left-britain-radical-alternative-injustice-progressive-reform https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/left-b...
  - k1m 6y ago
    I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this gives the Guardian a kind of fake left cred that then makes their attacks on the left (which can be relentless, as in the case of Corbyn) much more powerful. Below his pinned tweet on the Guardian is this tweet from him, mentioning the writer of the opinion piece you link (Aditya Chakrabortty): > this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty - all of whom I very much respect. They used us so no one would believe they would simply lie to destroy any chance of a left gov't. But that's exactly what they did. - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704 I actually respect David Graeber a whole lot more than the others he mentions here because he didn't let his access to the Guardian stop him from calling them out. Going as far as to say he wouldn't write for them again.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      So much this. The anti-Corbyn smearing was practically Soviet in its intensity, and directly contributed to the appalling political situation the UK finds itself in now. You expect it from the right, but when it's also coming from the supposed left - in sync with obvious social media astroturfing - it's impossible not to question what's really going on. I know a number of people who will never trust the Guardian again. Unfortunately I know more who simply believed the lies. I'm glad Graeber said all this because he confirmed what a lot of people suspected was the case. So an especially sad loss, as well.
      - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
FatalLogic 6y ago
I feel that you're rushing to judgement and assuming the worst. The article sings his praises. The photograph isn't the best, but perhaps it was an attempt to illustrate his quirky and iconoclastic nature. I fully agree with you that this is a sad loss. Much too soon.
- dang 6y ago
  You may be right - I'm certainly making an interpretation there. Edit: I realized something about my priors in this case. I've long had the sense that flattering vs. unflattering photo choices are a powerful way by which newspapers (or some faction of editors within them—I don't know how newspapers work) express a pre-existing agenda.
  - k1m 6y ago
    The photo choice struck me as a cheap shot too. But I don't know who's responsible for that at the Guardian. I assumed knowing his views on the Guardian they didn't try very hard when it came to the photo.
    - phs318u 6y ago
      It’s worth remembering that The Guardian, like most large organisations, is comprised of individuals who may vary quite significantly from the position of the entity overall. This article may be a reflection of that. DISCLAIMER: I’m a subscriber.
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    I think you're probably right. If the subject's photograph is unflattering the content of the article skews negative. For example, just look at any article where the person has their mouth open and is making the 'Ch' or the 'Ooo' sound - it's always negative.
  - echelon 6y ago
    This is why it's hard to be a human. We jump to conclusions, but we're not always unwarranted. It'd be better to live in a world where we didn't have to suspect ulterior motives. But alas, hill climbing in an adversarial landscape while continually being preempted and distracted seems to be our lot in life. It's no wonder we're a bit grumpy.
KineticLensman 6y ago
The photographer was [name redacted]. His portfolio [0] has several posed portraits of famous people that might be considered less than flattering but which were clearly posed with their agreement. [redacted] has produced work for news sources across the political spectrum including The Telegraph (diametrically opposite from the Guardian). It's certainly possible that the author didn't choose it but it is possible that Graeber himself didn't object. [Edit - totally agree about the sadness of his loss] [0] [link redacted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fkangaris 6y ago
  I am the photographer who shot his portrait. Sorry to hear he has passed. He was a lovely and friendly man as far as I recall from the few mins I had with him many years ago. He was very keen to pull some “quirky” expressions, his own choice. Other more “flattering” ones were also taken and provided to The Guardian. There’s no stitch-up intended here and it’s a shame that’s what’s being interpreted from his expression.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    Great reply, thanks. I personally really liked this portrait and wanted to suggest to other commentators that it was intentionally quirky and not a stitch-up
- fkangaris 6y ago
  P.S. The majority of my portraits were shot for The Guardian and The Independent. The fact that I‘ve also shot a few assignments for The Telegraph and Wall Street Journal doesn’t indicate or imply a particular political affiliation. It’s probably best to not make assumptions that a photographer or even a writer holds the same views or political stance as the publication that commissioned them.
- dang 5y ago
  I've redacted some personally identifying information from the comment above. It's clear that the comment wasn't malicious; it's just that these things can have unintended side effects (e.g. when they show up in search results) and we do our best to take care of people about such things.
cynicalkane 6y ago
"He also got into flamewars on Hacker News" It's disappointing to see 'flamewar' contexualizxed after 'provoking interesting discussion'. Reading through Graeber's long, contradictory, insult-filled, self-important rants, I'm not sure what would motivate this contextualization. Normally, I might assume good faith, but Graeber's polemical behavior characterizes both a significant part of his work and a significant part of his participation on his site. The contextualization of this kind of unhinged and hateful behavior as some sort of intellectualism is something I find especially repulsive and pernicious.
- s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago
  Can you provide examples please? I've followed Graeber for years, and this sounds nothing like the person I came to know.
  - cynicalkane 6y ago
    You can refer to dang's link to Graeber's flamewar with Brad DeLong on here. It begins and ends with insults sandwiching a suspiciously uncharitable characterization of the subject. This suspicion is founded: many of Graeber's claims are also false; in particular, Delong provided a litany of elementary falsehoods in Debt, in which Graeber's inaccurate claim about Apple is merely of especial characteristic inaccuracy--but that's beyond the scope of this post. Zooming back out, if one leads and ends with hateful insults which they cannot justify, that ought to be viewed with deep suspicion. No, DeLong is not a "con-man" who "suckers" people because he wants to call out a book which he feels, and can earnestly argue, is deeply wrong. Near the end of this long, screenfilling rant, Graeber claims he has been trying to "ignore" DeLong. I didn't know such fits of apoplexy were how you ignored someone.
    - gord288 6y ago
      Well no, here's what Graeber actually said at the end of his comment (emphasis added): > I've honestly tried to just ignore the guy, hoping he'll eventually go away, but since he won't, I guess I have to explain what's really going on.
RandoHolmes 6y ago
I don't see anything wrong with the photo.
FpUser 6y ago
I suspect he would be heavily downvoted should he be posting in HN (anonymously of course). All in all sad to see him go.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  It looks like he was a poster here, but alas, he never commented himself on the Graeber vs Thiel debate or "Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit", his most HN-relevant pieces of work.
werber 6y ago
I personally really like the photograph, it feels like it’s in the spirit of his work. Anarchism is a bit cheeky
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
samizdis 6y ago
> I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, ... This is more tangential than it is better, but it is a nice read: https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed-way-see-money https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed...

samizdis 6y ago

You might want to read this. It is short and respectful: https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rip-david-graeber https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rip-da...

ChickeNES 6y ago

Wait, just to be clear, he was taking Corbyn's side? I don't know anything about Graeber whatsoever (I honestly thought he was some CS pioneer I had forgotten before clicking the link), but that's a pretty bad look

kunai 6y ago
Why? It's pretty evident at this point that the whole Labour anti-Semitism thing was a cheap way to generate clicks and tank Corbyn-led Labour. Criticism of Israel's genuinely awful human rights record is not anti-Semitic.
- monoclechris 6y ago
  I think it is very unlikely the Equality and Human Rights Commission will come to this same conclusion.
- mft_ 6y ago
  It wasn’t just related to criticism of Israel. There were plenty of examples [0] of unpleasant statements coming from people on a Labour party platform or at their events, which were not dealt with sufficiently quickly or seriously by the Labour Party. They could’ve made this problem go away by just having a proper policy and dealing with these cases swiftly and appropriately. They didn’t. [0] https://news.sky.com/story/12-shocking-claims-of-abuse-in-leaked-labour-antisemitism-dossier-11879053 https://news.sky.com/story/12-shocking-claims-of-abuse-in-le...
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Oh good, another English dossier. Those are entertaining! One notes that at that link there are no specific accusations against Corbyn. It's all "Corbyn-supporting groups" and "concerns about Corbyn's leadership". Seems a bit thin! We would have seen this fiction in USA too, if voters would have just forgotten that Bernie is actually Jewish.
    - mft_ 6y ago

maerF0x0 6y ago

> refused to write for them again. Reminds me of Christopher Hedges and his experience on the CBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4XlPxvi9F4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4XlPxvi9F4

eli_gottlieb 6y ago

>> as for the Guardian, we will never forget that during the "Labour #antisemitism controversy", they beat even the Daily Mail to include the largest percentage of false statements, pretty much every one, mysteriously, an accidental error to Labour's disadvantage - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912 Can't say I really agree with Graeber about this at all, one Jewish leftist to another. Told him so over Twitter at one point. Think someone blocked me after this conversation, but it wasn't David. Gonna miss him.

tacheiordache 6y ago

In think the whole antisemitism saga is nothing but a pro palestine labor party policy which bothered some key people and hence the tarnishing campaign begun. Being critical of Israel is a nono, you will eventually be punished somehow, that state had long arms