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Graeber, the anarchist anthropologist who coined the phrase "we are the 99%" and wrote Debt: The First 5000 Years talks about the idea of revolutionary non-conf

Graeber, the anarchist anthropologist who coined the phrase "we are the 99%" and wrote Debt: The First 5000 Years talks about the idea of revolutionary non-confrontation in Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. One of the ideas he discusses is intentionally keeping your literacy low and your population itinerant. "...under the French, administrators would complain that they could send delegations to arrange for labor to build a road near a Tsimihety village, negotiate the terms with apparently cooperative elders, and return with the equipment a week later only to discover the village entirely abandoned—every single inhabitant had moved in with some relative in another part of the country." Graeber on the myth of the ignorant savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 I'm not sure that itinerance or illiteracy are strategies I would recommend to anyone. :) Dreher's Benedict Option seems like a Western perspective of a similar strategy.

082349872349872 6y ago
Thanks for the refs. Until I digest them the following pair of anecdotes will have to suffice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology > 'Malays had informed him the ape could talk, but preferred not to "lest he be compelled to labour".' For more literate sandbagging, in Oflag XVIIA (POW camps actively discourage itinerance): https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf > "Recteur Leray lectured mostly on calculus and topology. He had succeeded in hiding from the Germans the fact that he was a leading expert in fluid dynamics and mechanics (a mécanicien, as he liked to say). He turned, instead, to algebraic topology, a field which he deemed unlikely to spawn war-like applications." ==== For a certain period (when the lifestyle was actually militarily superior) roaming worked well for steppe peoples. I doubt there'd be much theological overlap, but do the BenOp people ever think to look at what the least english-dependent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people already practice? Bossmang! Mi du sensa. Milowda na sasa lang inya, keya?
- AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
  I hate to respond just to say "thanks!", but this was interesting and you taught me two things in a handful of sentences. Thanks!
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Unless someone shows up who'll defend BenOp, I'm not looking further into it. As far as cursory surfing reveals (I have only been able to find a table of contents online whose chapter headings are not helpful) not only does Dreher not bother with the separatism of plain religions in the US, nor the experiences of other more heavily persecuted, more melaninly enabled, christian churches in the US, his doctrine doesn't accord with any of his[1] religions, nor does it, according to secondary criticism, seem to have been informed much by actual Benedictines[2]. Indeed, he's even been accused of rooting the whole project in reaction to Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015)[3]. [1] protestant, catholic, and orthodox, in that order. One is reminded of the person who is constantly looking for the New Shiny Library/Language instead of writing their app with the ecosystem they have at hand. (cue GKC quote on difficulties untried, Benedict on Sarabaites) For more similarities to open source schisms, consider https://blog.ayjay.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BenOp-788x1200.png https://blog.ayjay.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BenOp-788x... and replace the christian references with geeky projects such as "building a modern operating system", "immanentising the crypto eschaton", "welcoming our new GPT-N overlords", etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BpfwazhUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BpfwazhUA [2] who are still around to ask. There's a non-benedictine abbey near me which celebrated its 1'500th birthday a while ago, and at least a handful of benedictine which are probably not many centuries younger. TIL Benedictines are more Marxist than Marx. From each according to their ability: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#chapter-48-nl-on-the-daily-manual-labor https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#c... To each according to their need: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#chapter-33-nl-whether-monks-ought-to-have-anything-of-their-own https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#c... (no private property, nor personal property, nor even personal volition) [3] as I'm not charitable, I'll suggest that being afraid of Obergefell then writing phrases such as "L.G.B.T. activism is the tip of the spear at our throats in the culture war" reminds me of Poe's law. Then again, I'm not sure if he fears swallowing "liquid modernity" as much as being swallowed by it. (a complaint which I believe Dreher shares with another movement I doubt he covered: the Taliban)

082349872349872 6y ago

Thanks for the refs. Until I digest them the following pair of anecdotes will have to suffice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology > 'Malays had informed him the ape could talk, but preferred not to "lest he be compelled to labour".' For more literate sandbagging, in Oflag XVIIA (POW camps actively discourage itinerance): https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf > "Recteur Leray lectured mostly on calculus and topology. He had succeeded in hiding from the Germans the fact that he was a leading expert in fluid dynamics and mechanics (a mécanicien, as he liked to say). He turned, instead, to algebraic topology, a field which he deemed unlikely to spawn war-like applications." ==== For a certain period (when the lifestyle was actually militarily superior) roaming worked well for steppe peoples. I doubt there'd be much theological overlap, but do the BenOp people ever think to look at what the least english-dependent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people already practice? Bossmang! Mi du sensa. Milowda na sasa lang inya, keya?

AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
I hate to respond just to say "thanks!", but this was interesting and you taught me two things in a handful of sentences. Thanks!
082349872349872 6y ago
Unless someone shows up who'll defend BenOp, I'm not looking further into it. As far as cursory surfing reveals (I have only been able to find a table of contents online whose chapter headings are not helpful) not only does Dreher not bother with the separatism of plain religions in the US, nor the experiences of other more heavily persecuted, more melaninly enabled, christian churches in the US, his doctrine doesn't accord with any of his[1] religions, nor does it, according to secondary criticism, seem to have been informed much by actual Benedictines[2]. Indeed, he's even been accused of rooting the whole project in reaction to Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015)[3]. [1] protestant, catholic, and orthodox, in that order. One is reminded of the person who is constantly looking for the New Shiny Library/Language instead of writing their app with the ecosystem they have at hand. (cue GKC quote on difficulties untried, Benedict on Sarabaites) For more similarities to open source schisms, consider https://blog.ayjay.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BenOp-788x1200.png https://blog.ayjay.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BenOp-788x... and replace the christian references with geeky projects such as "building a modern operating system", "immanentising the crypto eschaton", "welcoming our new GPT-N overlords", etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BpfwazhUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BpfwazhUA [2] who are still around to ask. There's a non-benedictine abbey near me which celebrated its 1'500th birthday a while ago, and at least a handful of benedictine which are probably not many centuries younger. TIL Benedictines are more Marxist than Marx. From each according to their ability: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#chapter-48-nl-on-the-daily-manual-labor https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#c... To each according to their need: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#chapter-33-nl-whether-monks-ought-to-have-anything-of-their-own https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.html#c... (no private property, nor personal property, nor even personal volition) [3] as I'm not charitable, I'll suggest that being afraid of Obergefell then writing phrases such as "L.G.B.T. activism is the tip of the spear at our throats in the culture war" reminds me of Poe's law. Then again, I'm not sure if he fears swallowing "liquid modernity" as much as being swallowed by it. (a complaint which I believe Dreher shares with another movement I doubt he covered: the Taliban)