6 ms·

Thanks for sharing this. Graeber’s name came up many times during a recent a deep dive on ancient Mesoamerican societies. I had seen his new book The Dawn of Ev

Thanks for sharing this. Graeber’s name came up many times during a recent a deep dive on ancient Mesoamerican societies. I had seen his new book The Dawn of Everything as well as an older text, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, and was eager to pick them up. I was unaware he had passed, however. Nearly all of his previous topics of research and publishing were of interest to me; it is a shame to realize this most recent book will be the last.

culi 5y ago
What a way to go to. The book, cowritten with archeologist David Wengrow, ties together so many different developments within archeology and anthropology that are driving some major paradigm shifts. These massively important paradigm shifts have mostly been confined to academia so far and I don't there's been such a broad attempt to tie them altogether like this. Especially not one geared towards the public This book will undoubtedly change the way we talk about non-industrial peoples and lifestyles for decades to come. Rest in power, David Graeber
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Can you summarize three of these paradigm shifts?
  - culi 5y ago
    Lol this sounds like a class assignment. E.g. the origins of agriculture. It's going from the idea of having a single point of origin to multiple (~15-20) points of origins around the world. Another major shift in thinking about agriculture is realizing it wasn't so much of a technological advancement (indeed agricultural people had radically reduced lifespans, less leisure time, more disease, etc) as something people were likely forced into. And most people around the world grew at least part of their food or at least had the knowledge to do it so people shifted in and out of agriculture commonly. Another major shift in thinking is around cities. In anthropology the concept of cities have actually been defined by hierarchical social structures. We have more and more examples of many very large rural places that very much go against the idea and drive a big hole in the idea that hierarchy is a natural biproduct of increasing populations. I could go on. One that I wish got covered more in the book was the relationships between cultures and ecologies. This is more of a major shift in archaeobotany and will probably take a while to be fully fleshed out and reach the wider public, but archeologists are increasingly seeing, for example, the Amazon rainforest as a manufactured landscape. One that was very heavily shaped by the indigenous peoples that lived in them and would not be around in the way that it is without them. Same for California and it's deep dependence on cultural burning practices and also for most of Australia that early colonists often described as looking like a "giant well-managed park".
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Thanks! That’s helpful. I was a little bit aware of these paradigm shifts, and it’s useful to know that Graeber was important in discovering and/or popularizing them.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      > We have more and more examples of many very large rural places that very much go against the idea and drive a big hole in the idea that hierarchy is a natural biproduct of increasing populations. For those that are unaware, this is basically the core of anarchist political theory; hierarchies aren't merely natural consequences of human society, but were in fact created via force.
      - vishnugupta 5y ago
        To add to it, “an-archy” literally means the absence of top-down order, in a way the opposite of “hire-archly”.
        teddyh 5y ago
        hier-archy
        culi 5y ago
        that too
      - ChainOfFools 5y ago
        > hierarchies aren't merely natural consequences of human society, but were in fact created via force by force of whom? Gods? Aliens? or was it by the humans within that society? this hypothesis has naturalistic fallacy written all over it.
        krapp 5y ago
        I assume by force they mean coercion by other humans with a greater capacity for violence or control over resources, although the obvious contrary example would be the natural hierarchy of families, of which tribal and clan societies were an extension. Knowledge and skill also tend to create hierarchies without necessarily requiring coercion, depending on how valuable that is in a specific society, although consolidating that power probably does require coercion, at least by keeping knowledge secret.

culi 5y ago

What a way to go to. The book, cowritten with archeologist David Wengrow, ties together so many different developments within archeology and anthropology that are driving some major paradigm shifts. These massively important paradigm shifts have mostly been confined to academia so far and I don't there's been such a broad attempt to tie them altogether like this. Especially not one geared towards the public This book will undoubtedly change the way we talk about non-industrial peoples and lifestyles for decades to come. Rest in power, David Graeber

Robotbeat 5y ago
Can you summarize three of these paradigm shifts?
- culi 5y ago
  Lol this sounds like a class assignment. E.g. the origins of agriculture. It's going from the idea of having a single point of origin to multiple (~15-20) points of origins around the world. Another major shift in thinking about agriculture is realizing it wasn't so much of a technological advancement (indeed agricultural people had radically reduced lifespans, less leisure time, more disease, etc) as something people were likely forced into. And most people around the world grew at least part of their food or at least had the knowledge to do it so people shifted in and out of agriculture commonly. Another major shift in thinking is around cities. In anthropology the concept of cities have actually been defined by hierarchical social structures. We have more and more examples of many very large rural places that very much go against the idea and drive a big hole in the idea that hierarchy is a natural biproduct of increasing populations. I could go on. One that I wish got covered more in the book was the relationships between cultures and ecologies. This is more of a major shift in archaeobotany and will probably take a while to be fully fleshed out and reach the wider public, but archeologists are increasingly seeing, for example, the Amazon rainforest as a manufactured landscape. One that was very heavily shaped by the indigenous peoples that lived in them and would not be around in the way that it is without them. Same for California and it's deep dependence on cultural burning practices and also for most of Australia that early colonists often described as looking like a "giant well-managed park".
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Thanks! That’s helpful. I was a little bit aware of these paradigm shifts, and it’s useful to know that Graeber was important in discovering and/or popularizing them.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > We have more and more examples of many very large rural places that very much go against the idea and drive a big hole in the idea that hierarchy is a natural biproduct of increasing populations. For those that are unaware, this is basically the core of anarchist political theory; hierarchies aren't merely natural consequences of human society, but were in fact created via force.
    - vishnugupta 5y ago
      To add to it, “an-archy” literally means the absence of top-down order, in a way the opposite of “hire-archly”.
      - teddyh 5y ago
        hier-archy
        culi 5y ago
        that too
    - ChainOfFools 5y ago
      > hierarchies aren't merely natural consequences of human society, but were in fact created via force by force of whom? Gods? Aliens? or was it by the humans within that society? this hypothesis has naturalistic fallacy written all over it.
      - krapp 5y ago
        I assume by force they mean coercion by other humans with a greater capacity for violence or control over resources, although the obvious contrary example would be the natural hierarchy of families, of which tribal and clan societies were an extension. Knowledge and skill also tend to create hierarchies without necessarily requiring coercion, depending on how valuable that is in a specific society, although consolidating that power probably does require coercion, at least by keeping knowledge secret.