6 ms·

Graeber and Wengrow contest that take severely with their survey of modern anthro and archaeological research, I recommend their papers or Dawn of Everything

DasCorCor 4y ago
That book is amazing!
jvanderbot 4y ago
Yes highly recommended. For those not familiar, Dawn of Everything essentially starts with the assumption that people have always been curious, intelligent, flexible creatures, and that smaller core populations let a ton of different societal organizations be tested and tried over the years. They also take aim at the "farming is inevitable and the root of inequality" trope that's prevalent. Since, as they show, a ton of really large societies over the years chose not to become primarily agricultural.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Yes, large societies including many that have been shown to have discovered agriculture much earlier on than expected, and chose not to build hierarchical societies around it / found alternative structures. I particularly liked the several wacky varieties of "police" such as the clown ones
  - ncphil 4y ago
    One intriguing line of analysis in _The Dawn of Everything_ is how people in early settlements would often just pack up and leave when their leaders started acting like a*holes (think human sacrifices in Mesoamerica). That reminded me of how many citizens abandoned frontier towns during the late Roman period, often helpfully directing advancing northern tribes where the wealthiest villas might be found. Maybe the peoples in earlier times were simply less willing to put up with being bullied and exploited. Relatively low numbers and abundant unsettled land gave them more options that many humans have had since. The Nile watershed was a wonder of ancient agricultural engineering: it was also the largest slave society up to that point in history.
dopidopHN 4y ago
Scott papers and “against the grain” book also spend several chapter on that
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dopidopHN 4y ago
    Have you read the book? What I remember is that it took 5000 years for the transition to happen, and that human went back in forth with the two systems. That was far from a black and white transition. Hunther gatherer knew about farming and were actually farming Also: trash and bones of the two groups indicate that farming was more subject to instability and shortage of nutrients. ( as backward as it sound for us ) Where does the Marxism come into play ?
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - olau 4y ago
        You may have a point, but your terminology is off. Graeber was decidedly against the prevailing economic system, but he was not a Marxist: "He was an anarchist from the age of 16, according to an interview he gave to The Village Voice in 2005." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber
        AlbertCory 4y ago
        OK. Maybe "post-modern" sums it up better? Definitely writing with an agenda. "That hunter-gatherer lifestyle was so nice: people would never give it up unless they were compelled!" OK, that rates a blog post. Not a whole book.
bedobi 4y ago
David Graeber is taken about as seriously as Graham Hancock by actual scholars...
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Yeah because he exposes lots of academia as fraudulent at best

DasCorCor 4y ago

That book is amazing!

jvanderbot 4y ago

Yes highly recommended. For those not familiar, Dawn of Everything essentially starts with the assumption that people have always been curious, intelligent, flexible creatures, and that smaller core populations let a ton of different societal organizations be tested and tried over the years. They also take aim at the "farming is inevitable and the root of inequality" trope that's prevalent. Since, as they show, a ton of really large societies over the years chose not to become primarily agricultural.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Yes, large societies including many that have been shown to have discovered agriculture much earlier on than expected, and chose not to build hierarchical societies around it / found alternative structures. I particularly liked the several wacky varieties of "police" such as the clown ones
- ncphil 4y ago
  One intriguing line of analysis in _The Dawn of Everything_ is how people in early settlements would often just pack up and leave when their leaders started acting like a*holes (think human sacrifices in Mesoamerica). That reminded me of how many citizens abandoned frontier towns during the late Roman period, often helpfully directing advancing northern tribes where the wealthiest villas might be found. Maybe the peoples in earlier times were simply less willing to put up with being bullied and exploited. Relatively low numbers and abundant unsettled land gave them more options that many humans have had since. The Nile watershed was a wonder of ancient agricultural engineering: it was also the largest slave society up to that point in history.

dopidopHN 4y ago

Scott papers and “against the grain” book also spend several chapter on that

AlbertCory 4y ago
[flagged]
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  Have you read the book? What I remember is that it took 5000 years for the transition to happen, and that human went back in forth with the two systems. That was far from a black and white transition. Hunther gatherer knew about farming and were actually farming Also: trash and bones of the two groups indicate that farming was more subject to instability and shortage of nutrients. ( as backward as it sound for us ) Where does the Marxism come into play ?
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - olau 4y ago
      You may have a point, but your terminology is off. Graeber was decidedly against the prevailing economic system, but he was not a Marxist: "He was an anarchist from the age of 16, according to an interview he gave to The Village Voice in 2005." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        OK. Maybe "post-modern" sums it up better? Definitely writing with an agenda. "That hunter-gatherer lifestyle was so nice: people would never give it up unless they were compelled!" OK, that rates a blog post. Not a whole book.

bedobi 4y ago

David Graeber is taken about as seriously as Graham Hancock by actual scholars...

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Yeah because he exposes lots of academia as fraudulent at best