The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
by David Graeber & David Wengrow
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike―either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts.
David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.
Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359
Wikipedia Summary
The authors open the book by suggesting that current popular views on the progress of western civilization, as presented by Francis Fukuyama, Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, Charles C. Mann, Steven Pinker, and Ian Morris, are not supported by anthropological or archaeological evidence, but owe more to philosophical dogmas inherited unthinkingly from the Age of Enlightenment. The authors refute the Hobbesian and Rousseauian view on the origin of the social contract, stating that there is no single original form of human society. Moreover, they argue that the transition from foraging to agriculture was not a civilization trap that laid the ground for social inequality, and that throughout history, large-scale societies have often developed in the absence of ruling elites and top-down systems of management.
Rejecting the "origins of inequality" as a framework for understanding human history, the authors consider where this question originated, and find the answers in a series of encounters between European settlers and the Indigenous populations of North America. They argue that the latter provided a powerful counter-model to European civilisation and a sustained critique of its hierarchy, patriarchy, punitive law, and profit-motivated behaviour, which entered European thinking in the 18th century through travellers accounts and missionary relations, to be widely imitated by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. They illustrate this process through the historical example of the Wendat leader Kondiaronk, and his depiction in the best-selling works of the Baron Lahontan, who had spent ten years in the colonies of New France. The authors further argue that the standard narrative of social evolution, including the framing of history as modes of production and a progression from hunter-gatherer to farmer to commercial civilisation, originated partly as a way of silencing this Indigenous critique, and recasting human freedoms as naive or primitive features of social development.
Subsequent chapters develop these initial claims with archaeological and anthropological evidence. The authors describe ancient and modern communities that self-consciously abandoned agricultural living, employed seasonal political regimes (switching back and forth between authoritarian and communal systems), and constructed urban infrastructure with egalitarian social programs. The authors then present extensive evidence for the diversity and complexity of political life among non-agricultural societies on different continents, from Japan to the Americas, including cases of monumental architecture, slavery, and the self-conscious rejection of slavery through a process of cultural schismogenesis. They then examine archaeological evidence for processes that eventually led to the adoption and spread of agriculture, concluding that there was no Agricultural Revolution, but a process of slow change, taking thousands of years to unfold on each of the world's continents, and sometimes ending in demographic collapse (e.g. in prehistoric Europe). They conclude that ecological flexibility and sustained biodiversity were key to the successful establishment and spread of early agriculture.
The authors then go on to explore the issue of scale in human history, with archaeological case studies from early China, Mesoamerica, Europe (Ukraine), the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa (Egypt). They conclude that contrary to standard accounts, the concentration of people in urban settlements did not lead mechanistically to the loss of social freedoms or the rise of ruling elites. While acknowledging that in some cases, social stratification was a defining feature of urban life from the beginning, they also document cases of early cities that present little or no evidence of social hierarchies, lacking such elements as temples, palaces, central storage facilities, or written administration, as well as examples of cities like Teotihuacan, that began as hierarchical settlements, but reversed course to follow more egalitarian trajectories, providing high quality housing for the majority of citizens. They also discuss at some length the case of Tlaxcala as an example of Indigenous urban democracy in the Americas, before the arrival of Europeans, and the existence of democratic institutions such as municipal councils and popular assemblies in ancient Mesopotamia.
Synthesizing these findings, the authors move to discovering underlying factors for the rigid, hierarchical, and highly bureaucratized political system of contemporary civilization. Rejecting the category of "the State" as a trans-historical reality, they instead define three basic sources of domination in human societies: control over violence (sovereignty), control over information (bureaucracy), and charismatic competition (politics). They explore the utility of this new approach by comparing examples of early centralised societies that elude definition as states, such as the Olmec and Chavín de Huántar, as well as the Inca, China in the Shang dynasty, the Maya Civilization, and Ancient Egypt. From this they go on to argue that these civilisations were not direct precursors to our modern states, but operated on very different principles. The origins of modern states, they conclude, are shallow rather than deep, and owe more to colonial violence than to social evolution. Returning to North America, the authors then bring the story of the Indigenous critique and Kondiaronk full circle, showing how the values of freedom and democracy encountered by Europeans among the Wendat and neighbouring peoples had historical roots in the rejection of an earlier system of hierarchy, with its focus at the urban center of Cahokia on the Mississippi.
Based on their accumulated discussions, the authors conclude by proposing a reframing of the central questions of human history. Instead of the origins of inequality, they suggest that our central dilemma is the question of how modern societies have lost the qualities of flexibility and political creativity that were once more common. They ask how we have apparently "got stuck" on a single trajectory of development, and how violence and domination became normalised within this dominant system. Without offering definitive answers, the authors end the book by suggesting lines of further investigation. These focus on the loss of three basic forms of social freedom, which they argue were once common: the freedom to escape one's surroundings and move away, the freedom to disobey arbitrary authority, and the freedom to reimagine and reconstruct one's society in a different form. They emphasize the loss of women's autonomy, and the insertion of principles of violence into basic notions of social care at the level of domestic and family relations, as crucial factors in establishing more rigid political systems.
The book ends by suggesting that narratives of social development in which western civilization is self-appointed to be the highest point of achievement to date in a linear progression are largely myths, and that possibilities for social emancipation can be found in a more accurate understanding of human history, based on scientific evidence that has come to light only in the last few decades, with the assistance of the field of anthropology and archaeology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything..
Below is an outline for a future super summary by ChatGPT
Chapter 1 - Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood - Or, why this is not a book about the origins of inequality
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
In the beginning section of Chapter 1 the authors, David Graeber and David Wengrow, set the stage for their argument by quoting C.G. Jung from "The Undiscovered Self," highlighting the notion that we are living in a transformative era. They note that most of human history is irreparably lost to us, using the example of the cave of Altamira in northern Spain, where paintings and engravings created over 10,000 years illustrate the vast unknowns of our past.
The authors delve into a common theological debate about whether humans are innately good or evil, arguing that this question is as meaningless as asking if humans are fundamentally fat or thin. This debate is rooted in reflections on why human beings often treat each other badly, manifesting in war, greed, and exploitation. They critique the Christian narrative of original sin and fall from innocence, which has influenced modern understandings of human history, particularly the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Rousseau's narrative, which suggests that humans once lived in egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands until the Agricultural Revolution and the rise of cities introduced inequality, is a cornerstone of many modern views. According to Rousseau, this shift led to the development of civilization, bringing about literature, science, and philosophy, but also patriarchy, armies, executions, and bureaucracies. This simplistic view persists in various fields, from industrial psychology to revolutionary theory, where statements like "agriculture was perhaps humanity’s worst mistake" are common.
On the other hand, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, published in 1651, presents an equally bleak picture of human nature. Hobbes argued that life in a state of nature was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," necessitating the creation of governments, courts, and police to maintain order. This view, like Rousseau’s, has deeply influenced modern political theory, suggesting that human society is founded on the repression of our baser instincts, particularly when living in large groups.
Graeber and Wengrow express dissatisfaction with these two narratives, listing their objections: they are not true, have dire political implications, and make the past needlessly dull. They propose a new narrative that integrates recent archaeological and anthropological research, which challenges the conventional views. This research shows that early human societies were not limited to small, egalitarian bands. Instead, they were diverse and experimental in their social structures. Similarly, the advent of agriculture did not necessarily lead to private property and inequality. Many early farming communities were relatively egalitarian, and some of the earliest cities were organized without authoritarian rulers.
The authors emphasize the need for a conceptual shift to understand this new evidence, moving away from the staged development models rooted in a conservative backlash against critiques of European civilization. They introduce the concept of the ‘indigenous critique,’ highlighting contributions from indigenous commentators like the Huron-Wendat statesman Kandiaronk, who offered insightful critiques of European society.
The text argues that history’s currents are powerful but not deterministic, rejecting the notion of inherent laws in history. By considering these indigenous perspectives and the new archaeological evidence, Graeber and Wengrow aim to tell a more hopeful and interesting story of human history, one that acknowledges the complexity and diversity of past human societies.
In summary, the authors set out to challenge the dominant narratives of human history influenced by Rousseau and Hobbes, presenting a more nuanced and optimistic view based on recent research. They call for a reevaluation of the past that incorporates indigenous critiques and recognizes the variety of social experiments throughout human history, ultimately seeking to inspire a new understanding of our collective past and its implications for the future.
WHY BOTH THE HOBBESIAN AND ROUSSEAUIAN VERSIONS OF HUMAN HISTORY HAVE
DIRE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
In this section Graeber and Wengrow critique the political ramifications of the philosophical models proposed by Hobbes and Rousseau. The Hobbesian view posits that humans are inherently selfish and driven by cynical, egoistic calculations. This view underpins our economic system, suggesting that sophisticated controls are necessary to curb our innate drive for accumulation and self-aggrandizement. Rousseau’s narrative, while more optimistic, argues that humanity fell from an original state of egalitarian innocence into inequality. However, in modern contexts, Rousseau’s ideas often lead to the belief that the most we can achieve within our unjust system is modest reform.
The authors note that since the 2008 financial crash, discussions about inequality have become central in intellectual and political circles. The consensus is that social inequality has worsened, causing many of the world’s problems. While acknowledging inequality challenges global power structures, the term "inequality" itself frames the problem in a way that suggests no meaningful solution is possible. Historically, issues like the concentration of capital or class power implied possibilities for radical change, but "inequality" seems to encourage half-measures and compromise.
Debates about inequality often involve adjusting economic metrics, such as Gini coefficients and tax regimes, without addressing the deeper issues of power dynamics and intrinsic human worth. The narrative that inequality is an inevitable result of complex societies becomes a way to justify the status quo. The modern boom in discussions about inequality, including high-profile debates at forums like Davos, further illustrates how the term has been depoliticized to maintain existing structures.
The authors argue that the ultimate effect of these narratives is to foster a sense of wistful pessimism about the human condition. They suggest that living in a truly egalitarian society is portrayed as an unrealistic dream, achievable only in small, primitive bands. This view dismisses the possibility of creating a more equitable society today, reducing our hopes to merely adjusting the oppressive systems we live under.
Graeber and Wengrow call for abandoning the simplistic notion that humanity once lived in an idyllic state of equality. They find it unrealistic to believe that no one experimented with different social organizations over thousands of years. The capacity to experiment with social structures is a fundamental aspect of what makes us human, embodying our potential for self-creation and freedom.
The authors argue that the real issue is not about equal access to resources but about the equal capacity to contribute to decisions on how to live together. This capacity implies meaningful decisions must exist in the first place. They suggest that the future of our species depends on our ability to create systems where wealth cannot be transformed into power, and everyone’s needs and lives are valued.
Invoking the spirit of V. Gordon Childe's "Man Makes Himself," Graeber and Wengrow emphasize that we are projects of collective self-creation. They propose approaching human history by recognizing people as imaginative, intelligent, and playful creatures. Instead of narrating a fall from equality, they advocate exploring how we became constrained by conceptual shackles that limit our ability to reinvent ourselves.
In essence, the authors argue for a reevaluation of human history that acknowledges our potential for diverse and egalitarian social experiments. By doing so, they hope to inspire a new vision of social transformation that goes beyond the pessimistic and limiting frameworks of Hobbes and Rousseau.
SOME BRIEF EXAMPLES OF WHY RECEIVED UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE BROAD SWEEP OF
HISTORY ARE MOSTLY WRONG (OR, THE ETERNAL RETURN OF JEAN-JACQUES
ROUSSEAU) HUMAN
In this section Graeber and Wengrow challenge the prevailing narratives about the origins of social inequality. Initially, their intent was to seek new answers to questions about inequality's origins. However, they quickly realized that framing human history this way—assuming humanity once existed in an idyllic state and pinpointing a moment when things went wrong—made it difficult to ask genuinely interesting questions. They observed that specialists avoided generalizations, and those who did often reproduced variations of Rousseau's ideas.
The authors critique generalist accounts like Francis Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution" (2011). Fukuyama suggests that early human political organization was akin to band-level societies observed in higher primates, such as chimpanzees. He argues that Rousseau was correct in identifying the development of agriculture as the origin of political inequality, asserting that hunter-gatherer societies lacked concepts of private property and were thus egalitarian.
Similarly, Jared Diamond's "The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?" (2012) posits that early human bands comprised a few dozen biologically related individuals, leading simple lives without formal leadership or economic specialization. Diamond concludes that significant social equality was only achievable within these primordial groupings, with agriculture ending this equality and leading to hierarchical societies.
Both Diamond and Fukuyama, like Rousseau, argue that agriculture and the resulting higher population levels transitioned human societies from egalitarian bands to tribes, and then to ranked societies known as chiefdoms. Fukuyama paints a biblical picture of this process, describing it as a departure from Eden, where societies had to grow up, appoint leaders, and establish hierarchies. According to Diamond and Fukuyama, hierarchy becomes inevitable with large, complex organizations, even when leaders act badly.
Diamond contends that large populations require leaders to make decisions, executives to carry them out, and bureaucrats to administer laws. He dismisses the anarchist dream of living without state government as unrealistic, arguing that only tiny bands or tribes could function without such structures.
Graeber and Wengrow criticize these views for their lack of scientific evidence. They argue that there is no reason to believe small-scale groups are inherently egalitarian or that large ones must have kings, presidents, or bureaucracies. They contend that such statements are prejudices masquerading as facts or laws of history.
The authors aim to dismantle these received understandings of human history, which they find overly simplistic and not reflective of the actual evidence. They argue that these narratives, whether Rousseauian or Hobbesian, fail to capture the complexity and diversity of early human societies, and instead, perpetuate misconceptions about the inevitability of hierarchical structures. By challenging these views, Graeber and Wengrow seek to open up new avenues for understanding human history and its implications for contemporary social structures.
Rousseau’s portrayal, meant to illustrate how the invention of farming led to private property and the need for civil government, was never intended to be a literal historical account. Yet, modern thinkers have often treated it as such. Hobbes's similar use of the "State of Nature" in his work "Leviathan" described a primordial state of human society as a "war of all against all," which could only be resolved by establishing absolute sovereign power. This too was a thought experiment, reflecting the turmoil of his time rather than an actual historical period.
Steven Pinker, in his book "The Better Angels of Our Nature," argues that modern civilization is less violent than the "anarchic societies" of the past, crediting the rise of cities and states with reducing violence. Pinker relies on anecdotal evidence and sensational discoveries, such as the violent death of Ötzi the Tyrolean Iceman, to support his claims. However, Graeber and Wengrow challenge this view by presenting counterexamples like the burial of Romito 2, a Palaeolithic individual with a severe genetic disorder who was cared for and buried with dignity by his community.
Graeber and Wengrow argue that balanced appraisals of hunter-gatherer societies reveal high levels of care and support for individuals with disabilities, contradicting the Hobbesian narrative of early human life being "nasty, brutish, and short." They suggest that early human societies were likely more nurturing and care-giving, and that the realities of early social life were far more complex and interesting than modern "State of Nature" theorists suggest.
When discussing contemporary anthropological case studies, they note how followers of Rousseau prefer African foragers like the Hadza, while followers of Hobbes prefer the Yanomami. The Yanomami have been depicted as violent "fierce people" by ethnographer Napoleon Chagnon, who argued that violence and biological fitness were linked in their society. However, Graeber and Wengrow point out that the Yanomami's reputation is partly a result of Chagnon’s sensationalized accounts, and that actual violence rates among them are average to low compared to other Amerindian groups.
The authors criticize Pinker’s argument that modern states are responsible for reducing violence and ensuring peace and security, noting that the ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy are not unique to the Western tradition. They highlight how Enlightenment thinkers often placed these ideals in the mouths of "foreigners" or "savages" and argue that non-European societies also contributed to these concepts.
Graeber and Wengrow use historical examples to challenge Pinker’s conclusions. They describe how individuals who experienced both indigenous and European societies often chose to return to indigenous communities, finding them more fulfilling and egalitarian. They cite the case of Helena Valero, who, after living with the Yanomami and briefly returning to Western civilization, chose to return to the Yanomami due to the loneliness and dejection she felt in her native society.
Benjamin Franklin’s observations further support their argument. He noted that individuals who had lived among Native Americans often preferred their way of life, valuing the freedom, mutual care, and absence of poverty over the structured and demanding life in European society. These examples illustrate that the perceived superiority of Western civilization is not universally accepted and that indigenous societies often provided a more satisfying and happy way of life.
In conclusion, Graeber and Wengrow challenge the Hobbesian and Rousseauian narratives that depict early human societies as either violent or idyllicly simple. They argue for a more nuanced understanding of human history that recognizes the complexity and diversity of early societies and emphasizes the potential for egalitarian and nurturing social structures.
ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
In this section Graeber and Wengrow argue that the standard world-historical narratives reduce the richness and complexity of human life to boring stereotypes. They suggest that indigenous life, contrary to common belief, was far more engaging and interesting than life in a typical Western town or city, which often involved monotonous and repetitive activities. The authors contend that our inability to imagine such vibrant alternative lives reflects more on the limits of our imagination than on the reality of those lives.
The authors criticize the simplifications inherent in conventional social theory, which reduce human actions to political, economic, or psycho-sexual aspects. They acknowledge that simplification is necessary for social theory to detect patterns, but the problem arises when these simplifications persist long after the initial discovery. Hobbes and Rousseau introduced ideas that were profound and imaginative in their time, but their continued use as common sense today merely serves to impoverish our understanding of history and human possibility.
Graeber and Wengrow illustrate their point by discussing how the notion of "primitive trade" has been used to argue that competitive market exchange is rooted in human nature. They critique the circular logic that assumes precious objects moving long distances indicate the presence of trade and, therefore, an embryonic form of market economy. This perspective, they argue, is more a reflection of the writers' lack of imagination than an accurate historical account.
The authors highlight the work of Bronisław Malinowski, whose ethnography "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" describes the "kula chain" in the Massim Islands off Papua New Guinea. In this system, men undertook dangerous sea voyages to exchange heirloom arm-shells and necklaces, not for commercial gain but as part of an elaborate social ritual. Such examples show that valuable objects could move long distances without resembling a market economy.
Graeber and Wengrow provide further examples from North American indigenous societies to illustrate the diversity of ways valuable objects could travel. Among the Iroquoian-speaking peoples, realizing one's dreams often involved traveling long distances to acquire specific objects. Travelling healers and entertainers, like the shipwrecked Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, could move freely between villages by offering their services, spreading valuable objects along the way. Women's gambling in many indigenous societies also facilitated the movement of shell beads and other adornments across vast distances.
The authors argue that these examples show how anthropologists and historians often make far less interesting and quirky guesses about human behavior than what likely occurred. They suggest that reducing human history to simplistic narratives of trade and market exchange fails to capture the richness and diversity of human social life. By broadening our understanding and imagination, we can appreciate the full complexity and creativity of past human societies.
In conclusion, Graeber and Wengrow call for a reevaluation of conventional historical narratives. They advocate for recognizing the varied and vibrant ways humans have organized their societies, which are often far more interesting than the dull stereotypes perpetuated by traditional social theory. By doing so, they hope to enrich our understanding of human history and expand our sense of possibility for the future.
HOW THE CONVENTIONAL NARRATIVE OF HUMAN HISTORY IS NOT ONLY WRONG, BUT
QUITE NEEDLESSLY DULL
This section challenges the traditional view of history, suggesting that indigenous life was more engaging and varied than the monotonous existence often depicted in Western towns and cities. The authors argue that the limitations of our imagination, not the realities of indigenous life, make it hard for us to grasp how such a life could be perpetually interesting.
They critique standard historical narratives for reducing people to stereotypes and simplifying complex issues, thus diminishing our understanding of human potential. Simplification is necessary in social theory to reveal patterns, but the problem arises when this simplification continues long after initial discoveries, leading to an impoverished view of history and human possibility.
The authors use examples from anthropology to illustrate how valuable objects traveled long distances in non-market societies, contrary to the assumption that this movement indicates early forms of capitalism. They argue that labeling such exchanges as 'trade' overlooks the cultural and social richness of these activities, which often served to build relationships and social networks rather than purely economic transactions.
They provide examples of long-distance exchanges in North America, such as vision quests, traveling healers, and women’s gambling, to demonstrate how objects moved without resembling market trade. These activities reflect a more vibrant and human reality than what conventional historical narratives suggest.
The section concludes by emphasizing that our guesses about past human activities are often less interesting and less human than what likely occurred, urging a reconsideration of how we interpret history to appreciate the full range of human creativity and social complexity.
ON WHAT’S TO FOLLOW
In the chapter conclusion Graeber and Wengrow outline their vision for the book, aiming to present not only a new history of humankind but also to introduce a new science of history that restores the full humanity of our ancestors. Instead of focusing on how inequality arose, they start by questioning why inequality became such a central issue in the first place. Their goal is to build an alternative narrative that aligns more closely with current knowledge.
They challenge the conventional view that humans spent the majority of their evolutionary history in small bands of hunter-gatherers. They question what humans were actually doing during that time and explore what agriculture and the rise of cities truly implied if not hierarchy and domination. Their findings suggest that human history is more fluid and filled with playful possibilities than traditionally assumed.
The authors draw a parallel between their work and that of Gordon Childe, who introduced concepts like the "Neolithic Revolution" and the "Urban Revolution" in the 1930s. While acknowledging that their narrative is necessarily uneven and incomplete, they emphasize that their book also seeks to identify the right questions. They argue that "what is the origin of inequality?" is not the most important question about history. Instead, they ask what has been lost over time, as illustrated by the stories of captives choosing to return to indigenous societies. Rousseau, they suggest, was not entirely wrong but had a mistaken notion of what was lost.
Graeber and Wengrow emphasize that understanding what has been lost and how it can be characterized has significant implications for social change today. They describe the book as the result of a decade-long conversation between the two authors, tracing the historical roots of the question of inequality back to encounters between European colonists and Native American intellectuals in the seventeenth century. These encounters had a profound impact on the Enlightenment and our basic conceptions of human history.
The authors highlight that their breakthrough moment came when they decided to move away from European thinkers like Rousseau and instead consider perspectives from the indigenous thinkers who inspired them. This shift in perspective is central to the book’s structure and aims to provide a fresh and nuanced understanding of human history.
In summary, Graeber and Wengrow aim to lay the foundations for a new world history, questioning long-held assumptions and exploring the diverse and complex ways human societies have evolved. By doing so, they hope to uncover new possibilities for understanding the past and inspire social change in the present.
Chapter 2 - Wicked Liberty - The indigenous critique and the myth of progress
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
.. In the introductory section of Chapter 2 Graeber and Wengrow explore how Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s narrative about the origins of social inequality continues to influence contemporary thought. Rousseau's story depicts humanity's journey from an original state of innocence to a complex civilization marked by technological advancement and enslavement. The authors question how this ambivalent view of civilization emerged and critique the tendency of intellectual historians to attribute significant ideas to a few "Great Men" of history, such as Plato, Confucius, Adam Smith, or Karl Marx.
Graeber and Wengrow argue that these great thinkers were actually part of broader, ongoing debates occurring in social settings like taverns, dinner parties, and public gardens. They liken the situation to William Shakespeare, whose famous phrases were often common expressions of his time rather than his original inventions. Similarly, they suggest that Rousseau did not initiate the debate about social inequality with his 1754 "Discourse on the Origin and the Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind," but was rather participating in a larger conversation, as evidenced by his submission of the essay to a contest on the subject.
IN WHICH WE SHOW HOW CRITIQUES OF EUROCENTRISM CAN BACKFIRE, AND END UP
TURNING ABORIGINAL THINKERS INTO ‘SOCK-PUPPETS’
In this section Graeber and Wengrow explore the origins of the question of social inequality posed by the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon in 1754. They delve into why scholars in Ancien Régime France would feel compelled to question the origins of inequality, given the rigid social hierarchies of the time. The authors argue that this fascination with inequality was a result of Europe’s sudden integration into a global economy following the conquests of the Americas and the exposure to diverse social and political ideas.
Historically, intellectual historians have often credited "Great Men" like Rousseau with originating major ideas. However, Graeber and Wengrow suggest that these thinkers were part of broader debates influenced by encounters with non-European societies. Rousseau's discourse on inequality, for example, was part of a larger conversation sparked by Europe’s exposure to different civilizations. They argue that many Enlightenment ideas, including those of equality and freedom, were influenced by indigenous critiques from the Americas.
The authors challenge the assumption that Enlightenment thinkers merely projected European ideas onto indigenous societies. They argue that this perspective dismisses the real influence of indigenous thought on European intellectuals. For example, the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz openly advocated for adopting Chinese models of statecraft, which later influenced European governance systems.
Graeber and Wengrow emphasize that debates about the nature of freedom, equality, and rationality between Europeans and indigenous Americans were profound and had significant impacts on European thought. They argue that recognizing these influences is crucial for understanding the development of modern political ideas. The conventional narrative that portrays indigenous peoples as mere "sock-puppets" for European ideas is both arrogant and inaccurate.
The authors also highlight how missionary and travel literature from New France, especially from the Great Lakes region, played a role in shaping European perceptions of indigenous societies. These accounts provided Europeans with new perspectives on freedom and equality, which were previously inconceivable in their hierarchical societies. Indigenous critiques of European institutions, focusing on the lack of freedom and later on equality, were taken seriously and influenced key Enlightenment thinkers.
Graeber and Wengrow argue that these indigenous critiques revealed possibilities for human emancipation that were previously unimagined. The standard historical narrative about the progress of human civilization, where freedoms are lost as societies grow bigger and more complex, was largely invented to neutralize the threat posed by these critiques. They assert that the question of the origin of social inequality is a relatively recent concept, emerging only in the seventeenth century in response to debates about Europe’s discoveries in the New World.
In conclusion, Graeber and Wengrow propose to retell the story of social inequality by acknowledging the significant contributions of indigenous thinkers. They intend to demonstrate that Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality were genuinely inspired by Native American sources and examples, challenging the conventional Eurocentric narrative and restoring the full humanity of all parties involved in these historical debates.
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER WHAT THE INHABITANTS OF NEW FRANCE MADE OF THEIR
EUROPEAN INVADERS, ESPECIALLY IN MATTERS OF GENEROSITY, SOCIABILITY,
MATERIAL WEALTH, CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND LIBERTY
In this section Graeber and Wengrow examine how the indigenous peoples of New France viewed their European invaders, focusing on various aspects of social life. They begin by noting that the Enlightenment was an era of debate, with ideas often discussed in cafés and salons. The ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity from the French Revolution were shaped through such debates, which extended back further than typically acknowledged.
The authors ask what the inhabitants of New France—primarily Montagnais-Naskapi, Algonkian, and Iroquoian speakers—thought of the Europeans who arrived in the sixteenth century. Early French observers paid little attention to the economic distinctions among these indigenous groups, often misinterpreting their social structures. The idea of the "noble savage" originated from observations of indigenous men focusing on hunting and warfare, activities associated with nobility in Europe.
French assessments of indigenous character were mixed, but indigenous assessments of the French were more critical. Father Pierre Biard, who evangelized the Mi’kmaq, reported that they viewed the French as quarrelsome, envious, and lacking generosity. The Mi’kmaq considered themselves richer because they valued ease, comfort, and time over material possessions.
Similarly, Brother Gabriel Sagard described the Wendat as having superior social arrangements compared to France. The Wendat criticized the French for their lack of generosity and the presence of beggars, which they saw as a failure of charity. Wendat were also critical of French conversational habits, finding them disorganized and lacking in eloquence and reasoned argument.
These indigenous critiques extended to French societal structures. The Wendat and other indigenous groups valued freedom highly and saw the French as living in a state of fear and subservience. This contrasted sharply with the Jesuits' view of individual liberty as animalistic and opposed to Christian values. Jesuit accounts frequently mention that indigenous societies lacked coercive authority, with leaders unable to compel anyone to act against their will. Instead, social order was maintained through mutual responsibility and compensation for wrongs, rather than punishment.
Wendat society, while not economically egalitarian, had wealth that served political purposes rather than enabling coercive power. Wealthy men hoarded treasures to give away on significant occasions, but this did not translate into power over others. Political office holders could give orders, but there was no obligation to follow them. This system, though outrageous to the Jesuits, was effective in maintaining social order.
The Jesuits were scandalized by indigenous ideals of liberty, particularly the autonomy of women over their bodies and the liberty of unmarried and divorced women. They saw these practices as morally corrupt and contrary to Christian teachings. The "wicked liberty of the savages" was seen as the greatest obstacle to converting them to Christianity.
In conclusion, Graeber and Wengrow argue that indigenous critiques of European society were profound and had significant impacts on European thought. These critiques highlighted the competitiveness, selfishness, and lack of freedom in European societies. The authors suggest that understanding these indigenous perspectives can provide a richer, more complex view of human social arrangements and challenge the conventional narratives of progress and civilization.
IN WHICH WE SHOW HOW EUROPEANS LEARNED FROM (NATIVE) AMERICANS ABOUT THE
CONNECTION BETWEEN REASONED DEBATE, PERSONAL FREEDOMS AND THE REFUSAL OF
ARBITRARY POWER
In this section Graeber and Wengrow explore the profound impact that interactions with Native Americans had on European concepts of freedom and governance. They highlight that while French and Native Americans debated many topics, the central theme was liberty rather than equality.
The authors note that the Jesuit Relations, a collection of reports by French missionaries, rarely mention political equality. Instead, the focus was on the principle that individuals were free to obey or disobey orders as they pleased, which differed significantly from the European notion of equality before the law, which implied equality in subjugation to a sovereign.
The democratic governance of the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) was based on reasoned debate and consensus, rather than coercion. Jesuits, who were trained in classical rhetoric and disputation, often found themselves impressed by the logical and eloquent arguments of Native Americans. Figures like Father Le Jeune and Father Lallemant noted the intelligence and rhetorical skill of the indigenous people, which they attributed to the open and frequent public debates held in their communities.
The Jesuits recognized a connection between the refusal of arbitrary power and the practice of open political debate. Native American leaders, who could not compel anyone to act against their will, were renowned for their persuasive abilities. This emphasis on reasoned debate and empirical discussion paralleled the principles later associated with the European Enlightenment.
Graeber and Wengrow argue that the idea of an egalitarian State of Nature, which began to take hold in European thought in the seventeenth century, was influenced by these encounters. The Europeans’ growing curiosity about primordial societies led to a dialogic encounter where indigenous perspectives on liberty and mutual aid challenged and enriched European ideas.
The authors introduce the concept of "baseline communism," which refers to the principle that people should assist others according to their abilities and needs. In many American societies, it was inconceivable to refuse a request for food, reflecting a broader sense of mutual aid and support for individual autonomy. In contrast, seventeenth-century Frenchmen in North America had a more restricted sense of baseline communism, which scandalized Native Americans.
Graeber and Wengrow emphasize that indigenous political systems were designed to ensure no individual's will was subjugated to another's, promoting both freedom and mutual aid. Over time, as Europeans began to translate American ideals of individual liberty into their own societies, the concept of equality gained prominence in the discourse between them.
In conclusion, the section illustrates how European notions of reasoned debate, personal freedoms, and the refusal of arbitrary power were significantly influenced by their interactions with Native Americans. These exchanges contributed to the development of Enlightenment ideals and challenged the conventional narratives of progress and civilization.
IN WHICH WE INTRODUCE THE WENDAT PHILOSOPHER STATESMAN KANDIARONK, AND
EXPLAIN HOW HIS VIEWS ON HUMAN NATURE AND SOCIETY TOOK ON NEW LIFE IN
THE SALONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE (INCLUDING AN ASIDE ON THE CONCEPT OF
‘SCHISMOGENESIS’)
In this section Graeber and Wengrow explore the influence of the Wendat leader Kandiaronk on European Enlightenment thought, particularly through his dialogues with the French aristocrat Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de Lahontan.
Kandiaronk, a key strategist of the Wendat Confederacy, was known for his exceptional oratorical skills and his staunch opposition to Christianity. Lahontan, who spent a decade in Canada and became fluent in indigenous languages, befriended Kandiaronk and later published "Curious Dialogues with a Savage of Good Sense Who Has Travelled" in 1703. This book, which featured dialogues between Lahontan and Kandiaronk, offered a critical perspective on European society from the Wendat viewpoint.
Critics often assume that these dialogues were fabricated by Lahontan, but recent scholarship suggests that Kandiaronk's arguments were genuine. Kandiaronk had engaged in debates with Europeans, and his critiques of Christianity and European social practices were consistent with those of other indigenous speakers of Iroquoian languages. These critiques highlighted the contradictions in Christian doctrines and the inequities of European law and property rights.
Kandiaronk argued that European punitive law and religious doctrines like eternal damnation were not necessary evils but rather products of a society that encouraged selfishness and acquisitiveness. He contended that in Wendat society, without money and property rights, there was no need for such laws, as people lived contentedly without them. This critique extended to a broader condemnation of European social structures, which he saw as fostering inhumanity and inequality.
Lahontan’s dialogues, which were widely read and translated, had a significant impact on European intellectuals. They inspired a wave of similar critiques by figures like Montesquieu, Diderot, and Voltaire, who used imagined foreign observers to critique European society. This genre of critique helped shape the rational, objective perspective that later characterized European anthropology.
Kandiaronk’s focus on the corrosive effects of money and private property resonated with European thinkers and contributed to the development of Enlightenment ideals of reasoned debate, personal freedom, and the rejection of arbitrary power. His arguments also introduced the concept of equality as a self-conscious ideal, emerging from a prolonged confrontation between American and European values.
The authors introduce the concept of "schismogenesis," coined by anthropologist Gregory Bateson, to describe how people define themselves against each other, leading to exaggerated differences. This process can occur within societies and between them, as seen in the interactions between Europeans and indigenous Americans.
Kandiaronk’s influence on European thought was profound, challenging the existing social order and inspiring Enlightenment thinkers to reconsider their assumptions about human nature and society. His critiques, though sometimes exaggerated, reflected a deep understanding of the flaws in European institutions and offered a compelling vision of an alternative way of living.
IN WHICH WE EXPLAIN THE DEMIURGIC POWERS OF A. R. J. TURGOT, AND HOW HE
TURNED THE INDIGENOUS CRITIQUE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION ON ITS HEAD,
LAYING THE BASIS FOR MOST MODERN VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION (OR: HOW AN
ARGUMENT ABOUT ‘FREEDOM’ BECAME ONE ABOUT ‘EQUALITY’)
In this section Graeber and Wengrow discuss how Turgot reinterpreted the indigenous critique to form the basis of modern social evolution theories.
Madame de Graffigny's novel, "Letters of a Peruvian Woman," critiques French society through the eyes of an imaginary Inca princess, focusing on its lack of individual freedom and violent inequalities. Turgot found this perspective disturbing. He argued that the freedom and equality observed in 'savage' societies were signs of their inferiority, possible only in societies where everyone was equally poor. Turgot believed that as societies evolved and technology advanced, natural differences in talent led to a complex division of labor, making inequality inevitable and necessary for societal prosperity.
Turgot's reply to Graffigny suggested that without inequality, enforced uniformity would crush initiative and lead to disaster. He proposed rewriting the novel to reflect these implications, which Graffigny ignored. Turgot later elaborated on these ideas in his lectures, developing a theory of stages of economic development: hunting, pastoralism, farming, and commercial civilization. This framework, adopted by intellectuals like Adam Smith, became the foundation of modern theories of social evolution.
Turgot's ideas shifted the focus from indigenous critiques of European society's lack of freedom to an evolutionary narrative where equality was tied to primitive stages of development. This new paradigm marginalized indigenous societies, viewing them as remnants of earlier human stages rather than equal participants in contemporary dialogue.
The section highlights how the indigenous critique of European society, initially focused on freedom and mutual aid, influenced Enlightenment thought but was eventually reinterpreted into a framework justifying inequality as necessary for progress. Turgot's work demonstrates the transformation of debates about freedom into discussions about equality, ultimately reinforcing European notions of superiority and progress.
HOW JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, HAVING WON ONE PRESTIGIOUS ESSAY COMPETITION,
THEN LOST ANOTHER (COMING IN OVER THE PERMITTED WORD LENGTH), BUT
FINALLY WENT ON TO CONQUER THE WHOLE OF HUMAN HISTORY
In this section Graeber and Wengrow explore Rousseau's impact on intellectual debates about freedom, equality, and civilization.
In the early 1750s, debates in French salons revolved around whether freedom and equality were universal values or inconsistent with a regime based on private property. Rousseau entered this debate with his 1750 essay, "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences," which argued that the progress of arts and sciences had not led to moral improvement. His essay won a prestigious competition and national fame, despite its controversial stance. Rousseau's arguments were inspired by classical sources and the indigenous critique of European society, emphasizing that civilization corrupts natural human decency.
In 1754, Rousseau entered another essay competition on the origins of social inequality but lost, partly due to exceeding the word limit. His submission, "Discourse on the Origins of Social Inequality," proposed a thought experiment involving three stages of human society: a State of Nature, Stone Age savagery, and civilization. He argued that the emergence of property relations marked a moral decline, leading to social inequality and the loss of human freedom.
Rousseau's essay incorporated elements of the indigenous critique, the biblical narrative of the Fall, and emerging evolutionary theories of material development. He agreed with Kandiaronk's view that property was the root of the problem but could not envisage a society based on anything else. Rousseau's conception of freedom was tied to private property, reflecting the Roman legal tradition of the male household head's power over his possessions.
Rousseau's vision of a purely imaginary age where individuals lived in isolation has profoundly influenced modern notions of social evolution and human history. His work transformed debates about freedom into discussions about equality, shaping Enlightenment thought and beyond.
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE INDIGENOUS CRITIQUE, THE
MYTH OF PROGRESS AND THE BIRTH OF THE LEFT
In this section, Graeber and Wengrow explore the evolution of the indigenous critique, the myth of progress, and the birth of left-wing political thought, focusing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influence.
After the French Revolution, conservative critics blamed Rousseau for the revolutionary violence and terror, accusing his ideas of leading to totalitarianism. Political radicals during the American and French Revolutions embraced Rousseau's ideas, which merged evolutionism with a critique of private property. This is evident in the purported manifesto of the Secret Order of the Illuminati, which advocated for the restoration of freedom and equality.
Rousseau's ideas became central to left-wing thought. He fused the indigenous critique with the doctrine of progress, challenging existing social and intellectual structures. His Discourse on the Origins of Social Inequality criticized the notion that civilization and property relations were natural or beneficial, arguing instead that they led to social inequality and the loss of freedom.
The section highlights that Rousseau's work, which incorporated indigenous critiques of European society, did not directly cause the French Revolution but influenced intellectual thought. This fusion of ideas laid the groundwork for the left as an intellectual project. The indigenous critique emphasized mutual aid and communal values, contrasting sharply with European notions of private property and individualism.
Graeber and Wengrow also discuss how the concept of the "noble savage" was later used by conservative critics to dismiss indigenous critiques as naive and romantic. This term, popularized in the 19th century, was initially employed by racists who sought to justify colonialism and the extermination of "inferior" peoples. The authors argue that the "myth of the noble savage" is a construct used to undermine the validity of indigenous perspectives and critiques.
Chinard, a key figure in establishing the notion of the "noble savage" as a literary trope, argued that Rousseau borrowed from Lahontan's Dialogues with Kandiaronk. Chinard believed that the Jesuits and Rousseau promoted subversive ideas that ultimately influenced revolutionary thought. He characterized Rousseau as a continuator of Jesuit missionaries, suggesting a conspiracy to transform society based on the values of indigenous peoples.
In summary, the section examines how Rousseau's integration of indigenous critiques and progressive ideas influenced the formation of left-wing thought, highlighting the ongoing tension between notions of progress, equality, and freedom in intellectual history.
BEYOND THE ‘MYTH OF THE STUPID SAVAGE’ (WHY ALL THESE THINGS MATTER SO
MUCH FOR OUR PROJECT IN THIS BOOK)
In the concluding section of this chapter Graeber and Wengrow delve into the evolution of critiques about indigenous societies and how these critiques have influenced contemporary thought. They argue that the reluctance to engage deeply with indigenous sources is partly due to the ease with which scholars can dismiss these sources by labeling them as either unimportant or unknowable due to the racism of earlier sources. This has led to a lack of meaningful conversation about the actual thoughts and philosophies of indigenous peoples.
Initially, the authors intended to contribute to the literature on the origins of social inequality, but their research revealed the strangeness of this question. The conventional framing of inequality implies a diagnosis of societal problems that often has little to do with what people in so-called "egalitarian" societies actually feel differentiates them from others. Rousseau’s approach reduced indigenous people to thought experiments, stripping them of their imaginative powers and philosophy. This perspective, the authors argue, perpetuates the 'myth of the stupid savage' – a stereotype that nineteenth-century imperialists embraced to justify colonialism and undermine indigenous perspectives.
The authors point out that terms like "equality" and "egalitarian" are often used without clear definitions, leading to endless debates and misunderstandings. They argue that many societies labeled as egalitarian were not devoid of hierarchy or power structures, but rather had specific ideas about what was important and how to organize their societies to avoid domination and arbitrary power.
In this context, the authors emphasize that understanding the origins of kings, priests, overseers, and judges is crucial to comprehending our current societal problems. However, they advocate for a fresh approach to studying the past, taking guidance from indigenous critics and avoiding preconceived notions about the answers.
Ultimately, Graeber and Wengrow argue that their book is not about the origins of inequality per se, but rather about answering similar questions in a new way. They stress the need to approach the evidence of human history with fresh eyes, inspired by the indigenous critique, to understand the true roots of societal issues and the potential for creating more just and free societies.
Chapter 3 - Unfreezing the Ice Age - In and out of chains: the protean possibilities of human politics
WHY THE ‘SAPIENT PARADOX’ IS A RED HERRING; AS SOON AS WE WERE HUMAN, WE
STARTED DOING HUMAN THINGS
this is where me and ChatGPT left off, coming soon
WHY EVEN VERY SOPHISTICATED RESEARCHERS STILL FIND WAYS TO CLING TO THE
IDEA THAT SOCIAL INEQUALITY HAS AN ‘ORIGIN’
IN WHICH WE OBSERVE HOW GRAND MONUMENTS, PRINCELY BURIALS AND OTHER
UNEXPECTED FEATURES OF ICE AGE SOCIETIES HAVE UPENDED OUR ASSUMPTIONS OF
WHAT HUNTER-GATHERERS ARE LIKE, AND CONSIDER WHAT IT MIGHT MEAN TO SAY
THERE WAS ‘SOCIAL STRATIFICATION’ SOME 30,000 YEARS AGO
IN WHICH WE DISPOSE OF LINGERING ASSUMPTIONS THAT ‘PRIMITIVE’ FOLK WERE
SOMEHOW INCAPABLE OF CONSCIOUS REFLECTION, AND DRAW ATTENTION TO THE
HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF ECCENTRICITY
WHAT CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS LEARNED FROM THE NAMBIKWARA ABOUT THE ROLE OF
CHIEFS, AND SEASONAL VARIATIONS OF SOCIAL LIFE
IN WHICH WE RETURN TO PREHISTORY, AND CONSIDER EVIDENCE FOR BOTH
‘EXTREME INDIVIDUALS’ AND SEASONAL VARIATIONS OF SOCIAL LIFE IN THE ICE
AGE AND BEYOND
CONCERNING ‘BUFFALO POLICE’ (IN WHICH WE REDISCOVER THE ROLE OF
SEASONALITY IN HUMAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE)
WHY THE REAL QUESTION IS NOT ‘WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL
INEQUALITY?’ BUT ‘HOW DID WE GET STUCK?’
WHAT BEING SAPIENS REALLY MEANS
Chapter 4 - Free People, Origin of Cultures, and Advent of Private Property - (Not necessarily in that order)
IN WHICH WE DESCRIBE HOW THE OVERALL COURSE OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS MEANT
THAT MOST PEOPLE LIVE THEIR LIVES ON AN EVER-SMALLER SCALE AS
POPULATIONS GET LARGER
IN WHICH WE ASK WHAT, PRECISELY, IS EQUALIZED IN ‘EGALITARIAN’
SOCIETIES?
IN WHICH WE DISCUSS MARSHALL SAHLINS’S ‘ORIGINAL AFFLUENT SOCIETY’ AND
REFLECT ON WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN EVEN VERY INSIGHTFUL PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT
PREHISTORY IN THE ABSENCE OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE
IN WHICH WE SHOW HOW NEW DISCOVERIES CONCERNING ANCIENT HUNTER-GATHERERS
IN NORTH AMERICA AND JAPAN ARE TURNING SOCIAL EVOLUTION ON ITS HEAD
HOW THE MYTH THAT FORAGERS LIVE IN A STATE OF INFANTILE SIMPLICITY IS
KEPT ALIVE TODAY (OR, INFORMAL FALLACIES)
IN WHICH WE DISPOSE OF ONE PARTICULARLY SILLY ARGUMENT THAT FORAGERS WHO
SETTLE IN TERRITORIES THAT LEND THEMSELVES WELL TO FORAGING ARE SOMEHOW
UNUSUAL
IN WHICH WE FINALLY RETURN TO THE QUESTION OF PROPERTY, AND INQUIRE AS
TO ITS RELATION TO THE SACRED
Chapter 5 - Many Seasons Ago - Why Canadian foragers uhkept slaves and their Californian neighbours didn’t; or, the problem with ‘modes of production’
IN WHICH WE FIRST CONSIDER THE QUESTION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENTIATION
WHERE WE CONSIDER THE WILDLY INADEQUATE, SOMETIMES OFFENSIVE BUT
OCCASIONALLY SUGGESTIVE WAYS IN WHICH THE QUESTION OF ‘CULTURE AREAS’
HAS BEEN BROACHED BEFORE
IN WHICH WE APPLY MAUSS’S INSIGHT TO THE PACIFIC COAST AND CONSIDER WHY
WALTER GOLDSCHMIDT’S DESCRIPTION OF ABORIGINAL CALIFORNIANS AS
‘PROTESTANT FORAGERS’, WHILE IN MANY WAYS ABSURD, STILL HAS SOMETHING TO
TELL US
WHERE WE MAKE A CASE FOR SCHISMOGENESIS BETWEEN ‘PROTESTANT FORAGERS’
AND ‘FISHER KINGS
CONCERNING THE NATURE OF SLAVERY AND ‘MODES OF PRODUCTION’ MORE
GENERALLY
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER ‘THE STORY OF THE WOGIES’ – AN INDIGENOUS
CAUTIONARY TALE ABOUT THE DANGERS OF TRYING TO GET RICH QUICK BY
ENSLAVING OTHERS (AND INDULGE OURSELVES IN AN ASIDE ON ‘GUNS, GERMS AND
STEEL’)
IN WHICH WE ASK: WOULD YOU RATHER FISH, OR GATHER ACORNS?
IN WHICH WE TURN TO THE CULTIVATION OF DIFFERENCE IN THE PACIFIC
‘SHATTER ZONE’
SOME CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 6 - Gardens of Adonis - Revolution that never happened: how Neolithic peoples avoided agriculture
PLATONIC PREJUDICES, AND HOW THEY CLOUD OUR IDEAS ABOUT THE INVENTION OF
FARMING
IN WHICH WE DISCUSS HOW ÇATALHÖYÜK, THE WORLD’S OLDEST TOWN, GOT A NEW
HISTORY
IN WHICH WE ENTER SOMETHING OF AN ACADEMIC NO-GO ZONE, AND DISCUSS THE
POSSIBILITY OF NEOLITHIC MATRIARCHIES
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER WHAT LIFE IN THE WORLD’S
MOST FAMOUS NEOLITHIC TOWN MIGHT HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN LIKE
HOW THE SEASONALITY OF SOCIAL LIFE IN EARLY FARMING COMMUNITIES MIGHT
HAVE WORKED
ON BREAKING APART THE FERTILE CRESCENT
ON SLOW WHEAT, AND POP THEORIES OF HOW WE BECAME FARMERS
WHY NEOLITHIC FARMING TOOK SO LONG TO EVOLVE, AND DID NOT, AS ROUSSEAU
IMAGINED, INVOLVE THE ENCLOSURE OF FIXED FIELDS
ON WOMAN, THE SCIENTIST
TO FARM OR NOT TO FARM: IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD (WHERE WE RETURN TO
GÖBEKLI TEPE)
ON SEMANTIC SNARES AND METAPHYSICAL MIRAGES
Chapter 7 - The Ecology of Freedom - How farming first hopped, stumbled and bluffed its way around the world
ON SOME ISSUES OF TERMINOLOGY WHEN DISCUSSING THE MOVEMENT OF DOMESTIC
CROPS AND ANIMALS AROUND THE GLOBE
WHY AGRICULTURE DID NOT DEVELOP SOONER
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER A NEOLITHIC CAUTIONARY TALE: THE GRISLY AND
SURPRISING FATE OF CENTRAL EUROPE’S FIRST FARMERS
SOME VERY DIFFERENT PLACES WHERE NEOLITHIC FARMING FOUND ITS FEET: THE
TRANSFORMATION OF THE NILE VALLEY (c. 5000–4000 BC) AND THE COLONIZATION
OF ISLAND OCEANIA (c.1600–500 BC)
ON THE CASE OF AMAZONIA, AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF ‘PLAY FARMING’
BUT WHY DOES IT ALL MATTER? (A QUICK REPRISE ON THE DANGERS OF
TELEOLOGICAL REASONING)
Chapter 8 - Imaginary Cities - Eurasia’s first urbanites – in Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, Ukraine and China – and how they built cities without kings
IN WHICH WE FIRST TAKE ON THE NOTORIOUS ISSUE OF ‘SCALE’
IN WHICH WE SET THE SCENE BROADLY FOR A WORLD OF CITIES, AND SPECULATE
AS TO WHY THEY FIRST AROSE
ON ‘MEGA-SITES’, AND HOW ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDINGS IN UKRAINE ARE
OVERTURNING CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON THE ORIGINS OF CITIES
ON MESOPOTAMIA, AND ‘NOT-SO-PRIMITIVE’ DEMOCRACY
IN WHICH WE DESCRIBE HOW (WRITTEN) HISTORY, AND PROBABLY (ORAL) EPIC
TOO, BEGAN: WITH BIG COUNCILS IN THE CITIES, AND SMALL KINGDOMS IN THE
HILLS
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER WHETHER THE INDUS CIVILIZATION WAS AN EXAMPLE OF
CASTE BEFORE KINGSHIP
CONCERNING AN APPARENT CASE OF ‘URBAN REVOLUTION’ IN CHINESE PREHISTORY
Chapter 9 - Hiding in Plain Sight - The indigenous origins of social housing and democracy in the Americas
IN WHICH WE FIRST CONSIDER AN EXAMPLE OF STRANGER-KINGS IN THE MAYA
LOWLANDS, AND THEIR AFFILIATION WITH TEOTIHUACAN
HOW THE PEOPLE OF TEOTIHUACAN TURNED THEIR BACKS ON MONUMENT-BUILDING
AND HUMAN SACRIFICE, AND INSTEAD EMBARKED ON A REMARKABLE PROJECT OF
SOCIAL HOUSING
ON THE CASE OF TLAXCALA, AN INDIGENOUS REPUBLIC THAT RESISTED THE AZTEC
EMPIRE THEN CAME TO JOIN FORCES WITH SPANISH INVADERS, AND HOW ITS
FATEFUL DECISION EMERGED FROM DEMOCRATIC DELIBERATIONS IN AN URBAN
PARLIAMENT (AS OPPOSED TO THE DAZZLING EFFECTS OF EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGY ON
‘INDIAN MINDS’)
Chapter 10 - Why the State Has No Origin - The humble beginnings of sovereignty, bureaucracy and politics
IN WHICH WE LAY OUT A THEORY CONCERNING THE THREE ELEMENTARY FORMS OF
DOMINATION, AND BEGIN TO EXPLORE ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN HISTORY
ON AZTECS, INCA AND MAYA (AND THEN ALSO SPANIARDS)
IN WHICH WE OFFER A DIGRESSION ON ‘THE SHAPE OF TIME’, AND SPECIFICALLY
HOW METAPHORS OF GROWTH AND DECAY INTRODUCE UNNOTICED POLITICAL BIASES
INTO OUR VIEW OF HISTORY
ON POLITICS AS SPORT: THE OLMEC CASE
CHAVÍN DE HUÁNTAR – AN ‘EMPIRE’ BUILT ON IMAGES?
ON SOVEREIGNTY WITHOUT ‘THE STATE’
HOW CARING LABOUR, RITUAL KILLING AND ‘TINY BUBBLES’ ALL CAME TOGETHER
IN THE ORIGINS OF ANCIENT EGYPT
IN WHICH WE REFLECT ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHAT ARE USUALLY CALLED
‘EARLY STATES’, FROM CHINA TO MESOAMERICA
IN WHICH WE RECONSIDER THE EGYPTIAN CASE IN LIGHT OF OUR THREE
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF DOMINATION, AND ALSO REVISIT THE PROBLEM OF
‘DARK AGES
IN WHICH WE GO IN SEARCH OF THE REAL ORIGINS OF BUREAUCRACY, AND FIND
THEM ON WHAT APPEARS TO BE A SURPRISINGLY SMALL SCALE
IN WHICH, ARMED WITH NEW KNOWLEDGE, WE RETHINK SOME BASIC PREMISES OF
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
CODA: ON CIVILIZATION, EMPTY WALLS AND HISTORIES STILL TO BE WRITTEN
Chapter 11 - Full Circle - On the historical foundations of the indigenous critique
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER JAMES C. SCOTT’S ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE LAST 5,000
YEARS AND ASK WHETHER CURRENT GLOBAL ARRANGEMENTS WERE, IN FACT,
INEVITABLE
IN WHICH WE ASK HOW MUCH OF NORTH AMERICA CAME TO HAVE A SINGLE UNIFORM
CLAN SYSTEM, AND CONSIDER THE ROLE OF THE ‘HOPEWELL INTERACTION SPHERE’
IN WHICH WE TELL THE STORY OF CAHOKIA, WHICH LOOKS LIKE IT OUGHT TO BE
THE FIRST ‘STATE’ IN AMERICA
ON HOW THE COLLAPSE OF THE MISSISSIPPIAN WORLD AND REJECTION OF ITS
LEGACY OPENED THE WAY TO NEW FORMS OF INDIGENOUS POLITICS AROUND THE
TIME OF THE EUROPEAN INVASION
HOW THE OSAGE CAME TO EMBODY THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-CONSTITUTION, LATER
TO BE CELEBRATED IN MONTESQUIEU’S THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS
IN WHICH WE RETURN TO IROQUOIA, AND CONSIDER THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN FAMILIAR TO KANDIARONK IN HIS YOUTH
Chapter 12 - Conclusion
The dawn of everything Notes
Bibliography
Index
society influenced rising concepts of freedom.
In 1651 Hobbes wrote that life in the state of nature – our natural condition outside the authority of a political state – is ‘solitary, poore, nasty brutish, and short.’ Rousseau countered that human nature is essentially good, we lived peaceful and happy lives well before the development of anything like the modern state. ...more
Graeber and Wengrow point out that these conceptions of historical progression dominate the opinions of many experts, who assume that society passed through stages of development: hunter-gatherers, farmers, urban-industrial society, and so on. Graeber and Wengrow maintain that no scientific evidence supports this view, adding that traditional scholarship says little about “prehistory,” during which supposedly egalitarian hunter-gatherers roamed and foraged until about 10,000 years ago, when they purportedly took up agriculture and things became interesting.
This orthodox view dismisses countless peoples who had royal courts and standing armies, built palaces, and accumulated wealth. As the authors write, “there is simply no reason to assume that the adoption of agriculture in more remote periods also meant the inception of private land ownership, territoriality, or an irreversible departure from forager egalitarianism.”
Many early cities thrived for centuries with no sign of hierarchy, contradicting scholars who assume that authoritarian rule appears naturally whenever large populations gather. The quest for the “origin of the state,” given scattered and contradictory evidence, may be a fool’s errand. Graeber and Wengrow, while providing no definitive answers, cast grave doubts on those theories that have been advanced to date.
https://kirkusreviews.com/david-graeber/the-dawn-of-everything/
Our ancient ancestors may have been more civilized than we are. A new book offers a version of history in which we lived for thousands of years in large and complex societies without kings or cops
We like to think of ourselves as living in scientific times, but what if the familiar story of “civilization” is mostly myth? This is the question asked in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, a new book by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. What began as the authors’ inquiry into the origins of the idea of inequality turned into something even more ambitious: an updated history in which we lived for thousands of years in large and complex societies without kings or cops.
In this telling, our ideas about prehistory and the inevitable rise of things like “the state” are actually repetitive misunderstandings of thought experiments by Rousseau and Hobbes. Stories we tell ourselves about why we live in a world shaped by domination and violence—that large groups of people can’t live in egalitarian societies, for example, or that material surpluses inevitably produce inequality—were true for many people in the past 2,000 years or so, but there were also thousands of years when this was not the case.
The idea that societies must “develop” according to rules of human behaviour was a response, say the authors, to a 17th-century encounter between European and Indigenous thought. Published dialogues with intellectuals like the Wendat leader Kondiaronk circulated in Europe and prefigured Enlightenment debates in form and style, but it was the Indigenous voices and not the European ones that argued for now familiar values like reason and freedom. The book claims that we’re still stuck with the European defence, which was to invent the idea of primitive societies to avoid facing Indigenous peoples as equals who had chosen a different path.
History becomes way more interesting once we think of our ancient ancestors as adults making careful decisions. Why aren’t the 5,000 years when farming did not lead to standing armies considered as significant as the 5,000 years when it did? What if times when societies rejected settlement or slavery were as important as when those phenomena emerged?
Huge cities from the 4th century BC where people moved between cultivation and foraging are being excavated in places like Taljanky and Nebelivka in Ukraine, while signs of vast populations with seasonal settlements and shared systems of measurement from at least 3500 BC are coming to light in places as far apart as Louisiana and Peru. Some governed themselves for centuries without leaving any traces of top-down power like palaces or temples, while in other times these traces appear and disappear, with periods of decentralization that can be read not as chaotic collapses but as careful and intentional dismantling. When top-down rule does clearly emerge, it’s not in the cities but in the small warlike communities around them, like Arslantepe in Turkey around 3300 BC.
https://our-ancient-ancestors-may-have-been-more-civilized-than-we-are/
The story of our very early past, the “dawn” of humanity; much of what we think we know of this distant era is actually a myth – indeed it is our origin myth, a modern equivalent of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. At its core is a story of the rise of civilisation and, with it, the rise of the state. Like all origin myths, this narrative has enormous power, and its reach and resilience are preventing us from thinking clearly about our present crises.
This myth, they argue, can be found on the shelves of every high-street and airport bookshop, in super-sellers such as Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday and Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. All of these books share a common assumption: as societies become larger, more complex, wealthy and “civilised”, they inevitably become less equal. Early humans, it is said, lived like the foragers of the Kalahari, in small, mobile bands that were casually egalitarian and democratic. But this primitive idyll or Hobbesian hell (views differ) disappeared with settlement and farming, which required the management of labour and land. The emergence of early cities, and ultimately states, demanded even steeper hierarchies, and with them the whole civilisational package – leaders, administrators, the division of labour and social classes. The lesson, then, is clear: human equality and freedom have to be traded for progress.
Graeber and Wengrow see the origins of this “stagist” narrative in Enlightenment thought, and show that it has been so persistently appealing because it can be used by radicals as well as liberals. For early liberals such as Adam Smith, it was a positive story that could be deployed to justify the rise in inequality brought by commerce and the structure of the modern state. But a variation on the story, put forward by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, proved just as useful to the left: in the “state of nature” man was originally free, but with the coming of agriculture, property and so on, he ended up in chains. And Friedrich Engels fused Rousseau’s “noble savage” fable with Darwinist evolutionary ideas, to produce a more optimistic Marxist narrative of historical progress: primitive communism is superseded by private property and states, and then by a modern, proletarian communism.
It is this tale – in both its liberal and more radical forms – which Graeber and Wengrow seek to dismantle using recent anthropological and archaeological research. Excavations in Louisiana, for example, show that in about 1600BC Native Americans built giant earthworks for mass gatherings, drawing people from hundreds of miles around – evidence that shatters the notion that all foragers lived simple, isolated lives.
Meanwhile, the so-called “agricultural revolution” – the Neolithic Faustian bargain when humanity swapped egalitarian simplicity for wealth, status and hierarchy – simply didn’t happen. The shift from foraging to agriculture was slow and patchy; much of what has been thought of as farming was actually small-scale horticulture, and perfectly compatible with flat social structures. Similarly, the rise of cities did not necessitate kings, priests and bureaucrats. Indus valley settlements such as Harappa (c2600BC) show no signs of palaces or temples and instead suggest dispersed, not concentrated power. While Graeber and Wengrow are open about the very limited evidence and the disputes over its interpretation, they build a compelling case.
Yet they reserve particular scorn for another myth: the assumption that the “savage” was stupid as well as noble. In an age that worships the tech-gods of Silicon Valley, it is tempting to believe that we are more sapiens than our distant ancestors. But 17th-century Jesuit missionaries were exasperated to discover the intellectual agility of the Native American Wendat people in resisting conversion; indeed, they showed themselves more eloquent than the “shrewdest citizens and merchants in France”. This sophistication was attributed to the Wendats’ democratic councils, which were “held almost every day in the Villages, and on almost all matters” and “improve[d] their capacity for talking”. These skills and habits, Graeber and Wengrow suggest, actually made so-called primitive peoples more truly “political animals” than we are now – engaged in the day-to-day business of organising their communities rather than impotently tweeting about it.
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow review –
inequality is not the price of civilisation
https://theguardian.com/dawn-graeber-wengrow-review-inequality
The Dawn of Everything is written against the conventional account of human social history as first developed by Hobbes and Rousseau; elaborated by subsequent thinkers; popularized today by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker; and accepted more or less universally. The story goes like this. Once upon a time, human beings lived in small, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers (the so-called state of nature). Then came the invention of agriculture, which led to surplus production and thus to population growth as well as private property. Bands swelled to tribes, and increasing scale required increasing organization: stratification, specialization; chiefs, warriors, holy men.
Eventually, cities emerged, and with them, civilization—literacy, philosophy, astronomy; hierarchies of wealth, status, and power; the first kingdoms and empires. Flash forward a few thousand years, and with science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, we witness the creation of the modern bureaucratic state. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).
It is also, according to Graeber and Wengrow, completely wrong. Drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries that span the globe, as well as deep reading in often neglected historical sources (their bibliography runs to 63 pages), the two dismantle not only every element of the received account but also the assumptions that it rests on. Yes, we’ve had bands, tribes, cities, and states; agriculture, inequality, and bureaucracy, but what each of these were, how they developed, and how we got from one to the next—all this and more, the authors comprehensively rewrite. More important, they demolish the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces, moving helplessly along a technological conveyor belt that takes us from the Serengeti to the DMV. We’ve had choices, they show, and we’ve made them. Graeber and Wengrow offer a history of the past 30,000 years that is not only wildly different from anything we’re used to, but also far more interesting: textured, surprising, paradoxical, inspiring.
The bulk of the book (which weighs in at more than 500 pages) takes us from the Ice Age to the early states (Egypt, China, Mexico, Peru). In fact, it starts by glancing back before the Ice Age to the dawn of the species. Homo sapiens developed in Africa, but it did so across the continent, from Morocco to the Cape, not just in the eastern savannas, and in a great variety of regional forms that only later coalesced into modern humans. There was no anthropological Garden of Eden, in other words—no Tanzanian plain inhabited by “mitochondrial Eve” and her offspring. As for the apparent delay between our biological emergence, and therefore the emergence of our cognitive capacity for culture, and the actual development of culture—a gap of many tens of thousands of years—that, the authors tell us, is an illusion. The more we look, especially in Africa (rather than mainly in Europe, where humans showed up relatively late), the older the evidence we find of complex symbolic behavior.
That evidence and more—from the Ice Age, from later Eurasian and Native North American groups—demonstrate, according to Graeber and Wengrow, that hunter-gatherer societies were far more complex, and more varied, than we have imagined. The authors introduce us to sumptuous Ice Age burials (the beadwork at one site alone is thought to have required 10,000 hours of work), as well as to monumental architectural sites like Göbekli Tepe, in modern Turkey, which dates from about 9000 B.C. (at least 6,000 years before Stonehenge) and features intricate carvings of wild beasts. They tell us of Poverty Point, a set of massive, symmetrical earthworks erected in Louisiana around 1600 B.C., a “hunter-gatherer metropolis the size of a Mesopotamian city-state.” They describe an indigenous Amazonian society that shifted seasonally between two entirely different forms of social organization (small, authoritarian nomadic bands during the dry months; large, consensual horticultural settlements during the rainy season). They speak of the kingdom of Calusa, a monarchy of hunter-gatherers the Spanish found when they arrived in Florida. All of these scenarios are unthinkable within the conventional narrative.
The overriding point is that hunter-gatherers made choices—conscious, deliberate, collective—about the ways that they wanted to organize their societies: to apportion work, dispose of wealth, distribute power. In other words, they practiced politics. Some of them experimented with agriculture and decided that it wasn’t worth the cost. Others looked at their neighbors and determined to live as differently as possible—a process that Graeber and Wengrow describe in detail with respect to the Indigenous peoples of Northern California, “puritans” who idealized thrift, simplicity, money, and work, in contrast to the ostentatious slaveholding chieftains of the Pacific Northwest. None of these groups, as far as we have reason to believe, resembled the simple savages of popular imagination, unselfconscious innocents who dwelt within a kind of eternal present or cyclical dreamtime, waiting for the Western hand to wake them up and fling them into history.
The authors carry this perspective forward to the ages that saw the emergence of farming, of cities, and of kings. In the locations where it first developed, about 10,000 years ago, agriculture did not take over all at once, uniformly and inexorably. (It also didn’t start in only a handful of centers—Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica, Peru, the same places where empires would first appear—but more like 15 or 20.) Early farming was typically flood-retreat farming, conducted seasonally in river valleys and wetlands, a process that is much less labor-intensive than the more familiar kind and does not conduce to the development of private property. It was also what the authors call “play farming”: farming as merely one element within a mix of food-producing activities that might include hunting, herding, foraging, and horticulture.
Settlements, in other words, preceded agriculture—not, as we’ve thought, the reverse. What’s more, it took some 3,000 years for the Fertile Crescent to go from the first cultivation of wild grains to the completion of the domestication process—about 10 times as long as necessary, recent analyses have shown, had biological considerations been the only ones. Early farming embodied what Graeber and Wengrow call “the ecology of freedom”: the freedom to move in and out of farming, to avoid getting trapped by its demands or endangered by the ecological fragility that it entails.
The authors write their chapters on cities against the idea that large populations need layers of bureaucracy to govern them—that scale leads inevitably to political inequality. Many early cities, places with thousands of people, show no sign of centralized administration: no palaces, no communal storage facilities, no evident distinctions of rank or wealth. This is the case with what may be the earliest cities of all, Ukrainian sites like Taljanky, which were discovered only in the 1970s and which date from as early as roughly 4100 B.C., hundreds of years before Uruk, the oldest known city in Mesopotamia. Even in that “land of kings,” urbanism antedated monarchy by centuries. And even after kings arose, “popular councils and citizen assemblies,” Graeber and Wengrow write, “were stable features of government,” with real power and autonomy. Despite what we like to believe, democratic institutions did not begin just once, millennia later, in Athens.
If anything, aristocracy emerged in smaller settlements, the warrior societies that flourished in the highlands of the Levant and elsewhere, and that are known to us from epic poetry—a form of existence that remained in tension with agricultural states throughout the history of Eurasia, from Homer to the Mongols and beyond. But the authors’ most compelling instance of urban egalitarianism is undoubtedly Teotihuacan, a Mesoamerican city that rivaled imperial Rome, its contemporary, for size and magnificence. After sliding toward authoritarianism, its people abruptly changed course, abandoning monument-building and human sacrifice for the construction of high-quality public housing. “Many citizens,” the authors write, “enjoyed a standard of living that is rarely achieved across such a wide sector of urban society in any period of urban history, including our own.”
And so we arrive at the state, with its structures of central authority, exemplified variously by large-scale kingdoms, by empires, by modern republics—supposedly the climax form, to borrow a term from ecology, of human social organization. What is the state? the authors ask. Not a single stable package that’s persisted all the way from pharaonic Egypt to today, but a shifting combination of, as they enumerate them, the three elementary forms of domination: control of violence (sovereignty), control of information (bureaucracy), and personal charisma (manifested, for example, in electoral politics). Some states have displayed just two, some only one—which means the union of all three, as in the modern state, is not inevitable (and may indeed, with the rise of planetary bureaucracies like the World Trade Organization, be already decomposing). More to the point, the state itself may not be inevitable. For most of the past 5,000 years, the authors write, kingdoms and empires were “exceptional islands of political hierarchy, surrounded by much larger territories whose inhabitants … systematically avoided fixed, overarching systems of authority.”
Is “civilization” worth it, the authors want to know, if civilization—ancient Egypt, the Aztecs, imperial Rome, the modern regime of bureaucratic capitalism enforced by state violence—means the loss of what they see as our three basic freedoms: the freedom to disobey, the freedom to go somewhere else, and the freedom to create new social arrangements? Or does civilization rather mean “mutual aid, social co-operation, civic activism, hospitality [and] simply caring for others”?
These are questions that Graeber, a committed anarchist—an exponent not of anarchy but of anarchism, the idea that people can get along perfectly well without governments—asked throughout his career. The Dawn of Everything is framed by an account of what the authors call the “indigenous critique.” In a remarkable chapter, they describe the encounter between early French arrivals in North America, primarily Jesuit missionaries, and a series of Native intellectuals—individuals who had inherited a long tradition of political conflict and debate and who had thought deeply and spoke incisively on such matters as “generosity, sociability, material wealth, crime, punishment and liberty.”
The Indigenous critique, as articulated by these figures in conversation with their French interlocutors, amounted to a wholesale condemnation of French—and, by extension, European—society: its incessant competition, its paucity of kindness and mutual care, its religious dogmatism and irrationalism, and most of all, its horrific inequality and lack of freedom. The authors persuasively argue that Indigenous ideas, carried back and publicized in Europe, went on to inspire the Enlightenment (the ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy, they note, had theretofore been all but absent from the Western philosophical tradition). They go further, making the case that the conventional account of human history as a saga of material progress was developed in reaction to the Indigenous critique in order to salvage the honor of the West. We’re richer, went the logic, so we’re better. The authors ask us to rethink what better might actually mean.
The Dawn of Everything is not a brief for anarchism, though anarchist values—antiauthoritarianism, participatory democracy, small-c communism—are everywhere implicit in it. Above all, it is a brief for possibility, which was, for Graeber, perhaps the highest value of all. The book is something of a glorious mess, full of fascinating digressions, open questions, and missing pieces. It aims to replace the dominant grand narrative of history not with another of its own devising, but with the outline of a picture, only just becoming visible, of a human past replete with political experiment and creativity.
“How did we get stuck?” the authors ask—stuck, that is, in a world of “war, greed, exploitation [and] systematic indifference to others’ suffering”? It’s a pretty good question. “If something did go terribly wrong in human history,” they write, “then perhaps it began to go wrong precisely when people started losing that freedom to imagine and enact other forms of social existence.” It isn’t clear to me how many possibilities are left us now, in a world of polities whose populations number in the tens or hundreds of millions. But stuck we certainly are.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
David Graeber and David Wengrow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
https://theatlantic.com/graeber-wengrow-dawn-of-everything-history-humanity/
Concerns abound about what’s gone wrong in modern societies. Many scholars explain growing gaps between the haves and the have-nots as partly a by-product of living in dense, urban populations. The bigger the crowd, from this perspective, the more we need power brokers to run the show. Societies have scaled up for thousands of years, which has magnified the distance between the wealthy and those left wanting.
In The Dawn of Everything, anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow challenge the assumption that bigger societies inevitably produce a range of inequalities. Using examples from past societies, the pair also rejects the popular idea that social evolution occurred in stages.
Such stages, according to conventional wisdom, began with humans living in small hunter-gatherer bands where everyone was on equal footing. Then an agricultural revolution about 12,000 years ago fueled population growth and the emergence of tribes, then chiefdoms and eventually bureaucratic states. Or perhaps murderous alpha males dominated ancient hunter-gatherer groups. If so, early states may have represented attempts to corral our selfish, violent natures.
Neither scenario makes sense to Graeber and Wengrow. Their research synthesis — which extends for 526 pages — paints a more hopeful picture of social life over the last 30,000 to 40,000 years. For most of that time, the authors argue, humans have tactically alternated between small and large social setups. Some social systems featured ruling elites, working stiffs and enslaved people. Others emphasized decentralized, collective decision making. Some were run by men, others by women. The big question — one the authors can’t yet answer — is why, after tens of thousands of years of social flexibility, many people today can’t conceive of how society might effectively be reorganized.
Hunter-gatherers have a long history of revamping social systems from one season to the next, the authors write. About a century ago, researchers observed that Indigenous populations in North America and elsewhere often operated in small, mobile groups for part of the year and crystallized into large, sedentary communities the rest of the year. For example, each winter, Canada’s Northwest Coast Kwakiutl hunter-gatherers built wooden structures where nobles ruled over designated commoners and enslaved people, and held banquets called potlatch. In summers, aristocratic courts disbanded, and clans with less formal social ranks fished along the coast.
Many Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers similarly assembled and dismantled social systems on a seasonal basis, evidence gathered over the last few decades suggests. Scattered discoveries of elaborate graves for apparently esteemed individuals and huge structures made of stone, mammoth bones and other material dot Eurasian landscapes. The graves may hold individuals who were accorded special status, at least at times of the year when mobile groups formed large communities and built large structures, the authors speculate. Seasonal gatherings to conduct rituals and feasts probably occurred at the monumental sites. No signs of centralized power, such as palaces or storehouses, accompany those sites.
Social flexibility and experimentation, rather than a revolutionary shift, also characterized ancient transitions to agriculture, Graeber and Wengrow write. Middle Eastern village excavations now indicate that the domestication of cereals and other crops occurred in fits and starts from around 12,000 to 9,000 years ago. Ancient Fertile Crescent communities periodically gave farming a go while still hunting, foraging, fishing and trading. Early cultivators were in no rush to treat tracts of land as private property or to form political systems headed by kings, the authors conclude.
Even in early cities of Mesopotamia and Eurasia around 6,000 years ago (SN: 2/19/20), absolute rule by monarchs did not exist. Collective decisions were made by district councils and citizen assemblies, archaeological evidence suggests. In contrast, authoritarian, violent political systems appeared in the region’s mobile, nonagricultural populations at that time.
Early states formed in piecemeal fashion, the authors argue. These political systems incorporated one or more of three basic elements of domination: violent control of the masses by authorities, bureaucratic management of special knowledge and information, and public demonstrations of rulers’ power and charisma. Egypt’s early rulers more than 4,000 years ago fused violent coercion of their subjects with extensive bureaucratic controls over daily affairs. Classic Maya rulers in Central America 1,100 years ago or more relied on administrators to monitor cosmic events while grounding earthly power in violent control and alliances with other kings.
States can take many forms, though. Graeber and Wengrow point to Bronze Age Minoan society on Crete as an example of a political system run by priestesses who called on citizens to transcend individuality via ecstatic experiences that bound the population together.
What seems to have changed today is that basic social liberties have receded, the authors contend. The freedom to relocate to new kinds of communities, to disobey commands issued by others and to create new social systems or alternate between different ones has become a scarce commodity. Finding ways to reclaim that freedom is a major challenge.
https://sciencenews.org/human-history-society-dawn-of-everything-book
[The Two European Hunter Gatherer Myths]
There is a Standard Version of deep history, those long ages before writing (roughly 40,000–12,000 B.C.E.), when humans left behind traces—suggestive but not definitive—of culture and technology. The Standard Version is a species of technological determinism, in which forms of society correspond to modes of production. There have been four main social forms, according to this theory: bands, mobile groups of a few families; tribes, of perhaps 100 members, moving a few times a year; chiefdoms, hundreds strong, centered in one place but with smaller groups occasionally moving away for various reasons; and states, with thousands of members, centered in cities, and with a central government more or (usually) less accountable to the populace. To each of these forms corresponded a mode of subsistence: respectively, hunting/gathering; gardening/foraging/herding; farming; and industry. Political forms followed a closely parallel evolution: egalitarianism, private property, kingship (often just ceremonial), and the bureaucratic state. Each of these stages was more productive and more civilized than the last, but also less equal and less free.
In addition to its pleasing symmetry, the Standard Version has a certain pathos that appeals to supposedly tough-minded scientists. Civilization is a stern fate, on this view: We can only attain modernity’s deepest satisfactions by giving up the mobility, spontaneity, and nonchalance of our free-spirited but immature ancestors. We moderns—and especially intellectuals, who grasp this painful dilemma most fully—become tragic heroes of a sort.
Graeber and Wengrow, however, are intent on blowing up the Standard Version in The Dawn of Everything. It was an understandable attempt to extrapolate from very limited data (and, in some cases, a less excusable attempt to retroactively justify Western colonialism). But in the last few decades, a mass of new evidence from archaeology and anthropology has appeared, leaving it all but unsalvageable. Again and again, among the Kwakiutl, Nambikwara, Inuit, Lakota, and innumerable others, from the Amazon to the Arctic Circle to Central Africa to the Great Plains, and in all periods from the Upper Paleolithic to the nineteenth century, archaeologists have discovered variety where the Standard Version predicted uniformity.
Until around 10,000 B.C., according to the eminent primatologist Christopher Boehm, articulating the scholarly consensus, humans lived in “societies of equals, and outside the family there were no dominators.” In such societies, where supposedly no distinctions of power or rank were observed in life, it seems unlikely they would have been observed in death. They were, however, and regularly. Rich burials—in unusually large graves or with ornaments, tools, textiles, or weapons, sometimes in profusion—have been found on every continent, often dating to millennia before social distinctions of any sort were supposed to have arisen in human societies. The egalitarian bands of prehistory, never solidly based on evidence, may soon disappear into myth.
Monumental architecture is more evidence against the standard evolutionary scheme. In southern Turkey, for example, there is an ensemble of 20 stone temples, about as large as Stonehenge (which dates from 3000 B.C.), with carved portraits of animals on the pillars. It dates from 9000 B.C. In Poverty Point, Louisiana, a network of enormous mounds and ridges stretches out across 400 acres or so. Constructed in 1600 B.C. (by moving a million cubic meters of earth), it may have been a trading center or a ritual center. Its builders seem to have been hunters, fishers, and foragers. Across Eastern Europe is a line of “mammoth houses,” enclosures up to 40 feet in diameter made of mammoth hides stretched over poles, constructed between 25,000 and 12,000 years ago, obviously by at least part-time hunters. Every year, more very old monuments constructed by nonfarming, non-state people are discovered, making it harder to believe that such achievements are only possible, as the conventional wisdom has it, on the basis of agricultural surpluses and bureaucratic expertise.
Evidence of occupational variety at many sites calls for explanation: It seems unlikely that, at the same moment in a given area, one group consisted of full-time agriculturalists, another of full-time foragers, and another full-time pastoralists. It now appears that seasonality was very common, with groups changing not only their way of procuring food one or more times a year, but authority relations and other customs as well. Members of a North American Plains tribe, for example, were foragers and herders for most of the year, with very lax discipline both at home and toward tribal leaders. During the great annual buffalo hunt, however, the tribe became quite hierarchical; in particular, there were “buffalo police” who enforced norms of cooperation and distribution very strictly and even had the power to impose capital punishment on the spot for sufficiently grave violations. Most indigenous Amazonian societies had different authority structures at different times of year. Perhaps the best-known example is from the Arctic, where Inuit fathers exercised strict patriarchal authority in summer, while winter, lived more inside, was something of a saturnalia, with spouse-swapping and children running free.
By and large, anthropologists have not made much of seasonality. (Interestingly, most of those who have done so have been anarchist-leaning: Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Robert Lowie, Pierre Clastres.) Graeber and Wengrow make a great deal of it.
Archaeological evidence ... suggests that in the highly seasonal environments of the last Ice Age, our remote ancestors ... shifted back and forth between alternative social arrangements, allowing the rise of authoritarian structures during certain times of year. The same individual could experience life in what looks to us sometimes like a band, sometimes a tribe, and sometimes like something with at least some of the characteristics we now identify with states. With such institutional flexibility comes the capacity to step outside the boundaries of any given structure and reflect; to both make and unmake the political worlds we live in.
It is difficult for some—perhaps most—of us to attribute so advanced a political and philosophical consciousness to our remote ancestors. Perhaps, Graeber and Wengrow suggest, that is the problem: Our unshakable conviction that modernity spells progress and liberation prevents us from seeing that, in many times and places, premodern life was actually more rational and free.
Though combative, The Dawn of Everything is an upbeat book. Its debunking energies mainly go to refuting the conventional wisdom at its most discouraging. For example, anthropologists and archaeologists (like most everyone else) tend to assume there is an inverse relation between scale and equality; that the greater the number of people who need to be organized to work or live or fight together, the more coercion will be necessary. Cities represent a scaling up of population, and therefore, naturally, of mechanisms of control. And where did cities come from?
The conventional story looks for the ultimate causes in technological factors: Cities were a delayed, but inevitable, effect of the “Agricultural Revolution,” which started populations on an upward trajectory, and set off a chain of other developments, for instance in transport and administration, which made it possible to support large populations living in one place. These large populations then required states to administer them.
This conventional story is being undermined by new archaeological evidence, especially from the largest prehistoric cities, in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. Those “large populations living in one place”—peasantries—do not show up until later in the histories of most large cities. Initially, besides farmers drawn to a fertile floodplain, there were equal numbers of hunters, foragers, and fishers, and sometimes very large ceremonial or ritual centers. What there don’t seem to have been, by and large, were ruling classes. The conventional assumption—amounting almost to a Weltanschauung—that civilization marches in lockstep with state authority seems to be tottering.
The Agricultural Revolution is another key element of the Standard Version: a swift and mostly complete transition from mobile, egalitarian, healthy foragers, relatively few in number, lacking the concept of private property, and living on wild resources, to farming populations, numerous, sedentary, class-stratified, disease-ridden, and producing a surplus of food. The consequence, as noted above, was cities, and the inevitable concomitant of cities was states. But this turns out to be far too neat. As recent evidence shows, many populations took up farming and then went back to foraging. Many foraging communities were far more authoritarian than farming communities. And in quite a few places, the transition from foraging to farming took thousands of years. It may be necessary to rechristen the Agricultural Revolution as the Agricultural Slow Walk.
Prehistory, Graeber and Wengrow insist, is vastly more interesting than scholars knew until recently. And not just more interesting, but more inspiring as well: “It is clear now that human societies before the advent of farming were not confined to small, egalitarian bands. On the contrary, the world of hunter-gatherers as it existed before the coming of agriculture was one of several bold social experiments, resembling a carnival parade of political forms, far more than it does the drab abstractions of evolutionary theory.” “Carnival” brings to mind Occupy, which, along with this book, testifies to David Graeber’s admirable energy, imagination, and love of freedom.
Were the Earliest Societies Anarchists? David Graeber and David Wengrow’s
new history of humanity looks for the origins of authoritarianism and
freedom.
https://newrepublic.com/dawn-everything-book-review-earliest-anarchists
The consensus version of the story begins with the appearance of the first anatomically modern humans, about two hundred thousand years ago. For approximately a hundred and ninety thousand years, or about ninety-five per cent of our existence as a species, we lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers, following migratory herds and foraging for wild nuts and berries. These cohorts were small enough, and the demands of resource procurement and allocation were sufficiently minor, that decisions were face-to-face affairs among intimates. Despite the lurking menace of large cats, these early hunter-gatherers didn’t have to work particularly hard to fulfill their caloric needs, and they passed their ample leisure hours cavorting like primates. The order of the day was an easy egalitarianism, mostly for want of other options.
Twelve thousand years ago, give or take, the static pleasures of this long, undifferentiated epoch gave way to history proper. The hunter-gatherer bands lucky enough to find themselves on the flanks of the Zagros Mountains, or the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, began herding and farming. The rise of agriculture allowed for permanent settlements, which, growing dense, became cities. Urban commerce demanded division of labor, professional specialization, and bureaucratic oversight. Because wheat, unlike wild berries or the hindquarters of an aurochs, was a storable, countable good that appeared on a routine schedule, the selfish administrators of inchoate kingdoms could easily collect taxes, or tributes. Writing, which first emerged in the service of accounting, abetted the sort of control and surveillance upon which primitive racketeers came to depend. Where hunter-gatherers had hunted and gathered only enough to meet the demands of the day, agricultural communities created history’s first surpluses, and the extraction of tributes propped up rent-seeking élites and the managerial pyramids—not to mention standing armies—necessary to maintain their privilege. The rise of the arts, technology, and monumental architecture was the upside of the creation and immiseration of a peasant class.
From roughly the Enlightenment through the middle of the twentieth century, these developments—which came to be known as the Neolithic Revolution—were seen as generally good things. Societies were categorized by evolutionary stage on the basis of their mode of food production and economic organization, with full-fledged states taken to be the pinnacle of progress.
But it was also possible to think that the Neolithic Revolution was, all in all, a bad thing. In the late nineteen-sixties, ethnographers studying present-day hunter-gatherers in southern Africa argued that their “primitive” ways were not only freer and more egalitarian than the “later” stages of human development but also healthier and more fun. Agriculture required much longer and duller working hours; dense settlements and the proximity of livestock, as well as monotonous diets of cereal staples, encouraged malnutrition and disease. The poisoned fruit of grain cultivation had, in this telling, led to a cycle of population growth and more grain cultivation. Agriculture was a trap. Rousseau’s thought experiment, long written off by conservative critics as romantic nostalgia for the “noble savage,” was resuscitated, in modern, scientific form. It might have taken three or four decades for these insights to make their way to TED stages, but the paleo diet became a fundamental requirement of any self-respecting Silicon Valley founder.
For Graeber and Wengrow, this basic story, whether relayed in a triumphal or a defeatist register, is itself a trap. If we accept that the rise of agriculture meant the rise of the state—of political élites and intricate structures of power—then all we can do is tinker around the edges. Even if we regard the Paleolithic era as a garden paradise, we know that our reëntry is forever barred. For one thing, the requirements of hunting and gathering could support only some trivial fraction of the earth’s current population. A life under government control now seems inescapable...
...Drawing on new archeological findings, and revisiting old ones, Graeber and Wengrow argue that the granaries-to-overlords tale simply isn’t true. Rather, it’s a function of an extremely low-resolution approach to time. Viewed closely, the course of human history resists our favored schemata. Hunter-gatherer communities seem to have experimented with various forms of farming as side projects thousands of years before we have any evidence of cities. Even after urban centers developed, there was nothing like an ineluctable relationship between cities, technology, and domination.
The large town of Çatalhöyük, for example, on the Konya Plain in present-day Turkey, was settled around 7400 B.C. and seems to have been occupied for approximately fifteen hundred years—which, the authors note, is “roughly the same period of time that separates us from Amalafrida, Queen of the Vandals, who reached the height of her influence around AD 523.” The settlement was home to about five thousand people, but it had neither an obvious center nor any communal facilities. There weren’t even streets: households were densely packed together and accessed via roof ladders. The residents’ living areas were marked by a “distinctly macabre sense of interior design,” with narrow rooms outfitted with aurochs skulls and horns, along with raised platforms that encased the remains of up to sixty of the households’ dead ancestors. It was, as far as we know, one of the first large settlements to have practiced agriculture: the citizens derived most of their nutrition from cereals and beans they grew, as well as from domesticated sheep and goats. For a long time, all of this was taken together as a key example of the “agricultural revolution” in action, and the material remnants were interpreted to support the old story. Corpulent female figurines, assumed to be part of fertility rituals, were found in what were understood to be proto-religious shrines of some sort—the first indications of organized cultural systems.
In the past three decades, however, new archeological methods have disturbed many of these long-standing assumptions. The “shrines” were, Graeber and Wengrow tell us, just regular houses; the female figurines could be the discarded Barbie dolls of the Anatolian Neolithic, but they could also be a way of honoring female elders. The community seems to have supported itself for a thousand years with various forms of agriculture—floodplain farming and animal husbandry—without ever having committed itself to new forms of social or cultural organization. From what we can derive from wall murals and other expressive residues, Graeber and Wengrow say, “the cultural life of the community remained stubbornly oriented around the worlds of hunting and foraging.”
So what was actually going on in Çatalhöyük? Graeber and Wengrow interpret the evidence to propose that the town’s inhabitants managed their affairs perfectly well without the sort of administrative structures, royal or priestly, that were supposedly part of the agricultural package. “Despite the considerable size and density of the built-up area, there is no evidence for central authority,” the authors maintain. “Each household appears more or less a world unto itself—a discrete locus of storage, production and consumption. Each also seems to have held a significant degree of control over its own rituals.” Some houses appear to have been more lavishly furnished with aurochs horns or prized obsidian (which was brought in from Cappadocia, more than a hundred miles away), but there is no sign of élite neighborhoods or marks of caste consolidation. Different forms of social organization likely prevailed at different times of year, with greater division of labor necessary for cultivation and hunting in the summer and fall, followed by something more equitable—and, perhaps, matriarchal—during the winter.
Çatalhöyük isn’t the only site that calls into question the presumption that the Neolithic era was patterned on a single civilizational kit. Graeber and Wengrow report that some cities thrived long before they showed signs of hierarchical systems—such as temples and palaces—and some never developed them at all. “In others, centralized power seems to appear and then disappear,” they write. “It would seem that the mere fact of urban life does not, necessarily, imply any form of political organization.”
If cities didn’t lead to states, what did? Not any singular arrow of history, according to Graeber and Wengrow, but, rather, the gradual and dismal coalescence of otherwise unrelated, parallel processes. In particular, they think it involved the extension of patriarchal domination from the home to society at large. ...The guiding principle of “The Dawn of Everything” is that our remote ancestors—not to mention certain present-day Indigenous groups long dismissed as living relics of superannuated barbarians—must be viewed as self-conscious political actors. Historical ruptures cannot be reduced to technological novelties or geographical constraints, even if those factors played crucial roles. They arose from our own choices and actions.
Graeber and Wengrow point to moments in the distant past in which they see instances of deliberate refusal: communities that weighed the advantages and disadvantages of one ostensibly evolutionary step or another (pastoralism, royal domination) and decided that they liked their current odds just fine. The communities that built Stonehenge had once adopted ways of cultivating cereal from Continental Europe, but recent research suggests that they returned to hazelnut collection around 3300 B.C. Various ecological theories have been floated to explain the sudden collapse, around 1350 A.D., of the brutal dynasty of Cahokia (in present-day Illinois), then the largest city in the Americas north of Mexico, but Graeber and Wengrow propose that the proto-empire’s subjects—who lived under constant surveillance and the threat of mass executions—simply defected en masse. Land wasn’t scarce, and they just walked away.
Where some groups adopted and abandoned different arrangements over time, others maintained a repertoire of assorted practices to suit fluctuating purposes. Modern ethnographic treatments of Indigenous communities describe an astonishing level of social plasticity (available to us, perhaps, in the highly etiolated form of Burning Man and other “temporary autonomous zones”). In a 1903 essay, the anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Henri Beuchat described the routine organizational reversals in Inuit communities. These groups spent their summers fishing and hunting in small cohorts under the possessive—and coercive—authority of a single male elder. Graeber and Wengrow describe how then, as the winter brought an influx of walruses and seals to the shore, “the Inuit gathered together to build great meeting houses of wood, whale rib and stone,” where “virtues of equality, altruism and collective life prevailed. Wealth was shared, and husbands and wives exchanged partners.” It’s impossible to say whether such practices were designed or preserved to diminish the threat of permanent domination, but that was one of their effects.
Such groups weren’t ignorant of whatever else was on offer; they were frequently in contact with other societies, took stock of their habits, and sought to define themselves in contrarian ways, in a rather underexplored process that, following the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, Graeber and Wengrow call “schismogenesis.” In the Pacific Northwest, men of rank among the Kwakiutl held lavish, greasy potlatches and took war captives as slaves; their neighbors to the south of the Klamath River, the Yurok, prized restraint and self-denial, and committed themselves to modes of subsistence that rendered slavery, which they found morally repugnant, unnecessary.
When divergences in cultural values occurred within societies rather than between them, the result could take the form of revolutionary sentiment. Consider the city of Teotihuacan, which was founded around 100 B.C.—more than a thousand years before the rise of the Aztecs—and was almost certainly the largest city in the pre-colonial Americas. The metropolis was first constructed on a monumental scale, with the kind of pyramids and palaces that indicate social hierarchy. At a certain point, however, the people of Teotihuacan decided against investing in more fancy villas. Instead, Graeber and Wengrow write, “the citizens embarked on a remarkable project of urban renewal, supplying high-quality apartments for nearly all the city’s population, regardless of wealth or status.” They accomplished all of this without wheeled vehicles, sailing ships, animal-powered traction, or advanced metallurgy. Perhaps most important was that, although they were in contact with the monarchical Mayan societies nearby, the people of Teotihuacan flourished for some three centuries without submitting to the rule of anything like a king...
...it’s by contending at length with the prejudices of scale—the expectation that there is some natural upper bound on the number of people who can live and work together without significant coördination from above—that the book signals its broader ambitions. “In the standard, textbook version of human history, scale is crucial,” the authors write. “The tiny bands of foragers in which humans were thought to have spent most of their evolutionary history could be relatively democratic and egalitarian precisely because they were small.” We therefore persuade ourselves that, given the problem of strangers, we need “such things as urban planners, social workers, tax auditors and police.”
Yet pre-agricultural people erected great testaments to their ways of life in the absence of those structural supports—at Göbekli Tepe, also in Turkey, as well as on the Ukrainian steppe and in the Mississippi Delta. And post-agricultural societies could maintain systematic achievements without administrators to run them. “It turns out that farmers are perfectly capable of co-ordinating very complicated irrigation systems all by themselves,” Graeber and Wengrow say. “Urban populations seem to have a remarkable capacity for self-governance in ways which, while usually not quite ‘egalitarian,’ were likely a good deal more participatory than almost any urban government today.” Ancient emperors mostly “saw little reason to interfere, as they simply didn’t care very much about how their subjects cleaned the streets or maintained their drainage ditches.” About eight thousand years ago, the villagers of Tell Sabi Abyad, in present-day Syria, saw to a variety of complex tasks—pasturing the flocks; sowing, harvesting, and threshing grain; weaving flax; making beads; and carving stones—that presumably required extensive inter-household coöperation, yet everyone lived in uniform dwellings. Though writing wasn’t invented for another three thousand years, a scheme of geometric tokens, stored and archived in a central if nondescript depot, had been put in place to monitor resource administration. The archeological remains of the village, remarkably preserved by a catastrophic fire that baked its structures of mud and clay, show no signs of caste division or a presiding authority.
Graeber and Wengrow hope that, once we grasp how ancient mega-sites (in Ukraine or in Jomon-era Japan) could grow large and manifold without a literate bureaucracy, or the way early literate societies (Uruk, in Mesopotamia) might have managed the trick of participatory self-governance, we might renew and expand our own cramped notions of what’s politically tenable. We could come to detach progress from obedience. As they put it, “Humans may not have begun their history in a state of primordial innocence, but they do appear to have begun it with a self-conscious aversion to being told what to do. If this is so, we can at least refine our initial question: the real puzzle is not when chiefs, or even kings and queens, first appeared, but rather when it was no longer possible to simply laugh them out of court.”
Graeber and Wengrow’s dearest aspiration is to quicken that laughter once again. “Nowadays, most of us find it increasingly difficult even to picture what an alternative economic or social order would be like,” they write. “Our distant ancestors seem, by contrast, to have moved regularly back and forth between them. If something did go terribly wrong in human history—and given the current state of the world, it’s hard to deny something did—then perhaps it began to go wrong precisely when people started losing that freedom to imagine and enact other forms of social existence.”
This wasn’t a matter of sheer forgetfulness, they say. It was by design. At least some of the Indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, they tell us, were bewildered and appalled by the strange European custom of giving and taking orders. Their judgments were widely circulated in the Europe of the early Enlightenment, where Indigenous people were often featured in dialogues meant to criticize the status quo. At the time, they were typically dismissed as the rhetorical sock-puppetry of canny European heretics. For how could “Natives” credibly engage with political constitutions or deliberate over consequential decisions?
“The Dawn of Everything” makes a persuasive case that what was passed off as Indigenous criticism of European political thinking was, in fact, Indigenous criticism of European political thinking. These Indigenous objections could be safely deflected only if they were seen as European ventriloquism, not ideas from another adult community with alternative values. “Portraying history as a story of material progress, that framework recast indigenous critics as innocent children of nature, whose views on freedom were a mere side effect of their uncultivated way of life and could not possibly offer a serious challenge to contemporary social thought,” Graeber and Wengrow write.
The whole symbolic apparatus of cultural evolution aimed to make freedom—which they define as the freedom to move, the freedom to disobey orders, and the freedom to imagine less hierarchical ways of organizing ourselves—seem archaic and perilous. When we speak of the onset of social inequality, we’re accepting the idea that real freedom is the plaything of children. The species grew up, and grew out of it...
Early Civilizations Had It All Figured Out - A contrarian account of our prehistory argues that cities once flourished without rulers and rules—and still could. https://newyorker.com/early-civilizations-had-it-all-figured-out
The Right-Wing Story About Human Nature Is False - Are we naturally
violent, power-hungry, and greedy? Rutger Bregman’s book “Humankind”
devastates the myth of human selfishness.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/the-right-wing-story-about-human-nature-is-false/
Blogger Ben Blum (Medium, June 7, 2018) recently questioned the authenticity and value of the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), labeling it a “fraud” and a “lie,” and other commentators have followed suit. For example, after watching a video that I deposited with the Stanford Archives, Brian Resnick wrote, “This damning video debunks the famed experiment” (VOX, June 14, 2018), and Jay Van Bavel told LIVE-SCIENCE (June 12, 2018), “The bottom line is that conformity isn't natural, blind or inevitable.” French author Thibault LeTextier (2018) even published a book-length critique entitled History of a Lie.
In this response to my critics, I hereby assert that none of these criticisms present any substantial evidence that alters the SPE’s main conclusion concerning the importance of understanding how systemic and situational forces can operate to influence individual behavior in negative or positive directions, often without our personal awareness. The SPE’s core message is not that a psychological simulation of prison life is the same as the real thing, or that prisoners and guards always or even usually behave the way that they did in the SPE. Rather, the SPE serves as a cautionary tale of what might happen to any of us if we underestimate the extent to which the power of social roles and external pressures can influence our actions.
Philip Zimbardo’s Response to Recent Criticisms of the Stanford Prison
Experiment
https://www.prisonexp.org/response
How Our Roles Shape Us
https://executivecoachinglondon.com/life-choices/how-our-roles-shape-us/
Person–situation Debate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person%E2%80%93situation_debate
Trait Activation Theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait_activation_theory
We can compare prehistory to a state of childlike freedom and play, and the relative rigidity of civilization to the stagnation in an adult’s accumulated experience, memories, and background knowledge. https://medium.com/grim-tidings/do-all-cultures-start-from-childish-twaddle-6a7cf341d066
