The Antidote To The WEF
There can only be one: Graeber v. Harari
In his latest book, “The Dawn Of Everything,” anthropologist Dr. David Graeber and his writing partner, archaeologist, Dr. David Wengrow, demonstrate that our previous understanding of history was wrong.
They describe how the basic framework of our understanding of the human past was created by Jean Jacque Rousseau on the one side and Thomas Hobbes on the other. Both of those men were writing hypothetical accounts in the context of a previously biblical view of humanity that had been challenged by the European encounter with the western hemisphere. They were not writing history as such. They were simply trying to reconcile their previous understanding of humanity as derived from the study of the bible and a handful of classical writers such as Plato and Aristotle, with new evidence coming out of contact with wholly different societies.
They were not dealing in real history, or even in much of anything real but their own prejudices and unfounded imaginings. Yet for centuries afterward, theirs was considered the accurate portrayal of the human past and our social development up until the present. To be fair to Hobbes and Rousseau, the disciplined, academic study of history did not really exist in their times, and a great deal of what then passed for history was just what they were involved in, fanciful speculation in an effort to make contemporary arguments.
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In the intervening years, and particularly since the middle of the nineteenth century, we have been uncovering a vast treasure trove of new evidence and information from ancient and prehistoric societies from all around the world. While there are still significant gaps in our knowledge, at least now we actually have some knowledge. We no longer have to rely solely on our wild guesses based on our own limited experiences. We can look at what is left over from thousands of previous cultures and civilizations and develop at least some sense of what our human past really was like.
Where we used to just argue for our own views while starting our argument with the phrase, “back in the day,” now we can actually look back into the day and have some sense of who we have been. Doing this also gives us some sense of potentials not otherwise visible in our contemporary world. What we had believed were the natural limitations of humanity are, in fact, not real limitations at all, but only shortcomings in our knowledge and understanding of ourselves and limitations of our imaginations of what else we could be.
Surprisingly, despite nearly two centuries worth of new information, few within the academy have attempted such a wholesale revision. They tend to avoid the big picture and focus on their specialty. Or, as many such as Yuval Noah Harari are wont to do, continue to make up theories out of nowhere based on cherry picked evidence or even evidence that does not exist, or by ignoring evidence that does.
The more I read Graeber, the more I consider him the antithesis to Harari and his crowd at the world economic forum. Graeber's vision of humanity may even be the antidote to the vision of the wef crowd and provide guidance away from where they would have us go.
One could say that Harari is the favored historical theorist of the 0.01%, making up whatever nonsense suits his bosses, while Graeber should be the favored historical theorist of the rest of us, using actual historical evidence to argue for a more humane, flexible, dynamic and just social order. It was Graeber who first coined the phrase, the ninety nine percent, to refer to those of us not served by the members of the wef and their corporations and governments.
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Graeber has often been labeled an anarchist. My understanding is that he did not feel altogether comfortable with that label. While I see why it has been applied, I feel a better single, broad word by which to categorize him, his vision and his work is humanist.
Graeber is a humanist, and offers a humanistic vision of humanity. While he often focuses on the issue of inequality, and thus can be seen as an anarchist, or one opposed to inequality, he always comes back around to the fact that it is injurious to our humanity, individually and collectively.
In my reading of his work, his fundamental opposition appears to be not so much towards inequality as towards humans needlessly causing other humans to suffer. In particular this appears to happen through power dynamics and excessive financial inequality, but it is the needless suffering itself that is his primary target.
Regardless of his personal preferences, he is one of the most versed anthropologists of our time, and always reverts to the evidence itself. What is the evidence? What can we know about it? What can we know because of it? What questions arise? What can we hypothesize? Where can we look for evidence in support of or opposition to our hypotheses? He asks these basic questions that we all learned in history one oh one class and adheres rigorously to the knowable truth, acknowledging clearly when he himself is hypothesizing, or what the limits are of what we can know.
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I have just finished the third chapter of the book. I am grateful that I still have so much left to read, as he is an excellent story teller and reading the book and learning from the professor is always enjoyable. Yet his main thesis already appears fairly clear.
Throughout much of human history, we have had a huge variety of social arrangements, ancient and prehistoric peoples were as intelligent as we are and in all likelihood, often more politically aware, and social power structures were much more fluid and much less extreme than they are today. In fact, today appears to be an anomaly, not a developmental trajectory.
Reading all the examples of different social arrangements humans have consciously cultivated over the last tens of thousands of years as described in chapter three gives me hope for the future of humanity. Whatever it is that we have going on now feels to many of us as if it is reaching an intolerable crescendo and will soon collapse. It can seem difficult to imagine what may come next. While I do not necessarily believe we will revert to something from our past, reading about how dynamic, responsive and creative we have been in the past gives me great hope for how we will respond as our current social order continues to disintegrate.
It also gives me some ideas for directions we could head in which I may attempt to write about in greater detail in the future.
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We are living in fractious times. The old information systems are falling apart, and we can now see into them clearly enough to see how they were made largely of lies. They are being replaced with an array of new information systems. These new systems consist of greatly varying qualities of information. Much of it is of very low quality.
It is not just the information itself that is at issue. A stack of data is as meaningless as a stack of wood chips. It is when we can organize pieces of wood into certain shapes that we end up with a beautiful house.
The same can be said of bits of data. It has to be organized into stories that are workable. That is, stories that leave us with handles, with some way to recognize our participation in having created the world we live in today, and our options for participating in the creation of the world we will wake up to tomorrow.
David Graeber brings it all together. He uncovers the highest quality information about the course of human history. He weaves it all together into an understandable narrative. And he puts us at the center of it, recognizing our powers of playfulness, creativity, adaptability, intelligence, relatability and so many other characteristics and qualities that we are going to need to make the most of in the years to come as we work together to create.
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Thank you for joining me in the conversation,
Sincerely,
Elliott Freed
Source: Elliott Freed
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