[HN Gopher] Flesh and Blood (2021)
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Flesh and Blood (2021)
Author : wahnfrieden
Score : 39 points
Date : 2024-09-23 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theanarchistlibrary.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (theanarchistlibrary.org)
| jvanderbot wrote:
| If you missed the citation at top: David Graeber wrote Dawn of
| Everything which is full of studies (largely of American
| natives), that contrast the political structures with the West at
| that time. This article is from one of those chapters.
|
| If you found the idea of "theatrical" rules or "play kings"
| interesting, I highly recommend you give it a read, it's full of
| interesting stories that attempt to dethrone the idea of the
| inevitability of centralized authority and monopolization of
| violence, and the inevitability of agriculture.
| asplake wrote:
| His "Debt: The first 5,000 years" is excellent also
| pilastr wrote:
| Yup, a must read. Made me wish I'd studied archeology as a pup.
|
| That guy Harari in his best seller Sapiens compares humans to
| bonobos and chimps, without choice. A comparison rooted in
| modern day racism. Contrast this with anthropologists of today,
| like Levi-Strauss whose study of Nambikwara society found no
| fixed roles but seasonally adjusted politics and material
| economies, not some lockstep progression of discreet phases
| from gathering to hunting to farming as presumed by Turgot.
| Studies of Eskimo changing their names, swapping partners
| seasonally or of Lakhota buffalo police, or Cheyenne shifts
| from coercion to dispersion seasonally refute such a
| progression as does the enduring shift of Stonehenge druids
| away from grain farming to hazlenut gathering as primary food
| staple. Human social adaptability and innovation is nonlinear.
|
| Migratory neolithic society was porous, people flowed in and
| out of various societal groups at different seasons, ranging
| across huge distances.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| The Davids (plural) who wrote the article, are also the authors
| of _The Dawn of Everything._
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| YC partner cofounder tlb also has recommended the book
|
| Too bad this got insta-flagged, it's not exactly a political
| text.
| roughly wrote:
| Graeber's entire body of work is fantastic - there's a
| "mythology of progress" that's endemic to modern western
| culture, in which the current moment and way we live are the
| inevitable outcomes and apotheosis of human nature, that it's
| all natural and the way things simply must be. Graeber's books
| are an enjoyable, accessible dismantling of this mythology.
| "Debt: the first 5000 years" is an essential read, and both
| "The Utopia of Rules" and "Bullshit Jobs" are fantastic.
|
| (If you're through Graeber's library and still looking for
| intellectual bricks to throw, James C Scott is a good chaser -
| "Seeing like a State" is a profoundly enlightening book, and
| "Against the Grain" is something of a diet "Dawn of
| Everything". I have heard great things about "The Art of Not
| Being Governed", but it's a bit denser than the other two and I
| haven't made my way though it yet.)
| delichon wrote:
| > Private property first appeared as a concept in sacred contexts
|
| I can't watch a couple of dogs fighting over a bone and believe
| that the concept of private property is a recent or human or even
| mammalian invention.
| lukan wrote:
| This so very much.
|
| But of course you could argue that dogs were badly influenced
| by humans .. but also most other wild animals know the concept
| of territory and fight over it.
|
| But I think was meant with the quote is formalized property.
| Ownership tied to a piece of paper eventually - and this is
| indeed something different at some point.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It varies. Cats are more territorial than dogs for instance.
| lukan wrote:
| Surely it does. Also dogs, like wolves are pack animals. So
| not the single dog, but rather the pack has a territory.
| (And dogs include humans as their pack).
| pilastr wrote:
| Sounds like someone could stand to put down the mouse and go
| read a book.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Are you a dog?
|
| What of the cooperation an ant colony?
|
| People love finding examples that reinforce their biases
| mecsred wrote:
| You ever seen two ant colonies fight?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Moving the goal posts...it was proposed that two agents
| (dogs fighting over a bone) is proof of something I can
| only assume is the position of cooperation being
| "unnatural" when in fact it's not.
|
| This then moves the goal posts to the claim that multi-
| agent internally cooperative affinity groups can't coexist.
| Dogs don't fight if there are plenty of bones to go around.
| Plenty of ant groups coexist in the literature.
|
| So, you're most likely infected with the myth that there's
| scarce resources.
|
| This idea of the humans are inextricably and unambiguously
| violent or in a state where we must compete for scarce
| resources, is a trope that is both wrong and a threat to
| long term peace
| whb101 wrote:
| "this is my cheeseburger"
|
| is different from
|
| "all 100 people in my village need a cheeseburger very badly;
| this piece of paper says that if any of them lay a finger on
| it, they get carted off to jail"
|
| they're more referring to the latter
| pydry wrote:
| Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of
| property by non-governmental legal entities.
|
| I think maybe you're referring to personal property.
| queuebert wrote:
| Maybe the dogs should write their own history books.
| Agentus wrote:
| from a quick glance at the text i think he means legally
| institutionalized private property or equivalent.
|
| but he as an anthropologist has argued in other venues to
| revise historical origins of various concepts like currency and
| debt based on available evidence rather than academic myth.
|
| which is an earliest known origins argument based on available
| archaeological evidence rather than true earliest origins or
| mythologized origins for propagandized explainability. Of
| course this isnt relevant to your dog point, but just to
| contextualize a reoccurring theme of Graeber.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| also worth noting they published papers together with wengrow
| being an archaeologist and taking that perspective. he is
| friendly on twitter if you want to talk to him...
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Leftists (Graeber was an Anarchist) distinguish personal
| property from private property. Personal property are your
| personal effects. Your clothes, your car, your desk, your pen.
| Private property is the ownership of land and, later,
| industrial means of production. Things which have been
| historically used in an allegedly communal context, or worked
| on by communities of people, but their product is privatized
| for the person who provided the capital for the land or
| industrial tools.
|
| I don't agree with this view of economics, but this is
| generally the line of thought among leftist thinkers
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| At least in the book this link summarizes, it looks beyond
| anarchism and isn't written through that lens specifically
|
| There's a new film out I just saw at TIFF by Tsangari who
| produced DOGTOOTH by Yorgos Lanthimos called HARVEST with
| Caleb Landry Jones, anyhow it's a telling of the early days
| of the Inclosure Act, an interesting period of transition,
| performed w anachronistic timelessness
| snapcaster wrote:
| I feel like this is an instance of "common senseism" for lack
| of a better term. You're not really engaging with the concepts
| presented (legally enshrined concepts of private property in a
| capitalist system) and dismissing it with some folksy sounding
| idea. Like others on the thread mentioned, you could pick a
| different arbitrary animal and come up with the complete
| opposite "conclusion"
| analog31 wrote:
| One thing I learned from "the dawn of everything" is that
| societies have had diverse approaches to property over the
| millennia. And I've seen that it varies by country and region,
| even today.
|
| Anecdote: My family went on a walking holiday in England. The
| entire country is crisscrossed by a network of walking paths.
| Many go through private farms. The same thing is rare, or even
| nonexistent, in the US. We were told that although we're
| allowed to use the land, there are certain stipulations, such
| as taking care not to damage the crops or disturb the
| livestock.
|
| Here in the states, my family "owns" the land that our house is
| on, but with a variety of limitations.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Unrelated, but reminded me of the good old Flesh + Blood
| movie[1]. Feel it's one of very few medieval movies that really
| conveyed the grit and grime of the time, at least that I've seen.
| Anyway... NEXT!
|
| [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089153/
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