david (w) on history of human civ

david wengrow (feb 2026) – David Wengrow: The History of Human Civilization | Doomscroll

via tweet [https://x.com/richoblation/status/2021463992426955270?s=20]:

David Graeber’s co-collaborator Wingrow keeps his spirit alive. Great interview! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEJ8WAiHRE0&t=1s]

notes/quotes from 2 hour video:

53 min – joshua: on an alt view.. rousseau reminiesent of garden of eden (origins of private property et al)..

54 min – exactly it’s a backlash against the indigenous critique.. a tragic irony.. marx and modes of production was a theory of freedom.. political consciousness.. taken directly from rousseau.. that people in past didn’t have political consciousness.. not conscious of their freedom.. hegel: african people couldn’t understand freedom until went thru trans atlantic slave trade.. idea that human beings coming up with design for life can only happen under capitalist society w free trade.. and that everyone before that just adapting/drifting.. the idea of people consciously choosing/designing/implementing was considered to be an innovation

to me.. still.. nothing to date legit free/diff

57 min – if think about human history in large scale.. obviously nonsense.. people have just created this stuff..t tragic/ironic pt about left wing version of that story.. which ended w self awareness.. realization of proletariat of their own exploitation/liberation.. that pt has dropped off.. and now we get the earlier versions.. no prospect of lib.. except for greek democracy.. that then went dormant until rediscovered in enlightenment

everything to date.. non legit .. ie: black science of people/whales law et al..

need to try self-talk as data via idiosyncratic jargon facil’d by tech as nonjudgmental expo labeling

1:42 – i’m a little wary of intellectualize of lib right.. at root of a lot of what’s going on.. terrible problem for left.. is a lack of introspection/interest in why ordinary working people are voting/supporting .. tendency to think if we can fathom what they really want.. i don’t think vast majority of people care about .. if they realized they’re being drawn in to a center of power..

1:44 – *before resist.. we try to construct genealogy of history.. i think it’s beside the point and counter productive.. i think we need to be thinking about ordinary people who are attracted to these ideas.. ie: living in a rigid class system.. why do people like being slapped around.. why do they like authority.. t **answers not in genealogy.. rather in the home/workplace.. places accessible to people .. not in books/theories.. find them in problems people have in loneliness and friendship.. things that would actually give them the freedom/security to experiment or try other ways of organizing.. t i think that is deliberate.. pushing people into situations of enormous isolation.. along with that the break down of social bonds.. we need much more serious attention to how right wing functions in society

*khan filling the gaps law et al .. **from missing pieces

1:47 – one of most interesting thinkers on this – florio jesi.. father bruno jesi (ardent follower of fascism).. so poor little florio grows up with this legacy.. writes a book – the culture of the right.. intriguing anal of rt wing thought with huge focus on myth.. how do you take fundamental social concepts.. like love et al and turn them into opposites so that they become conduits for oppression.. t

1:48 – these to me are the things we need to understand.. how these structures of violence and hierarchy manage to embed themselves in people’s hearts so they actually feel they’re doing something good.. that’s the level i think these problems need to be understood/addressed.. these issues are just too urgent..t

help\ing ness.. people telling other people what to do.. perpetuating survival triage.. et al

1:50 – research now on 3rd freedom – had idea for book i’m writing here (ny).. took me long time after david died in sudden/shocking way.. before that book was published.. then the book i wrote with david took over my life for about 2 yrs.. a lot of that has been fantastic.. but it’s all obviously also very bitter sweet.. because we should have been having all those convos together.. it took me a while.. if you spent 10 yrs working closely w a person like david graeber.. you don’t just move on from something like that.. he had a really exceptional mind.. most important thinker of our generation.. when you have that level of intellectual intimacy for that long.. it’s like you rent out your brain and they do same for you.. it’s a very specific thing..t it took me a while to figure out what to do next.. doe was meant to be just a beginning.. he insisted.. that book and then 3 more..

beyond the monastic self et al

1:53 – there’s no way w/o him i’m going to embark on something like that.. but i got sabbatical 2 yrs ago.. and didn’t want to wast that time.. and i was here.. had david on my mind because this is where i got to know him.. i decided to do a deep dive into some of his early work.. which i’d read some of it.. and his phd.. and ethno work were all in madagascar.. i realized a lot of his early work was about trauma and memory.. which is not what most people associate with him.. gave me a way to carry this on as a dialogue with his ideas.. also gave me a geographical pt.. madagascar..t i don’t think there’s any mention of madagascar in doe..

madagascar.. madagascar love.. et al

1:56 – so what i’m working on .. a similar structure to doe.. but also then a way of looking at history that we develop together in doe.. that there are kinds of elementary forms of human freedom.. if take one away others change.. 3 forms are: 1\ relocate and receive hospitality at pt of destination 2\ disobey commands – so only way is thru discussion/debate/persuasion 3\ imagine/create alt forms of society.. or move between diff social realities.. the book will explore in a more systematic way.. w whole new range of archeologicals.. so roughly the scope of what i’m working on

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to me..

nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..

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