david (w) on history
Everything We Think We Know About Early Human History is Wrong | David Wengrow on Downstream
via simona ferlini fb share/recommend
david wengrow.. david graeber.. dawn of everything (book).. history ness.. david (w) on human history.. et al
notes/quotes from 75 min video:
9 min – doe is trying undo conceptual damage.. t
imagine deeper.. imagine a means to undo our hierarchical listening everyday.. starting today.. for everyone
12 min – means you have to rethink scale.. you think you start with small groups.. and it’s almost the opposite..
or maybe neither..
15 min – on levi strauss.. and 2 kinds of science.. in labs (manufactured) and out in world (applied)..
19 min – if people have been able to make decisions at that scale.. why do we struggle so much now.. t
perhaps more about the focus of decision making.. (ie: decision making is unmooring us law).. perhaps what we need is a focus on (a listen to) curiosity over decision making
21 min – on political imagination.. which were radical/generative of their time.. but why should we still be asking (those) questions.. when we’ve got all this other info/evidence.. why are we asking the same questions
maybe they weren’t.. maybe asking questions (rather than being free enough to just be curios about the day) is a means to perpetuate same song ness
23 min – it’s ok to study it (bad history).. as long as you understand what it is.. very speculative.. ‘do not take as history.. rather .. a thought experiment’.. projected as laws of truth.. that’s what got david and i motivated.. to liberate some of this extraordinary body of knowledge from these siloed context.. get it out from behind paywalled journals.. and.. it looks nothing like the story (we’ve learned)
37 min – (on the indigenous critique – what you say is it went both ways) isn’t it odd that we even have to make that point? what’s the other implication.. that these people were living in utterly diff mode of reality.. which can’t be true.. via intense interaction.. there is a great resistance that along with those substances came ideas.. all we’re trying to argue in a way.. partially about democracy and freedom.. which europeans attributed to americans.. were actually theirs.. i think there is something disempowering about the idea that notions of freedom do not come from the oppressed/colonized.. but has something to do w ancient greece.. in the colonizer.. that is disempowering and emancipatory.. about how to free oneself..
1:11 – can’t always prove definitive opp.. but can poke holes.. so that it starts to wobble.. wobbling opens up possibilities..
1:13 – overwhelming has been the creative response.. musicians, artists, filmmakers.. ie: wrote a song called doe.. performed at human rights for women in iran.. that’s incredible to me and a huge tribute to david.. he had that incredible capacity to take obscure concepts and write about it in a way to touch people and make them want to create
1:15 – on david tweeting about finishing doe.. and ‘brain is bruised’.. ne was really looking forward to this book.. he couldn’t wait to get out and talk about it.. so very painful.. the only think i can hold onto.. is that he’d want me to be out there trying to get the book across as well as i’m capable of
also found this:
A little Sunday poem for my absent friend.
It’s called:
‘You like to think, . . . but you’re wrong’
(or #TheDawnOfEverything in 12 short movements)
For @davidgraeber https://t.co/K1ttpOEw6P
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/davidwengrow/status/1315225444896043008
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be you. 