graeber/wengrow back & forth law

what makes us humans in that modern sense.. is not that we are ritual or pragmatic (hierarchical or non).. but that we

move back and forth between the two..

that’s what creates self conscious beings.. aware of diff social possibilities.

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from David Graeber and David Wengrow‘s human history [https://vimeo.com/145285143]:

25 min – if you accept the idea that a society can morph in political arrangements.. then how can you actually have a scheme like band, tribe, chief, state, .. when the same population/people can take on defining attributes of all these diff categories at diff times of year..t... ie: trying to distinguish complex hunter gatherers from simple ones

on seasonal ness

53 min – it’s only in certain moments that that hierarchy actually appears.. and sometimes exactly the opposite.. so which is it.. is ritual subversive or anti subversive.. you can’t tell

54 min – what makes us humans in that modern sense.. is not that we are ritual or pragmatic.. but that we *move back and forth between the two.. that’s what creates self conscious beings.. aware of diff social possibilities..t.. we still have this idea that at some point humans were just naive/lost in how to be.. couldn’t possibly imagine another way of existence.. nature/society was the same thing..  and gradually we worked our way into this self consciousness or our possibilities.. and what we’re suggesting is no.. actually.. in fact.. people used to be more able to play around w social possibilities.. somehow we got stuck in a hierarchical rut.. they used to set it up and rip it down.. and one day they didn’t rip it down and they forgot they could rip it down and here we are.. so the idea is how we get back to that cycle again..t

imagining the possibilities with a mech/infra to facil *iterations of that cycling (as limit approaches both ends of infinity – ginorm/small). .everyday.. zoom dancing

*ie: art/ists vs bot/ists ness

whole idea resonating/explanatory with/to this bit from myth of machine – p 4:
our predecessor mistakenly coupled their particular mode of *mechanical progress w an unjustifiable sense of increasing moral superiority
bot ist art ist entire cleanerest

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@GhostsSeeHumans A deeply underrated thinker (in the west). But David Graeber’s anthropological work suggests our ancestors experimented with modes of organization, sometimes switching between hierarchies & egalitarianism seasonally. That’s my ideal—the ability to switch and experiment as we wish
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/AndyinDC1/status/1291515372236091394

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human history:

graeber/wengrow back & forth law

graeber/wengrow never stupid law

graeber/wengrow top down law

rethinking cities

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laws\ish
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