m of care – apr 14
karaoke doe [https://museum.care/events/karaoke-reading-group-theme-dawn-of-everything/]
Announcing the next Karaoke reading group on The Dawn of Everything on the 14th of April at 8pm (London time). This will be the festive finale to mark the end of the twelve reading group sessions facilitated by Steve—also on the same book.
notes/quotes from meeting:
nika: picking out videos from ones proposed on david graeber dot org
vassily: welcome to 3rd karaoke reading – 4 reading
steve: on simplification from ch 1.. ‘one gets the sense that indigenous life was more interesting than life in a western town.. limits on our imagination.. social theory is where we pretend .. just one thing going on.. one must simplify the world to discover something new about it.. problem is .. once discovery made.. we continue to simplify.. nothing justifies simplification of human.. the result is to impoverish our sense of possibility’
steve: as a trained soc sci.. i was reduced to nothing but a soc sci.. i absolutely lost sense of all that was ridiculous.. and i don’t want that to happen again.. ever..
nika: thanks to steve for facil ing doe..
steve: ontology is problematic when placed in a fixed notion of being.. need: becoming – care
simona: to make sense of reality we have to make cartoons.. and trouble when we forget we cut them out.. on the elephant story.. each describes a part as if it’s the whole.. important thing is not to forget that there is an elephant.. and not forget to communicate..
simona: reinventing ourselves from ch 1 & 12.. quite connected w what steven read.. ‘it’s bizarre to imagine that say during 10 000 yrs .. ultimate question is not our access to material resources.. but our capacity to contribute w how to live together.. what ultimately matters is if we can discover the freedoms that made us in the first place.. what if we treat people from beginning as imaginative who deserve to be treated as such.. and ask how we became stuck so much that we can rearrange.. on play.. social experimentation/possibilities.. carnivals as departures from the everyday order.. most of us find it difficult to imagine wha a diff econ order would be like.. ‘
simona: 1st 2 paras from 1st ch.. last one from the conclusion of book.. but i think they are strongly connected.. both talk about how did we get stuck and being stuck is about not being able to imagine an experiment w diff forms of self org.. and the role of play in it.. so stuck because we believe we are stuck.. we believe there is no alt.. we can’t see other possibilities because we’ve never experienced them.. we don’t believe we can experiment.. can’t collectively imagine/play w possibilities..
simona: i think the text steven chose and mine are strongly connected is because we are stuck in a cartoon of what we (and ancestors) are stuck in .. i wanted to add passage about why soc sci can’t explain how we dance.. for me this is the core of the book and what is important for me in david’s message
nika: i was also thinking the idea of rituals.. to experiment is really important
nika: the role of warfare from ch 12.. ‘the role of warfare warrants further discussion here because violence is often the route by which forms of play take on more permanent features.. play kings cease to be play kings when they start killing people.. same w warfare vs contest.. no reason to assume war has always existed.. important to have drugs or ? to convince people to kill..’
nika: i was reading that because of our karoucki and david’s what would they say about war.. and also therapeutical for me to the current war
nika: david’s project on war.. we are witnessing this horrible war right now.. but to tell the truth the war was always there.. palestine.. rojava.. so the state are the structures producing.. so .. this was a very important mission piece of what he (david) was talking about.. pirates and ?..
nika: the other thing about war.. week before david died.. military conflict.. and david was pointing out that both sides had only sticks/stones.. no weapons.. almost a ritualistic exercise.. on ‘capitalism is bad way of org communism’.. might say.. war is bad way to org games/rituals
hasan syed: on cricket matches resolving tensions..
mark: wendat v french from ch 12.. ‘in certain ways wendat and iroquoian societies in general around that time were extraordinarily war like.. diff – all wendat wars were mourning wars.. even women/children took part.. yet refused to spank children.. punish thieves.. renowned for solving problems thru calm/reasonable debate.. households in opp terms..’
mark: brought home to me the whole book.. like a helix.. after entire book of ie’s.. all this background.. can’t help but feel that there’s so much we can do .. that we can be creative about.. this mystery of how they contained the violence .. a mystery.. interp’s about what these various things means.. just very inspiring
vassily: in value.. dream economies.. might be a good reading group
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
hasan (reading vassily’s passage): kim from ch 11 .. ‘kim kardashian flonting wealth/violence.. 3 basis of domination/power’
vassily: to remind us you can write a very serious book and still say.. ‘kim kardashian’ ness
nika: i love this ie .. david used it a lot in diff lectures..
vassily: he actually talked about that in his value course..
nika: yeah.. he was.. the cost is if people want to steal it.. so thieves part of the whole productive system.. really cool
hasan: makes me think of current govt.. on B being control of info.. but i think a lot has been interrupted by internet.. weakened monopoly on stats/narratives.. now people can switch on channel they tend to agree on.. groups they want to id with.. state still has hard power but lost some soft power..
simona: i’m reading on kings now.. we all know the 3 forms of domination ie’d by kim kardashian.. info, charisma, force.. on kings deals w sovereignty which is critical.. when we talk of war it’s not simple violence.. it’s also specific violence between 2 parties.. and in our times.. this is the state.. war is strictly connected w state/sovereignty.. founded on property
nika: ie: unkrain on nation ness.. and having right passport.. ie: if have russian passport you’re part of this guilty party.. the fact that you possess this piece of paper make you on two sides.. so ridiculous.. because before ww1.. no passports.. and when they intro’d them.. they said .. only temp.. there was no concept that people could prevent you to move.. the sate is growing.. constituting more rules/conditions.. and we comply.. we think it’s normal/ok..
simona: the first action that defines sovereignty.. is the defn of enemy.. and that the society id’s w the state.. so we believe there is someone like an italian or a russian
hasan: on canadian trucker protests.. and clamping down on them.. people alarmed how state was able to declare emergency.. showed more state overage.. implement as temp.. but stick around.. ie: 9/11 changed travel.. B spreads its tentacles and becomes the norm.. and we just tend to accept it and carry on.. as if it’s water for fish
nika: we should keep doing our carnivals every yr in memory of david.. that there are other ways to arrange and be free
simona: this imaginative society that would be a nation has taken the place of community.. in debt.. ch 11.. description of process in which community agreements sub’d by laws/law enforcement et al.. and how people avoided legal constructs and debts.. just because it was too violent.. and slowly community rules/relationships/agreements were replaced by police and law enforcement.. i would like to read these pages for next reading group because it’s really terrible.. the process described there.. this is the process of what we now know as state.. i think it’s really connected.. all this property et al that takes place of relationships and state that takes place of community
hasan: on shows.. ie: fargo.. battle w state.. in all these places.. areas where communities and state clash.. states enforcements are at margins.. so diff social hierarchies that challenge state.. ie: n area of pakistan.. doesn’t have that power.. community consensus supersedes power structure.. one trying to maintain independence and other trying to structure.. maintain order
simona: if we weren’t able to imagine politics outside of state.. if we look at borders.. ie: africa and usa.. they are abstract.. lines.. the state is new and superimposed on diff realities.. it’s a disaster when it happens
siddiqi border law et al
hasan: in my recent travels.. pakistan.. the langue signals narrative on which side is free which one is occupied.. but one person said ‘this part is occupied by pakistani army.. that part by indian.. so same people occupied by 2 diff forces’.. these narratives.. the state is at its core.. the entity contesting these arbitrary barriers.. interestingly these barriers don’t mean much for capital but the increasingly mean much for people
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be you. 