m of care – mar 3

on david graeber and david wengrow‘s dawn of everything (book).. ch 11 -full circle (441-493)

notes/quotes:

steve: the book is a story about a myth that once they tell the history of that myth.. they can go back and tell new history that is beginning to be written.. this ch alone for historians of global history.. it offers something that completely forces very social scientist to rethink assumptions they started from.. this ch alone in hands of people who think they know history.. every page challenges me to think in a way where you are constructing epistemologies based on evidence.. but aware of framework itself.. as the authors say.. the blinkers have been removed.. i want this ch in particular to get in the hands of as many teachers of history at any level.. it fundamentally forces us to rethink the idea of modernity but also the idea of a time scale.. forces us to rethink these categories

ugh – wish it would force us to let go of any form of m\a\p.. ie: teaching/people telling other people what to do. . et al

steve: one question.. i wonder what then isn’t inevitable.. ie: is creative destruction inevitable.. don’t know if authors are saying yes.. but once they write this history that is free of the blinkers.. it does tell story of creative destructions.. these are times i wonder what sorts of insights david would be sharing

not deep enough blinkers.. need to go history ness less..

graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al

again (from my doe page) – perhaps biggest takeaway for me.. no need to call out.. find holes.. delete history.. just diff sides of elephant.. but.. (to me).. elephant is in sea world – so.. focusing/talking on that past .. esp now (pandemic, ukraine, et al).. is a distraction to legit living/being a nother way.. when we have the means now for 8b people to leap

michael asking for details.. mark giving some from
mark: on translating aztec knowledge into managerial science as key factor.. otherwise wouldn’t be able to succeed
steve: yeah.. mind blowing.. for me it’s an entirely new history in those pages.. showing specificity of decisions made.. able to include questions about arrest of indigenous authorities having an importance in a larger global history.. written for first time right here.. before this book i didn’t know of kondiaronk.. i honestly didn’t know that this level of ethno detail was possible.. so going to be tough for me to retell that history.. i didn’t do a lot of highlight.. because every sentence was like.. what’s happening here.. it was like.. i know nothing about that period..
steve: things that stood out to me.. dream anal.. occult ritual as esoteric knowledge and how those have gone together.. it even upturned our notions of freud.. he can’t even take credit for dream anal.. how that’s going to fly in the academy i don’t know..
steve: i had been taught traditionally.. by day i read history.. and as i was reading i’ve had to deal w how i teach.. not only narrative disrupted.. but what constitutes an epistemology.. how we make sense of limits of what we can know.. it’s made every day difficult.. because students haven’t read this book.. everyday i’m trying to make sense of this while getting paid to teach it..

yeah that huge.. we can know nothing really

simona: i’ve always had an issue w history.. and i was upset w idea that you cannot make history w what if.. i said .. if you can’t make hypothesis and ask self what if things had gone in another way.. you cannot make sense of what happened.. and actually the way we make history is theoretical w/o being aware of it.. and as a result what happens appears to be inevitable.. how can prove not inevitable .. thru american experience that took a totally diff path.. because they had no money..

huge.. history ness.. research ness.. intellect ness.. as lit & num as colonialism et al.. locking us in to stuck ness

simona: ie: here we see hierarchy is not inevitable..

yeah again.. to me that’s my takeaway.. just showing nothing is legit in history to date.. all from whales in sea world

sounds like murray bookchin in ie: toward an eco society et al.. sans hierachrcy

need: means to undo our hierarchical listening

simona: (reading p 482) ‘certain freedoms taken for granted for those who haven’t been trained into obedience which is most everyone reading this’

yeah that.. we’re all whales.. to me the good of this book is to wake us up from that.. not to try to figure history/future out

graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al

simona: on how important to cross disciplines.. and the hyper specialization of modernism.. people take things for granted.. something that strikes me is how any individual point of the book.. and other david’s books.. is something that is taken for granted in individual disciplines.. ie: reaction of my econ husband to issue of myth of barter.. he said.. nobody believes in this way does david take this much to disprove something nobody believes in.. same thought i had w ch 10 on state.. but when you cross over disciplines it sees what you can imply..
nika: for me.. much easier to move slow steps.. difficult to comment.. i would just start from beginning and ask.. how we lost this freedom to withdraw and to leave.. and how structures of civ was built on that..

i think that has to do w what simona said.. we grew up in obedience/sea world.. supposed to’s of school/work

hari rat park law et al.. always been lost really.. never been legit free

few days later reading/notes from murray bookchin‘s toward an eco society:

79
to the degree that dread replaces spontaneous intercourse and its degradation into courtesy.. panic unites normally alienated people of same area and status of fears against those who are sequentially more different and more removed from the familiar conditions of their lives.. ie: ghetto ness and strangers.. the city, once the refuge of the stranger from archaic parochialism.. is now the primary source of estrangement.. ghetto boundaries comprise the unseen internal walls w/in the city

like m of care – mar 3.. asking when we lost the freedom to leave.. because no more hosting.. this is all counter from what i get from dawn of everything (book).. ie: no origins.. so ie of stranger origin here.. not original.. when ie: women/slaves were strangers/estranged.. et al

back to zoom mtg notes:

simona: i can’t guarantee this is in ch 11.. but idea from david.. ‘the state as B, charism, violence.. are falling apart.. we are living under global B rather than states’.. so i was thinking of blocking the russian accts outside russia and michael hudson wrote interesting article about it.. about the way usa is able to make others pay for their debt and about how nato ness is a move against europe.. against trade/connections between europe/russia/china.. michael says as attempt to create 2 worlds.. i think this will be a boomerang.. but what’s interesting in this frame is that this war .. just as policies about vaccines during covid.. our B of violence is not the state as we knew it.. as monopoly of force and enforcing rules thru threat of violence.. it is administrative
steve: i think it’s managerial feudalism

managerial feudalism

simona: yeah.. it is .. it’s that you don’t hit citizens by beating on head as david would say but by blocking bank accts.. really time shifting event.. an enormous change in politics.. in a sense it’s biopolitics.. because what was violence becomes admin..
nika: but isn’t it always backed up by real violence.. hidden.. but we know if don’t pay.. go to prison.. so i don’t think that big of diff.. but very interesting what you were talking about global B.. whole world acting unilateral during covid and quickly able to unfold global system to control movements.. no way you can go away.. anymore.. overall same rules.. so that’s the world we live in

or is it that before was just some of us couldn’t move.. and now.. affects almost all of us.. so we notice it

michael: on having to go back to the past and tell story as if future wasn’t inevitable.. i would argue that we don’t know what happened in past and need a freedom to tell the story.. only thing we can do is compare as experiment.. not so much if scale gets too big.. not so much if we get bigger and escape.. ie: where can i escape capitalism.. a lot of this book is cheerful ‘could have been otherwise.. look it was otherwise.. about what you choose’.. i’m wondering is there still an escape.. does world become smaller when not threatening w swords but with nuclear weapons..
[syed in chat – ‘the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easilly make differently’]

yeah that

graeber make it diff law

a social theory of action where surprises/unpredictability are the basis of humanity – graeber unpredictability/surprise law

syed: on being more aware of other people’s existence.. because conscious of other societies/histories/ie’s .. we can choose other paths

but even that’s limiting.. we need to get/set us all legit free.. so we can let go of choosing-ness.. ie: curiosity over decision making.. because decision making is unmooring us

syed: on covid as ie where everyone can agree on something.. like vaccine.. so that everyone can get over it.. on issues that are global in nature

public consensus always oppresses someone(s)

nika: i like this idea of developing these narratives.. and how pirates challenge that.. on creating autonomous zones w alt stories.. looks like only way to go now
steve: in intro they say.. best we can hope for is to find some place in cracks of global B.. structure of violence.. where we can hide the best w like minded people.. that’s the best we can hope for according to intro
simona: we beat this global B once.. david stressed many times.. ie: the imf.. it’s in the interest of the power to let us forget our victories.. it’s important for us to remember that this is possible.. this is a never ending fight.. but victories are possible..
simona: i wanted to discuss the idea of globalization.. it’s not new.. ie: there are movements of history that happen almost together in the axial age.. this is something we can see even in our days.. plenty of fights all over world.. i think maybe europe and usa are only places revolts aren’t happening.. and i think one thing pirates show.. is that as soon as you remove violence and top/down control.. people start self org ing and inventing possible ways to live together.. what they describe at the end of the ch.. continuous discussion in conflict and org..
simona: pandemics can’t be addressed locally.. let’s see what happened w states dealing w pandemics.. in italy/europe.. it was disaster.. the result of globalization was that rich countries got all the vaccines.. this sin’t something you can solve by just having rich europeans vaxed.. (authorities) saying covid was ie of something you can’t address at local level.. same w global warming.. instead.. self org at lower level would have led to making better decisions about how to stop/slow virus thru right choices at local level.. what happening in italy.. but i’m sure all over world.. authorities had to guarantee that people who went to work .. authorities had to pretend they were doing something against virus to get those people to work.. there were so many decisions that could have been more efficient/useful if taken at local/fed level.. the most important what if to ask ourselves is .. what if there is no authority.. what would happen.. let’s now underestimate the power of self org.. i’m just being optimistic