m of care – nov 7 24
0:03 / 51:53
There Never Was A West! Marcus Rediker discusses David Graeber’s essay!
part of ultimate hidden truth talks
[https://museum.care/events/there-was-never-a-west-dicsussion-with-marcus-rediker/]:
“There Was Never a West”: dicsussion with Marcus Rediker
The second discussion of David Graeber’s essay “There Never Was a West”, led and moderated by Marcus Rediker, in the frame of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group.
In this session, we will be joined by Marcus Rediker, a historian, writer, teacher, and activist.
View the full program of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group here.
Marcus Rediker is a distinguished professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh. His “histories from below” have won numerous awards and been translated into nineteen languages worldwide. He is the author of a dozen books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (with Peter Linebaugh) and The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007), which won the George Washington Book Prize. He produced a prize-winning documentary film, Ghosts of Amistad (2014), directed by Tony Buba, and a prize-winning play, The Return of Benjamin Lay, co-written with Naomi Wallace. He recently completed a book about escaping slavery by sea in antebellum America, which will be published by Viking Penguin in the spring of 2025.
notes/quotes from meeting:
65 participants
5 arguments of essay: 1\ false that democracy a western concept .. western civ incoherent 2\ demo/egal processes of dm occur everywhere .. not just in west 3\ in 19-20th cents elites created own self serving geneologies of democracy linked to coercive mechs of state.. these are not demo.. but have demo elements.. crucial distinctions.. demo w or w/o coercion 4\ contemp crisis of demo is crisis of state 5\ most demo practices emerge from global/social movements.. rep future of the concept.. w/o them dem will not be renewed.. has to happen from bottom up..
essay holds up very well after 17 yrs.. new research just supports essay.. he has deep/broad intellect, humor, relationship w reader, very sharp/cutting polemical skills, lost art.. he was really good at it.. new idea is worth a forceful exaggeration
ie of humor: defn of civ.. ‘people reading one another’s books’.. that makes idea of civ sound ridiculous.. david is very charming companion any intellectual voyage.. ideas in this essagy emerge in full force in dawn and pirates
offer a new genealogy of demo.. reclaim concept for people who created it.. by de linking demo from w civ.. rather from below and the spaces in between from indigenous, frontiers, ships at sea
‘demo practice emerge in which communities manage own affairs outside perview of state..
pirate ship ‘perfect intercultural space of experiment’
motley crew/humanity very central to his vision
makers of w civ not only sanitized but nationalized own history refusing to acknowledge connections ot rest of world.. david said histories very entangled
david’s critique of .. the western gaze.. that individualizing eye cannot comprehend practices of people outside europe.. but did reduce them to objects of violence/domination
neither demo or equality will ever come from above.. they may grant rights under fierce pressure.. but never as a gift.. must come from below because they are checks on ruling class power
3 criticisms.. 1\ missing from analysis .. history of capitalism.. we need that concept.. was in this context that demo originally formed 2\ don’t entirely agree that never was a west.. core is not demo.. but rather far reaching practices.. violent practices.. of global capitalism.. so i’d say concept of violence is under played in this piece .. need more history from below.. radical demo has been my focus.. the levelers, diggers, ranters, seekers, quakers.. all crucial to alt genealogy of demo.. most people still don’t know these groups advanced demo ideas.. fem, war, et al.. far ahead of their time.. (17th cent).. had huge influence.. ie: w john locke.. but then these thinkers basically erased from history.. until christopher hill wrote: the world turned upside down 1972.. book showed they need to be taken seriously.. important to genealogy of demo
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_Turned_Upside_Down.html?id=J1BtQgAACAAJ
happened from below but not necessarily from spaces between
3\ don’t think david says enough about racial dimensions.. martin banal: black athena.. all about w europeans systematically removed all african influences on ancient world.. gift of superior race to rest of world
so 1\ history from above 2\ from below 3\ racial demo
not accidental that a lot of rad experiments took place at sea.. hardest place to control.. at that time don’t have tech to control people at sea and not under control of state..
marooned communities.. in mtn terrain.. mtns like oceans.. we need a geographical conception of freedom/demo/equality.. these autonomous spaces really important
pirates suppressed in 1720s.. by 1740 massive riots in n american cities.. over impressment of sailors into service.. a kind of slavery.. some began to org crowds to fight this.. samuel adams.. in boston when battles in streets happening.. ‘these sailors are defending the rights of demo in the streets.. of all people’.. radical channel of ‘rights of human beings’.. what jefferson draws on in writing declaration of independence
stas: necessary to scare people away from demo.. agora.. picture of a purge.. demo shown in form people wouldn’t want to pursue..
crucial pt.. forces of demo presented as a monster.. many headed hydra.. to try to marginalize/rationalize punishment of rebellious people.. the pirate is one example.. a real monster to the authorities.. because dared to live in demo/egal way.. funny twist.. in popular culture.. depicted as missing hand/hook, leg/pegleg, eye/patch, et al.. sailors people constantly maimed.. so even in stereotype there’s a truth.. that history of violence.. so this idea of scaring people from practices of demo is real and very old tactic
these autonomous spaces w all new techs.. drones et al.. harder/harder to find.. authorities know that and want to crush ie’s of people who live in new/challenging ways..
when you org people to work to do work of state.. they can org selves to do something else.. totally unauthorized cooperation.. solidarity is never automatic/structured.. has to be built/reproduced.. all highly situational based on what people think they can do
hydrarchy – Hydrarchy, is the organizational structure of a ship, or the ability for individual(s) to gain power over land by ruling through the instrument of water, .civ not just about reading pamphlets.. ideas are in heads.. we have to think more about how radical ideas circulated in ways not documented
let me just say – keep spirit of david graeber alive
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be you. 