Hi John, Thanks for putting this here. I read it when it came out in Compact (I had to buy a sub for that but the promo only cost $3, didn't care for Compact otherwise). I was both happy and sad to read it. Sad for the obvious reasons. Happy because it appeared you had drawn a lesson from Graeber that was very important also for me. In my understanding of the article, a key lesson that Graeber taught us is that dialog is the means and practice of change for those interested in his conception of anarchist politics.
When I read Dawn of Everything I felt it had finally answered two problems I've struggled with for nearly 40 years: how to scale a more free society? and what is the anarchist's theory of change, i.e. how do we get from here to there given that most people don't want to live in anarchy? Dialog is involved in answering the first and is the foundation of the answer to the second. Another way of saying this that has become a slogan for me is: philosophy is too important to leave it to academics.
Btw, we met once at a The Baffler event in Cambridge or Somerville at which Joanne McNeil gave a talk and Chomsky was in conversation with someone. I won a bunch of The Baffler back issues in a raffel that really helped fill out my collection, which is complete from 10 to 58 except for 18, the only one with a Taibbi article in it.
I was The Baffler that introduced me to Graeber and I am very grateful for that.
John, you remind me why I love David Graeber. So many memorable quotes! I especially liked “An ‘opinion’ is what you have when you don’t have any power.”
You're right in your assessment, however, with all that I've read of his work, I never read Lost People. Your quotes on words as magic are very pertinent. Ironically, if that's the right word, it's because the technique of magic words has been used by the Shemitic shamans to rule over us for 3500 yrs, if not the whole 5000 since debt replaced morality.
So when David says that British society is anti-Semitic, I would argue it's ruled by those who see their divine right handed down from Noah to Shem to Abraham to Jacob/ Israel. To repudiate the right of some to rule over others has to go back to its inception in the Torah.
I did my damndest to get my fan mail from some flounder to David! Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun, wanted me to interview David. I wrote up questions I thought would hook him in. But Sy had stepped back and let the woke patrol run The Sun, who said they'd given it to one of their established interviewers. It never happened.
I wrote to his university email, to his publicist, and even sent a copy of my book--with its dedication including him--to his university mailbox during a one-night stayover in Manchester. That would have been 2019, the year of his wedding to Nika. I never heard back.
When a friend called to tell me news of his death, I felt that opportunity was gone forever. But as it settled in, my feeling changed. Unlike you, John, I had only ever talked to David in my head. But many of my best arguments were formed in those conversations! My whole economic plan was developed in dialogue with him. Now, he felt more accessible. I didn't need to share him with anyone. He was always present and, I'm certain, got my points ;-)
I don't know if I'd say David was my biggest influence because that implies a passive state--a river that changes its course because of a stream. I'd say David was my biggest confluence of two rivers running together. And given the magic of words and the fluid nature of reality, who knows if I confluenced him too?
Here are some of the episodes I've done on his and David Wengrow's ideas, including the first section of my book that draws on Debt:
"In San Francisco, we (John Summers + DG) sat down with the libertarian financier Peter Thiel, the eco-feminist Starhawk, and the heterodox technologist Jaron Lanier to bat around neuroscience and dreaming. Later the same year, David took up my offer to put him in conversation with Thiel."
Man... to be a fly on the wall in that room... I was always curious about how the famous debate between Thiel and Graeber came to be...
Hi John. To demonstrate: this is a comment to one of your Substack "blog" articles. I'm not going to select the option "Also share to Notes" (i.e. he Substack version of Twitter).
Hi John, Thanks for putting this here. I read it when it came out in Compact (I had to buy a sub for that but the promo only cost $3, didn't care for Compact otherwise). I was both happy and sad to read it. Sad for the obvious reasons. Happy because it appeared you had drawn a lesson from Graeber that was very important also for me. In my understanding of the article, a key lesson that Graeber taught us is that dialog is the means and practice of change for those interested in his conception of anarchist politics.
When I read Dawn of Everything I felt it had finally answered two problems I've struggled with for nearly 40 years: how to scale a more free society? and what is the anarchist's theory of change, i.e. how do we get from here to there given that most people don't want to live in anarchy? Dialog is involved in answering the first and is the foundation of the answer to the second. Another way of saying this that has become a slogan for me is: philosophy is too important to leave it to academics.
Btw, we met once at a The Baffler event in Cambridge or Somerville at which Joanne McNeil gave a talk and Chomsky was in conversation with someone. I won a bunch of The Baffler back issues in a raffel that really helped fill out my collection, which is complete from 10 to 58 except for 18, the only one with a Taibbi article in it.
I was The Baffler that introduced me to Graeber and I am very grateful for that.
John, you remind me why I love David Graeber. So many memorable quotes! I especially liked “An ‘opinion’ is what you have when you don’t have any power.”
You're right in your assessment, however, with all that I've read of his work, I never read Lost People. Your quotes on words as magic are very pertinent. Ironically, if that's the right word, it's because the technique of magic words has been used by the Shemitic shamans to rule over us for 3500 yrs, if not the whole 5000 since debt replaced morality.
So when David says that British society is anti-Semitic, I would argue it's ruled by those who see their divine right handed down from Noah to Shem to Abraham to Jacob/ Israel. To repudiate the right of some to rule over others has to go back to its inception in the Torah.
I did my damndest to get my fan mail from some flounder to David! Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun, wanted me to interview David. I wrote up questions I thought would hook him in. But Sy had stepped back and let the woke patrol run The Sun, who said they'd given it to one of their established interviewers. It never happened.
I wrote to his university email, to his publicist, and even sent a copy of my book--with its dedication including him--to his university mailbox during a one-night stayover in Manchester. That would have been 2019, the year of his wedding to Nika. I never heard back.
When a friend called to tell me news of his death, I felt that opportunity was gone forever. But as it settled in, my feeling changed. Unlike you, John, I had only ever talked to David in my head. But many of my best arguments were formed in those conversations! My whole economic plan was developed in dialogue with him. Now, he felt more accessible. I didn't need to share him with anyone. He was always present and, I'm certain, got my points ;-)
I don't know if I'd say David was my biggest influence because that implies a passive state--a river that changes its course because of a stream. I'd say David was my biggest confluence of two rivers running together. And given the magic of words and the fluid nature of reality, who knows if I confluenced him too?
Here are some of the episodes I've done on his and David Wengrow's ideas, including the first section of my book that draws on Debt:
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/section-one-pieces-of-slave
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/muskrat-love-and-anarchy
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/when-mothers-ran-the-world
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/sex-and-power-battle-of-the-daves
Thanks for this, John!
This is interesting:
"In San Francisco, we (John Summers + DG) sat down with the libertarian financier Peter Thiel, the eco-feminist Starhawk, and the heterodox technologist Jaron Lanier to bat around neuroscience and dreaming. Later the same year, David took up my offer to put him in conversation with Thiel."
Man... to be a fly on the wall in that room... I was always curious about how the famous debate between Thiel and Graeber came to be...
I'm cure I'm not alone!
Hi John. To demonstrate: this is a comment to one of your Substack "blog" articles. I'm not going to select the option "Also share to Notes" (i.e. he Substack version of Twitter).
Comments on articles are threaded.