The Dawn of Everything by David Greaeber and David Wengrow
“Why do we assume that people who have figured out a way for a large population to govern and support itself without temples, palaces, and military fortifications – that is, without overt displays of arrogance, self-abasement and cruelty – are somehow less complex than those who have not?” [290]
In the introduction to this book, it was mentioned that this was to be one of a trilogy of books. As important as this book is, readership may not extend far beyond anthropologists, archeologists, sociologists and evolution nerds. The book is brilliant and replete with evidence to disprove long-held anthropological beliefs of human development as “linear development.” In other words, prevailing wisdom up to now is that, as a species, we went from foraging, to hunter/gathering, to agriculture in a fairly straight line, which latter phase marked the start of the “Agricultural Revolution,” marking the start of civilization with the creation of economic surplus, leading to cities, hierarchies, dynasties and empires. This conventional wisdom is shattered by the authors, with remarkable detail and engrossing stories, some of which are based on extensive research from direct experience, from heretofore ignored or marginalized anthropologists and from voluminous journals of French Jesuits who learned the languages and customs of native-Americans in what is now Canada. There are many more stories with compiled evidence spanning time and the globe. But the work is as dense as it is remarkable and it is easy to get lost in the details. But with patience, the book is well worth the effort.
Besides its anthropological import, this book is an important political treatise for those who distrust all forms of centralized authority, patriarchy and oppressive hierarchical systems, favoring instead and working to promote systems of local control and confederated cooperation, akin to Cooperative Democracy or Anarchism. Early on the authors tease those who would currently identify as anarchists or express sympathy for systems of stateless governments by expressing that those who believe that democratic self-government can only work in small groups, or “bands,” make such pronouncements “not actually based on any kind of scientific evidence.” [11] Prevailing wisdom, according to the authors, is based upon a number of misconceptions, including convenient theories of linear social evolution that the authors describe as a convenient and “single, imperialistic view of history.” [442] Throughout the book, evidence is amassed to demonstrate both that social evolution was not linear but also that history and prehistory is replete with examples of democratic, non-hierarchical societies that were expansive in both geography and (for the time) population. Interestingly, as well, the authors suggest that there is a very real possibility that much of what we assume is exclusive to European Enlightenment philosophies may have found both inspiration and direction from Amerindians, many of whom given the opportunity for exposure (including travel to Europe) were amazed by the disgraceful manner in which Europeans treated their own kind, seeing that so many were poor, abused, exploited, ill-housed, ill fed and generally neglected. Has very much changed?
In stark contrast, even though wars and atrocities were not absent in pre-Columbus America, it was unimaginable that members of an indigenous society would go without adequate shelter, clothing or food. For many, it was equally unimaginable that sovereignty was a necessary condition for social order or that adult members could be forced into doing anything that they did not agree with except through persuasive reasoning and democratic deliberation. There was a pervasive expression for many Amerindian groups of what the authors describe as the three primary freedoms – the freedom to move; the freedom to disobey, and the freedom to arrange or rearrange social ties.
According to the authors, it is precisely these freedoms that generated a system of equality. Reading about the Wendat Federation in Canada and how they had no explicit term to describe equality or inequality, I was reminded of how trailblazing anthropologist Dorothy Lee believed that such concepts are only attainable, not as goals, but as by-products of an otherwise democratic culture. The authors mirror this conclusion when they state that “Equality here is a direct extension of freedom; indeed, is its expression.” This could also explain how Wendat women were considered to have full control over their own bodies, a norm that “scandalized missionaries.” [43] Of course, in our own time the scandalized Jesuits have been replaced by disingenuous politicians and self-righteous hypocrites. As an aside, the authors are also respectful of the role of women over tens of thousands of years, roles that mainstream anthropologists disregard as either insignificant or simply part of a period when our species was warming up in preparation for the next phase of linear social evolution. Consider:
“Instead of some male genius realizing his solitary vision, innovation in Neolithic societies was based on a collective body of knowledge accumulated over centuries, largely by women, in an endless series of apparently humble but in fact enormously significant discoveries…[having] the cumulative effect of reshaping everyday life every bit as profoundly as the automatic loom or lightbulb.” [499]
Throughout, the authors observe how societies tend to engage in what is referred to as “schismogenesis,” which stands for the proposition that groups often define themselves in ways that are purposefully and consciously in opposition to how others organize and conduct themselves. As they explain, this is evidence of “peoples’ tendency to define themselves against one another.” [56] The reason for this, according to the authors, is to carve out a unique identity for a group or sub-group of people. In my work, I have defined culture as the manifestation of our contextual attempts to understand, transform, manipulate, integrate into, and extricate from the environments we share with others. I never considered a cultural tendency that would develop in contradistinction to other groups. And yet, if there is exposure, then those outside groups are also a part of a given environment. And even though the contrast between and among groups was extreme at times, there was still interaction between and among these groups – wars, trade, inter-marriage, cultural exchanges – notwithstanding their cultural differences. This reinforces my belief that identification with discrete groups is necessary for self-actualization and, as opposed to necessarily promoting toxic identity politics, such healthy contextual identification actually forms the basis for being able to productively interact with “others.”
As far as I know, Graeber was an anarchist, and though he spends the entire book demonstrating through anthropological findings, particularly relatively recent ones, that the linear view of social evolution is wrong, he also demonstrates that a stateless society is possible without hierarchies, without domination, without an extra-legal or supra-legal sovereign authority. I was wondering if he would ever get to referencing one of the better-known modern-day anarchists, Murray Bookchin. He finally does half-way through the book.
In that reference the authors explain Bookchin’s theory of the ecology of freedom in a manner that does not seem correct: “The ecology of freedom describes the proclivity of human societies to move (freely) in and out of farming…without surrendering too much of one’s existence to the logical rigors of agriculture; and retain a food web sufficiently broad as to prevent cultivation from becoming a matter of life and death.” [260] I believe it is possible to infer what the authors describe from Bookchin’s theories as an outcome of operating within an ecology of freedom, but Bookchin’s emphasis on freedom has to do more with removing prevailing attitudes and dismantling systems that have enslaved us. By distinguishing us from our respective natural environments and separating us from creative work, and objectifying all that we do, we as workers have become objectivized ourselves. Bookchin makes the case that this is true even under Marxist systems. To quote Bookchin, “Work was thus the revelation as well as realization, a synchronicity of subject and object. Only later was it to bifurcate into a tyranny of subject over object – initially, by reducing human beings to objects themselves.” To be truly free we must have the opportunity, space, and support to truly become ourselves. Chosen work is an important part of this process and should, at least in part, represent an expression of who we are. To be truly free, we must respect the environments we share but also must acknowledge that we are all different and, just as in nature, our diversity makes us stronger, more effective and more interesting. Its recognition and promotion of contextual self-actualization makes us all free. The goal is to strive for a unity in differences, or unity in diversity. For me, the main thesis of Bookchin’s Ecology of Freedom is summed up as a commitment to “traditional societies to usufruct, complementarity, and the irreducible minimum against class society’s claims to property, the sanctity of contract, and adherence to the rule of equivalence.” This main theme of Bookchin’s complements the theories and conclusions expressed by Graeber and Wengrow as well.
The authors’ explicit reference to Bookchin ends there, but there are other positions taken that mirror or at least complement Bookchin’s writings. The Rule of Equivalence, which stands for the proposition that we should earn what we produce (and alternatively, if we do not produce or produce enough we would necessarily starve), is referred to in this book as “systems of equivalence.” The authors’ description of societies that resolve disagreements democratically and co-exist with and rely upon other societies fits well within Bookchin’s system of “Libertarian Municipalism.” In other sections, systems that recognize an equality of unequals are lauded by both the authors here and Bookchin. I am surprised that Bookchin was not relied upon more. But readers may also find themselves mentally referencing other social theorists in the process of reading this book, including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s theories regarding property; Wendell Berry’s admonition against “technological determinism;” Hannah Arendt’s writings on community and power, as well as Dewey’s expansive view of artistic endeavors in all forms of productive work.
A recurring question that the authors ask is why we seem so concerned about the sources of inequality. This is based on prevailing Rousseauian and Hobbesian models of prehistoric humanity existing in the state of nature. The theories are certainly polar opposites, but each model – whether humans were in a continuous state of war of all against all or humans existed in a kind of paradise where even aggression simply required moving to another location – assumes equality. The real question, according to the authors, is not what produced inequality but why we are stuck in the current Western model of Liberal Democracy, with its emphasis on competition, exploitation, profit, constant growth, all-encompassing appropriation, and viewing property as the principal basis for freedom. They pose this question in view of the evidence that for most of our history we have developed complex societies that not only successfully managed other options, but that even varied in form of societal organization based upon what forms complemented living conditions, with some of those conditions being seasonal. We seem stuck in systems – not of cooperation, unity and equality – but of domination. We are stuck and seem to choose only within those systems of domination that are the result of at least two of the three sources of domination – sovereignty, administration and charismatic/heroic leadership. The best the authors seem to come up with is that old ways of thinking die hard and for anthropologists (and for all those who benefit from current arrangements), “the reasons why these ways of thinking remain in place, no matter how many times people point out their incoherence, is precisely because we find it so difficult to imagine history that isn’t teleological – that is, to organize history in a way which does not imply that current arrangements were somehow inevitable.” [449] Think of the end of the Cold War in 1989 when mainstream pundits were pronouncing that we have entered the “end of history.”
If you can tolerate detail and enjoy books that take you to new places, facilitate creative thought and force you to question “conventional wisdom,” I highly recommend this book.