A review of “The Wisdom of Kandiaronk, The Indigenous Critique, the Myth of Progress and the Birth of the Left” from David Graeber & David Wengrow’s upcoming book The Dawn of Everything (and which in the book turned out to be Chapter 2: “Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of Progress”)
In this chapter Graeber & Wengrow argue that:
The European Enlightenment was heavily influenced by Native American critiques of European culture.
That European intellectuals reacted against this by developing the theory of “stages of human progress” from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to pastoralists to farmers to market civilization.
That Jean-Jacques Rousseau synthesized the American critique and the stages of progress theory into a seemingly egalitarian critique of European social hierarchies which resigns to accept hierarchy as the price of civilization.
That this synthesis was the birth of the “intellectual left”.
That the concept of human equality has no meaning and should be discarded.
Graeber & Wengrow 2019, "La Sagesse de Kandiaronk, la critique indigène, la mythe du progrès et la naissance de la gauche", chapter from The Dawn of Everything (2021), published in French in Journal du MAUSS [ Ссылка ]
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0:00 why review/critique this book?
1:52 culture shock: the indigenous critique of european society
3:17 what is political hierarchy?
4:20 economic hierarchy is political hierarchy
5:39 functions of political hierarchy
6:48 hierarchy vs. equality / right vs. left / autocracy vs. democracy
7:37 when hierarchy meets equality
10:24 european and native american reactions to eachothers’ societies
13:24 americans today would relate to the 17thC native americans more than to their european ancestors
14:02 the indigenous critique and the enlightenment
15:08 kandiaronk’s critique of european society
18:13 the european reaction: stages of history theory
19:36 turgot: liberty and equality as backwardness and poverty
20:22 origin of cold war ideology: economic hierarchy or political tyranny
21:48 rousseau’s supposed synthesis? nah.
25:17 rousseau’s inability to imagine a free and equal society
27:48 native american vs. european concepts of liberty
29:50 rousseau’s cop-out critique of hierarchy as the foundation of the “intellectual left”
31:39 egalitarian human origins thesis as a justification for current hierarchies? NOPE.
33:34 conclusion: graeber & wengrow’s ill-conceived tirade against equality
35:40 conclusion full text
43:38 next time / seeya!
