I had the honour of reading an advance copy of David Graeber and @DavidWengrow’s new book “The Dawn of Everything”. It is masterful and exhilarating – a much-needed update to our story of human civilization. It is also politically liberating: 
For ages we have been told that if we want to create an egalitarian society the only option is to wind back time and return to living in small forager bands. After all, hierarchy emerged with the rise of complex societies. It is a necessary feature of civilization. Right?
Not so. Graeber and Wengrow show that human history is full of complex, multicultural societies – even cities with big public works – that show no evidence of kings and palaces and coercive power.
There is no uni-directional social evolution. In fact, many societies consciously changed their social structure, sometimes on a seasonal basis, refusing to get “stuck” with entrenched hierarchies, which they carefully guarded against.
The myth of the “stupid savage” sees our ancestors as mindlessly playing out some pre-ordained script of social evolution. But in fact they were intellectuals who actively reflected on – and organized to change – the social order. Perhaps it is we who are mindless.
During the colonial period, Indigenous Americans criticized Europeans as uncivilized: people who who lived under constant coercion, and who tolerated poverty and hunger in their midst – a people who knew nothing of freedom.
Europeans remarked on the impressive intellectual and oratorical skills of Indigenous leaders. These skills were widespread because, in the absence of coercion, the only way to get people to do things is to put forward a convincing argument that it’s worthwhile.
By the way, Graeber and Wengrow point out that the Indigenous critique inspired the ideals of “freedom” that came to feature in European Enlightenment discourse. A good corrective to Eurocentric genealogies.
Europeans responded to the critique by insisting that, despite all the poverty and inequality and coercion, their society was superior by virtue of its sheer productive capacity – a twisted benchmark of “civilization” that remains with us today.
It’s a whirlwind myth-buster that will forever change the way you think about the world. And it is so, so good to hear David’s voice again, a year after his death, with his familiar charm and wit, as if he was just sitting across the table...
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