Culture is an adaptation to environment. That's how a super general, jack of all trade species like humans can survive all round the world. When nomadic big game hunting and gathering was no longer viable, people started focusing on other types of hunting practices. These new conditions either caused new problems that needed new solutions or they gave some people bargaining power advantages over other people. And these changes in economic activities resulted in changes of the circumstances of people's lives. If your economy is based on territory and you manage to monopsony for anyone who has access to that territory, then you have power over others - this is why we see so much hirarchy among hunter gather societies. Once farming
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In this episode we cover chapter 1 of David Graeber & David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything, entitled Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood; or Why This isn’t a Book About the Origins of Inequality.
In doing so, we look at the following:
How the book’s underlying thesis: that human social structure is ultimately a matter of choice and experimentation, is fundamentally incoherent, and how this idea sets us up for future dramatic political failures, similar to those of Occupy Wall Street or the Great Peasant’s Revolt of 1381.
What the standard narrative of human origins actually is, vs. the caricature elevator pitch version that Graeber & Wengrow claim to be debunking.
Why most anthropologists believe that human beings began as egalitarian hunter-gatherers despite knowing about all of the evidence that Graeber & Wengrow present in order to argue the otherwise.
How and why Graeber & Wengrow flush down the toilet the analytical tools that they need in order to answer their own questions about how we got stuck in dominance hierarchies.
How social structure actually works.
How Graeber & Wengrow’s arguments are great material for right wing talking points.
Why there is room for deliberate social change in a world where social structure is largely a matter of conditions and relative bargaining power, rather than a matter of “choice”.
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