Outsider Theory

A Critique of "The Dawn of Everything" with Sam Biagetti

Mar 21, 2022

03:03:55

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Highlights

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Episode notes

Is There a Difference Between the Enlightenment and the Western Society?

03:38

The Great Pyramids, You Know, Is a Good Idea, Right?

03:23

Is There a Relationship Between Constraints and Freedom?

02:41

Introduction

2min

Debt

3min

The First Five Thousand Years of Debt by Ret Wengro

4min

The Real Question Isn't Equality Versus Inequality, Right?

4min

Is There a Linear Sequence?

5min

Against the Grain by James C. Scott

4min

The State Has No Origin

4min

Anti-Marxism - Is This Book Really Anti Marxist?

2min

Markism Is Not What It Used to Be

5min

10.

Graybur's Essay on Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Production

3min

11.

Are We Really Sure That That's What We Want?

4min

12.

Anti-Marxism, but It's All Within Our Power

5min

13.

I've Been Observed and Studyed Over the Years of Wear

3min

14.

The Myth of the Savage Mind

3min

15.

The Schismogenesis Argument Is Effective as a Counter Evidence Against Determinism, Right?

3min

16.

Is There a Difference Between the Enlightenment and the Western Society?

4min

17.

Are We Capable of Conscious Reflection and Debate About How Society Should Work?

4min

18.

Is the European Enlightenment a Disaster?

4min

19.

The Origins of Kingship

6min

20.

Is There a Constraint, or a Lack of It?

1min

21.

The Essence of Humanity Is Being Political Actors

3min

22.

Is There a Carnival?

2min

23.

The Enlightenment and Totemic Systems in North America

5min

24.

The Limitations of Power and Constraint

2min

25.

Is There Subordination? And How Does It Work?

3min

26.

The French Enlightenment

3min

27.

Isn't It Strange That They Make This One Guy a Stand in for Native American Societies

3min

28.

Why Do You Feel the Need to Cite This Book?

4min

29.

Money Is the Father of Luxury

3min

30.

The Love of Money Is the Root of All Evil

2min

31.

Russeau's a Mythic Caricature of Ension Regime France

6min

32.

Where Everyone Has History, Europe Has Culture?

5min

33.

The Asclorotic State of Political Thought in the Past 25 Years or So

5min

34.

''Decoupling Mode of Production''

4min

35.

The Encampment at Caty Park, and the Demand for Public Space

3min

36.

The Great Pyramids

3min

37.

The Great Pyramids, You Know, Is a Good Idea, Right?

3min

38.

Is There a Relationship Between Constraints and Freedom?

3min

39.

The Interplay Between the Individual and the Community

4min

40.

The Wendat or the Osage Have a Great Degree of Individual Freedom

4min

41.

What's the Difference Between Exile and Banishment?

3min

42.

The Social Death, Is It?

4min

43.

Are You Taking Captain or Returning?

3min

44.

Is There a Freedom to Transform Social Relationships?

3min

45.

The Role of Violence in Debt

5min

46.

Violence as a Practical Tactic, Right?

4min

47.

Is There a Form of Sovereignty?

5min

48.

Is There a Part of Humanity That Rejects Subordination?

3min

49.

The Ritual Process by Victor Turner

4min

50.

The Human Essence Is to Be Political, Right?

3min

Sam Biagetti of Historiansplaining podcast joins me to discuss what's good, what's bad, and what's ugly in David Graber and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." We begin with an appreciative account of their dismantling of deterministic accounts of human social evolution, and then turn to a critical assessment of their theoretical assumption, their peculiar revisionist account of the Enlightenment, and their undervaluing of myth, ritual, and transcendence.

The Dawn of Everything: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything

Listen to and support Historiansplaining here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

Sam's cross-post of this episode has a useful list of other sources discussed: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dissecting-dawn-63996926