Part 2—My Argument with The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Book is by David Graeber and David Wengrow
I’m kind of a sucker for these big books proclaiming the audacity to challenge well-entrenched ideas, throw them off, and seek a replacement theory for understanding our world—in this case, the entire history of humanity. Yeah, that's audacious for me, and I love it.
I am now 320 pages into this book or nearly two-thirds of the way, and it is not disappointing my taste for the audacious. Graeber and Wengrow seem to take special delight in skewering many primary and popular tenets of the origins of humankind, especially in the first part of the book. In this second section, they focus on varying themes in ancient history but also, on laying the groundwork for that more generalized theory. Three themes emerge onto center stage in my reading—how cultures differentiate themselves from their neighbors, a new relationship between agriculture and the rise of cities, and the imagination of the city and its role in human social structures. Both the skewering and the theorizing go on here, which makes it a fun read.
How Cultures Differentiate Themselves from Their Neighbors
First, they explore a theory that purports to explain why culture groups in similar areas turn out so different, and that idea is: cultures differentiate in order to differentiate. In essence, differentiation is how people define themselves, and so neighboring cultures tend to take on characteristics quite different from each other. The northwest coast Native Americans had aristocracies, slaves, and hierarchical potlatch ceremonies. They had ritual and fantastic art. Their neighbors to the south, on the other hand, were more egalitarian, focused on the moral demand to work, self-denial, and the individual of moral responsibility, to paraphrase their quotation of anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt. They call this defining of one culture against a neighboring culture as “schismogenesis” and argue it plays a part throughout the world.
What Agriculture and Cities Can Tell Us About Social Change in General
Next, they take on the origins of agriculture, thereby turning the normal conception of 20th-century anthropology on its head. One of the most basic popular assumptions is that farming took our world in the direction it went—toward stratification, inequality, domination, and violence. It supposedly led inexorably and inherently to urbanization (the rise of cities), the concentration of wealth and power, and the rise of hierarchies, militaries, and social caste systems. To examine this assumption, the authors exhaustively review the research on the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture had its beginnings. Groups of humans in this area were split between upland groups, and lowland groups living near river bottoms and using the fertile soils there. Both groups were foragers, but one began to adopt agriculture.
“In the Fertile Crescent, it is—if anything—among upland groups, furthest removed from a dependence on agriculture, that we find stratification and violence becoming entrenched; While their lowland counterparts, who linked the production of crops to important social rituals, come out looking decidedly more egalitarian; and much of this egalitarianism related to an increase in the economic and social visibility of women, reflected in their art and ritual.” (p248)
In other words, the lowland group, which adopted far more agricultural practices than the upland group, was more egalitarian, less hierarchical, and less violent than the upland group, which developed stronger hierarchies. That is the exact opposite of what one would expect from widely held theories indicating that agriculture led to a concentration of wealth, hierarchical structures, and the demise of nature.
Here’s their point: There was no “Agricultural Revolution” that changed the course of human social evolution, and even less so that farming ushered in inequality, domination, and all the negative aspects of modern society we know so well. In fact, they conclude the opposite.
"But from the beginning, farming was much more than a new economy. It also saw the creation of patterns of life and ritual…” (p245)
Farming came along with the new economy, but it was not the cause. Rather, those social structures, ritual practices, schismogenesis, and industry helped to transform these societies and their economies. An entire cultural milieu was created which gave rise to the new organization of society. Agriculture was part of it, but it was not the cause.
From my perspective, this is important because it tells us something about the more recent transition from feudalism to capitalism, as well as what might be necessary to end capitalism. Capitalism developed in the 1500s, and it was also much more than a new economy. It required certain social structures to flourish. As I showed in my book The Great Mechanism, capitalism could only flourish in a thought environment being redefined by Descartes’ mechanistic universe, the concentration of state power, and the religious reformation that occurred at the same time. The differentiation of religion, economics, and politics was essential for capitalism to dominate the economic sphere. In other words, the cultural milieu had to be right for capitalism to take over. It was an effect of a changing world, not the cause—at least in its origins. Graeber and Wengrow seem to be saying the same about agriculture. Agriculture could only flourish in a particular cultural environment guided by certain thought processes represented by ritual practices and societal structures. And probably more importantly, I expect them to suggest that those factors explain why some agriculture became dominant and others did not, and why states arose later.
Taking all of this not account, the authors suggest we may have the story exactly backward:
“Extensive agriculture may thus have been an outcome, not a cause, of urbanization.” (p287)
To me, this raises a more comprehensive question. Economic systems of production like agriculture can become available in cultures, and they can sit there, apparently dormant, for a long time before becoming dominant. That dormancy is likely held because the social conditions and structures that would enable the economic system to dominate have not yet materialized. Graeber and Wengrow seem to be saying exactly this about agriculture. Perhaps that is the same process underlying the transition to capitalism from feudalism, and possibly it will be the same process yet again that takes us from capitalism to whatever comes next. In other words, our next economic system may already be dormant in contemporary society—it's just that the cultural and social factors necessary for its proliferation have not yet happened. I would guess that those factors, if they are to materialize, will arrive on the heels of a climate change-driven disaster. Such a disaster would provide the kind of exogenous shock that accompanies most major upheavals in social structures throughout history.
The Imagination of the City
Finally, Graeber and Wengrow explore the imagination of the city, ostensibly in a bid to examine this question of urbanization. For if agriculture did not cause urbanization, as they suggest, then what did? Their answer turns everything on its head. Re-examining forager cultures and archeological sites where great gatherings took place, Graeber and Wengrow argue that human beings have always imagined themselves as part of a bigger whole. Yes, we have our group that we know well, but we also have a larger sense of cultural belonging.
“Humans tend to live simultaneously with the 150-odd people they know personally, and inside imaginary structures shared by perhaps millions or even billions of people….
“In this, at least, modern foragers are no different from modern city dwellers or ancient hunter-gatherers. We all have the capacity to feel bound to people we will probably never meet; to take part in a macro-society which exists most of the time as ‘virtual reality’, a world of possible relationships with its own rules, roles and structures that are held in the mind and recalled through the cognitive work of image-making and ritual. Foragers may sometimes exist in small groups, but they do not—and probably have not ever—lived in small scale societies.” (p281)
In other words, cities emerged from the psychic predilections of human beings. We have always had a kinship with people in a large group because we identify with them. That is why they gathered in certain places and certain times of the year, and that is why they differentiate themselves from neighboring cultures through schismogenesis.
In other words, the reason earlier people gathered in the places of great gatherings was this: it was an opportunity to see and know “my people.” Urbanization occurred, in this view, when the gathering locations were convenient to remain in. And once that happened, identification with the group extended even further. As the authors say, people feel a kinship to a city “…because they will often think and act as people who belong to the city…” and, I might add, we regularly call a place, “my city” or “my town.”
This imagination of the city seems to underly later developments of societies, notably the rise of states. There is a chapter on the rise of states which I have not yet read, but it seems evident enough that our imaginary sense of belonging must play a part in the ability of the state to assume and assert power. But also, it must be that this need to differentiate ourselves from other cultures is just as critical. Self, it seems, is defined in terms of not being what another is. Schismogenesis is the same process at the cultural level. Nationalism must be similar forces at an even higher level—certainly, it motivates a kind of thinking that must be unique to humans—the sense of giving one's life for one's country. What could be more abstract than this notion of giving to a country? It is giving something to millions of people one does not know, cannot know, and even if surviving, will never know.
I’ll be interested to see what these authors have to say about the development of the state because I know in my own work, the aggregation of political and military power to the state played a big part in the development and dominance of capitalism in the 16th century. Before that, Europe had a feudal aristocracy which included feudal lords, serfs, peasants, and even a few slaves. Feudal lords wielded power in all forms—political, economic, military, and religious—and they used all of those powers to appropriate surplus wealth to themselves. As the state emerged in 16th century England, it aggregated to itself the political and military power the lords had once wielded. The church got itself out of politics and economics, and therefore took exclusive control of religion. The feudal lords had only their economic tools to work with, and capitalism turned out to be perfectly suited to the task of appropriation by legal and economic means. Without these differentiations, capitalism would never have taken hold.
To me, what happened in the original rise of capitalism confirms what I think Graeber and Wengrow are getting to—economic determinism is a false way of understanding the general development of history. Even though it is the dominant view, it is false. Something else will need to appear in its place, and I am interested to see what the authors come up with.
And with that, I am on to my next 180 pages to finish the book and bring you a Part 3 argument soon.
Anthony Signorelli
Next Big Book: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
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