Argument with The Dawn of Everything… so far
I am 165 pages into this 526-page tome—that's 526 reading pages, plus another 160 pages or so of notes, bibliography, and index. It is a major work by these two authors.
The book presents itself as a veritable tour de force of anthropology and archeology, and I suspect it is being discussed and debated in academic circles—and will be for a long time. The authors pick a fight with nearly every sacred cow in the disciplines, at least as far as their interpretation and meaning for understanding indigenous cultures and indigenous cultural histories are concerned. I want to summarize two big takeaways that are worthy of additional consideration.
The primary thesis of the book overall is that indigenous societies were probably not like anything we ever thought they were. Our ideas of indigeneity are grounded in the Enlightenment ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau who described the development of human society in three stages: "A purely imaginary State of Nature, when individuals lived in isolation from one another; a stage of Stone Age savagery, which followed the invention of language (in which he includes most of the modern inhabitants of North America and other actually observable ‘savages’); then finally, civilization which followed the invention of agriculture and metallurgy. Each marks a moral decline.” (p.65)
What I find interesting is how much of the popular understanding of cultural development is still based on this idea. The most prominent idea is that pre-agriculture cultures were somehow more fulfilling, complete, and psychologically pure, and therefore they never created the empires of more advanced civilizations. For that, you needed agriculture and private property. Hunter-gatherer societies, therefore, could never develop much cultural structure. Graeber and Wengrow seem intent on turning this idea on its head.
One way they approach this is by tracking property rights in the ethnographic literature, and this leads to the second big takeaway thus far in my reading. To investigate this, you could ask the question: What does one own and how do you come to own it? John Locke gave his theory in the 17th century that labor determined ownership. True as that may or may not be, Graeber and Wengrow posit a competing theory practiced and lived by many indigenous hunter-gatherer societies: “…there turns out to be a profound formal similarity between the notion of private property and the notion of the sacred.” (p. 158). As they point out, most indigenous societies provide for ownership of material things as well as rights, but these have the most meaning in the context of the sacred. “Among Plains societies of North America, for instance, sacred bundles (which normally included not only (which normally included not only physical objects but accompanying dances, rituals and songs) were often the only objects in that society to be treated as private property: not just owned exclusively by individuals but also inherited, bought and sold.” (p.160) They provide many other examples before going on to conclude, “If private property has an ‘origin’, it is as old as the idea of the sacred, which is likely as old as humanity itself.” (p163)
Assuming that this thesis and the ensuing evidence the authors provide holds, this idea changes everything we understand about indigenous cultures, especially the popular notions among people who idolize such cultures for their egalitarianism, spirituality, psychological insights, or simple purity. First, these societies were not existing in some pure form before agriculture and private property gave rise to hierarchies and empires. Rather, hierarchies existed in these societies, but they were expressed through their spirituality, rather than through a secular political structure. Ownership and structure were built into the spiritual practices. One could own the right to a certain dance, song, or ritual incantation, and no one else could have it—and one's right to that was exclusive. If true, it isn't hard to imagine that people might compete for such ownership since it brought with it powers you could not get any other way. In other words, the separation between the sacred and the secular was less existent. Today, we tend to look at these societies as being imbued with the sacred, but rarely do we think that the sacredness was tied up with economics, ownership, or power. Since many of these societies were, in fact, egalitarian as far as day-to-day power relations goes, one can only imagine that the competition for spiritual power and positions could at time be intense. Indeed, it is hard not to think of the meshing of political and religious power that operated within the Vatican at least up through the Reformation.
In western Europe, philosophers have identified the birth of modernity as the time of differentiation between religious, political, and economic spheres of human life. Modern thinkers orient their minds around this idea so when we think of indigenous culture, we see it through the eyes of a similar differentiation, not realizing that no such differentiation exists in the societies we are considering. Hence, we see a beautiful spirituality and assume it is differentiated from economics and politics, which in day-to-day life are predominantly egalitarian. But all that means is that the political and economic dynamics are being played out in an undifferentiated spiritual/religious sphere. If true, a wholly different notion of indigenous spiritual practice and understanding may be necessary.
I’m not willing to make any conclusions based on an unfinished read here, but I do suggest the questions raised are intriguing. I hope you will read along with me, and join the conversation.
Arguments with Books explores the world of ideas in new and old books that can change how we view and think about the world. Here is the Current Reading section, I list the books I am currently reading and provide a few updates on my reactions so that we can have an ongoing conversation. Readers and invited to pick up their own copies of these books and read along, if they like.
Here are a handful of books I am currently making my way through:
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
The Heart of American Poetry, by Edward Hirsch
Leaping Poetry by Robert Bly
The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
I don’t promise to read all of these books to the end—I never waste my time reading stupid or inane books. I simply put them down and move on. Nonetheless, these are the titles that currently have my attention. I provide a note below on The Dawn of Everything, so far as I have read it at this time.
The Dawn of Everything Plus Current Readings
In case it is useful to you, I have written a summary of the book. It is 16 pages long in Word. I will send it to anyone interested. Email me at todhunter.chris@gmail.com.