[FRIAM] Revising the American Revolution

[Prof David West]

This seems like an appropriate point to recommend a small book:

*Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology*
David Graeber (asst. Prof, anthroplogy, Yale)
Prickly Paradigm Press   [love the publisher name]
Chicago
www.press.uchicago.edu
www.prickly-paradigm.com

I believe that, within the book, some seeds for answers to Nick's question "how do we achieve coalition without charisma," and contributions to a lot of other ideas that have popped up in various threads: "great man theory," egalitarian societies, post-capitalism, political theory, etc., might be found.

>From page 1:

*"What follows are a series of thoughts, sketches of potential theories, and tiny manifestos — all meant to offer a glimpse at the outline of a body of radical theory that does not actually exist, though it might possible exist at some point in the future.*

*Since there are very good reasons why an anarchist anthropology really ought to exist, we might start by asking why one doesn't — or, for that matter, why an anarchist sociology doesn't exist, or an anarchist economics, anarchist literary theory, or anarchist political science."*

I also have on order — prepublication — Graeber's 500 page rewrite of history. Supposed to be full of insights like: 

*"Before [Marcel] Mauss, the universal assumption had been that economies without money or markets had operated by means of "barter"; they were trying to engage in market behavior (acquire useful goods and services at the least cost to themselves, get rich if possible ...) they just hadn't yet developed very sophisticated ways of going about it.  Mauss demonstrated that in fact, such economies were really "gift economies." They were not based on calculation, but on a refusal to calculate; they were rooted in an ethical system which consciously rejected most of what we we would consider the basic principles of economics. It was not that they had not yet learned to seek profit through the most efficient means. They would have found the very premise that the point of an economic transaction — at least, one with someone who was not your enemy— was to see the greatest profit deeply offensive."*

davew


**

On Sat, Oct 23, 2021, at 12:09 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, everybody,
>  
> I know.  Who has time to listen to podcasts.  Most of them are redundant and so can be listened to while making chicken pot pie.  But every once in a while there is one I have to listen to twice because it acquaints me with a bunch of stuff I never will dive into but which I really want to know. 
>  
> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-of-americas-founding-you-werent-taught-in-school/id1548604447?i=1000539039484
>  
> The interviewee here Woody Houlton, a promoter of the 1619 Project, whose goal is to recast the American revolution and particularly the constitution as counter revolutionary moves.  It puts me in mind of Charles Beard, an American historian who wrote in the 30’s a materialist history of the US which was largely buried during the McCarthy era.  (I hope I have this right, John)  The REAL revolution, on this account occurs after the Civil War with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.   What I love about this is that illuminates for me what is going on in our current debates over textualism.  The Textualists are trying to get us back to the pre-Civil War constitution which was dedicated to preserving the prerogatives of the privileged classes.  That’s the world they hanker for.   Another bell it rings for me concerns “cancel culture”.  Washington and Jefferson were in many ways, vile men:  Both were voracious land speculators in stolen Indian land and Jefferson, in his Idyllic Monticello, literally lived on top of the underground habitations of his slaves.
>                                                                                                                      
> What do we do when we discover that people who have achieved great things have also done great harms.  Basically it comes down to, Am I allowed to watch a Woody Allen Movie?  Perhaps, if I were to watch a Woody Allen movie, it would mean that I was NOT watching an equally good movie by an unknown film guy, that our worship of Lee and Washington and Jefferson crowds out the accomplishments of lesser known figures.   Shall we instead worship MLK, who I guess was an infamous philanderer? 
>  
> I think the problem here is with WORSHIP, full stop.  But, then, if we don’t stand together in admiration of other people, how do we stand together.  How do we achieve coalition without charisma? 
>  
> Nick
> Nick Thompson
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
> 
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