Wednesday, September 27, 2023

The Dawn of Everything - Again

 When Graber and Wenfrow's The Dawn of Everything came out about a year and a half ago I described it in some detail, with no real criticism of it. I had heard Patrick Wyman interview one of them with enthusiasm, and I generally like his stuff. The idea that prehistorical societies were in fact more varied and experimental was one that appealed to me. Commenters who had read it were less enthused. I came back to it about a year ago because it was reviewed in detail at ACX, and people there really didn't like it.  Rob Henderson now reviews it, with much the same disapproval - essentially that the examples and data don't fit their conclusions nearly so well as their preconceived notions fit their conclusions - including the scathing takedown from Freddie deBoer that I also quote in link #2.

I wouldn't bother with something that had so little new information for you except that Henderson tells an anecdote from academia I found interesting.

Some years ago, I watched an interactive course taught by Yale political science professor Ian Shapiro. Shapiro posed a simple question to his two students, a young American man and a young woman from a developing country: “If there were no government, no state at all, what do you think life would be like?”

The woman replied, “Well, from my experience, I come from the world of the failed state. And this much I know: It’s not pretty and it’s gruesome violence. . . . It’s just humiliating, I would say, for human beings to live in a state without structure, without real authority.”²

The man then said, “I think for the most part humans are generally good, they’re good natured and I think it’ll be all right. . . . I have a rosy picture of the human condition, I think.”

The woman stifled a laugh, turned to the professor, and said, “I say that he is American. He’s American. This is why he thinks that.”

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