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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
All works of analysis or calls to political action are destined to become primary sources eventually, but it is startling how quickly this work feels dated. His untimely death is surely a factor in this, but even more so, the sheer volume and tenor of changes that immediately followed it publication cast a considerable shadow. It's still worth readuling—its David Graeber, after all—but subsequent works like If We Burn by Vincent Bevin's imbue it with an unintended sadness.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I need to get this book to remind myself of anarchist ideals and how to perform direct action. Every time I read a David Graeber book I understand quite a bit more about society than I did before.
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
David does a great job in mixing the history of the Occupy movement with theory of organizing a truly democratic world.
Before delving into the work a little about the writer himself as David Graeber is a professor of anthropology in London School of Economics. He has done extensive works focusing upon the simple societies of Madagascar, Europe and North America, and has many relevant anthropological theories of value, money, magic, debt, political and social movements. Graeber has a history of social and political activism, including his role in protests against the World Economic Forum in New York City (2002) and membership in the labor union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In my amateur opinion, It is imperative to get to know this guy and his ideas especially when it comes to understanding political perspectives at the "anthropological" level (let me tell why, of course I'm not trying to boast the field which I'm in {at least I'm not trying to do that intentionally}). Another important note that he's also an Anarchist. I read a work of his earlier this month, "Fragments of Anarchist Anthropology" which pretty much pulled me in trying this work. I do have his other works "Bullshit Jobs" and "Debt: The first 5000 years" to try and suffer more from the burden.
Myself getting to read Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin during mid year of 2019, I got pretty much interested and astounded by the possibilities a society could function free of social stratification, money, property, government or any other form of authority and external forces. After reading her work, my whole idea of "Anarchism" has been shattered. I was also at the verge of my conundrum to choose my masters and career path whether to go through the lane of Sociology or Anthropology. A very important distinction about Anthropology from other fields of social sciences is that people ought to look at the the individual level considering mainly the cultural patterns and behavior. More or less same could be said about Sociology but it is more or less interested in studying analysing society - people and institutions at large. I'm very much of a naivete to have made such broad generalization but what would people expect from a budding learner just after a semester. Sociology also uses to address certain problems through the lens and methodology also known as Ethnomethodology which gets its way from Ethnology (An original precursor to contemporary Anthropology and now a part of Anthropology).
In studying societies and structures, the distinction it makes is that the study is performed from the bottom to top hierarchy i.e., all the way from the people at the base level in all sense historical, biological, social and cultural. Here Culture is the complex whole that encapsulates everything that humans learn and acquire as skill, action and behavior as a result of accumulated knowledge and experience. Learning through the lens of anthropology would help question the basis of the nature and the legitimacy of the system itself and also helps or better middle up what it means to have proper notions of so called 'progress', 'improvement' and other enlightenment ideals from which most of our contemporary mainstream societies run upon. As far as my knowledge, most familiar anthropologists that I know are/ were basically controversial for their views and critiques of current economic system, bureaucracy, political views and especially when it comes to the taboo topics of promiscuous practices and social order. Some of them made themselves to be known as 'Primtivists.' They ought to be highly ideal and resistive when it comes to labeling a particular culture or practice superior or inferior to other forms. Its almost like anthropologists (atleast social/cultural) are philosophers who do their work with people in their natural settings out of respect for the some practicality.
I don't know if it all makes sense but I used all these redundant stuffs to make the readers feel the content is free of biased opinions and hatred towards a particular system or any practice. Here we go.
Democracy is good as it's people. If the people are silent so does the system. The Democracy Project as the title indicates the movement and protest made by people to make sure Democracy still works out for the most of us. Here contextually the title refers to OWS movement. The book draws mainly two important things, the campaign strategy of Occupy Wall Street Movement (2011) - its efforts, motives, aftermath and ideology behind it and the other one - trying to unveil the covert history of democracy from the historical narratives and provides contradictory perspectives about our contemporary understanding of the same. Basic differences between voting system, lottery system and consensus making process draws the key differences in enabling certain ways of governing a particular aggregation. For instance, voting system was initially used among armies and pirates thus if in case the majoritarian hegemony was not favorable they always have this option to fight out it against the interest of the others. Modern democracy as we call it is totally majoritarian and dehumanizing in many ways especially when dealing in maintaining the existing political power through a set of emergent strategies, lobbying from corporate interests, and bureaucratic administration where the system is more interested in maintaining documents and filled up forms than really trying to help out the people directly. The author in one of his other works briefly go through the same that this present period of human condition marks the most amount of time spent by average human being to fill out forms and applying for obtaining services (which has its own justifications, thanks to Sociologist Max Weber).
The whole idea of Democracy practised in the ancient Greece is more or less blurred by the ambiguous understanding, usage and practices of aristocracy, Mr. Graeber also tries to shower contradictory views on democracy via historical narratives from the enlightenment eras and also from the founding fathers of American Colonies.
The word Democracy during the initial revolutionary french times were considered scornful and more or less associated with Anarchy.
Coming back to the main part of the work i.e., Occupy Wall Street movement gives an astounding perspective of how an anarchist inspired movement where masses in thousands sustained and practised civil disobedience for almost 2 months in the field before things become plural with people of different ideologies and cultural backgrounds. The background work and campaign workshops pretty much give a perspective or even a sort of blueprint on how a political campaign from the grassroots movement could be organised and efficiently executed.
Another important discussion is that the author's elaboration on Democracy and it's affinity with Anarchism especially when any kind of practice that necessitates the use of power and authority to make sure free market works efficiently over people across the globe wouldn't be clearly accepted as democracy.
At the end of the review, nothing much is going to change anyone's perspective but most of us never try to understand the perspectives and narratives even when we have the luxury to do so while most of us lying in the lower gutters don't. Without historical contextual understanding we pretty much keep saying a particular system is the best and it has been proven by history which is pretty much discouraging and contradictory to the notion that humans are innovative and have creative potentials with decent ethics and morality to take care of themselves. All this practicality that we emphasize so much in everyday trivialities have pretty much susceptibility to get crumbled overnight. As they say, the human imagination stubbornly refuses to die.
Myself getting to read Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin during mid year of 2019, I got pretty much interested and astounded by the possibilities a society could function free of social stratification, money, property, government or any other form of authority and external forces. After reading her work, my whole idea of "Anarchism" has been shattered. I was also at the verge of my conundrum to choose my masters and career path whether to go through the lane of Sociology or Anthropology. A very important distinction about Anthropology from other fields of social sciences is that people ought to look at the the individual level considering mainly the cultural patterns and behavior. More or less same could be said about Sociology but it is more or less interested in studying analysing society - people and institutions at large. I'm very much of a naivete to have made such broad generalization but what would people expect from a budding learner just after a semester. Sociology also uses to address certain problems through the lens and methodology also known as Ethnomethodology which gets its way from Ethnology (An original precursor to contemporary Anthropology and now a part of Anthropology).
In studying societies and structures, the distinction it makes is that the study is performed from the bottom to top hierarchy i.e., all the way from the people at the base level in all sense historical, biological, social and cultural. Here Culture is the complex whole that encapsulates everything that humans learn and acquire as skill, action and behavior as a result of accumulated knowledge and experience. Learning through the lens of anthropology would help question the basis of the nature and the legitimacy of the system itself and also helps or better middle up what it means to have proper notions of so called 'progress', 'improvement' and other enlightenment ideals from which most of our contemporary mainstream societies run upon. As far as my knowledge, most familiar anthropologists that I know are/ were basically controversial for their views and critiques of current economic system, bureaucracy, political views and especially when it comes to the taboo topics of promiscuous practices and social order. Some of them made themselves to be known as 'Primtivists.' They ought to be highly ideal and resistive when it comes to labeling a particular culture or practice superior or inferior to other forms. Its almost like anthropologists (atleast social/cultural) are philosophers who do their work with people in their natural settings out of respect for the some practicality.
I don't know if it all makes sense but I used all these redundant stuffs to make the readers feel the content is free of biased opinions and hatred towards a particular system or any practice. Here we go.
Democracy is good as it's people. If the people are silent so does the system. The Democracy Project as the title indicates the movement and protest made by people to make sure Democracy still works out for the most of us. Here contextually the title refers to OWS movement. The book draws mainly two important things, the campaign strategy of Occupy Wall Street Movement (2011) - its efforts, motives, aftermath and ideology behind it and the other one - trying to unveil the covert history of democracy from the historical narratives and provides contradictory perspectives about our contemporary understanding of the same. Basic differences between voting system, lottery system and consensus making process draws the key differences in enabling certain ways of governing a particular aggregation. For instance, voting system was initially used among armies and pirates thus if in case the majoritarian hegemony was not favorable they always have this option to fight out it against the interest of the others. Modern democracy as we call it is totally majoritarian and dehumanizing in many ways especially when dealing in maintaining the existing political power through a set of emergent strategies, lobbying from corporate interests, and bureaucratic administration where the system is more interested in maintaining documents and filled up forms than really trying to help out the people directly. The author in one of his other works briefly go through the same that this present period of human condition marks the most amount of time spent by average human being to fill out forms and applying for obtaining services (which has its own justifications, thanks to Sociologist Max Weber).
The whole idea of Democracy practised in the ancient Greece is more or less blurred by the ambiguous understanding, usage and practices of aristocracy, Mr. Graeber also tries to shower contradictory views on democracy via historical narratives from the enlightenment eras and also from the founding fathers of American Colonies.
The word Democracy during the initial revolutionary french times were considered scornful and more or less associated with Anarchy.
Coming back to the main part of the work i.e., Occupy Wall Street movement gives an astounding perspective of how an anarchist inspired movement where masses in thousands sustained and practised civil disobedience for almost 2 months in the field before things become plural with people of different ideologies and cultural backgrounds. The background work and campaign workshops pretty much give a perspective or even a sort of blueprint on how a political campaign from the grassroots movement could be organised and efficiently executed.
Another important discussion is that the author's elaboration on Democracy and it's affinity with Anarchism especially when any kind of practice that necessitates the use of power and authority to make sure free market works efficiently over people across the globe wouldn't be clearly accepted as democracy.
At the end of the review, nothing much is going to change anyone's perspective but most of us never try to understand the perspectives and narratives even when we have the luxury to do so while most of us lying in the lower gutters don't. Without historical contextual understanding we pretty much keep saying a particular system is the best and it has been proven by history which is pretty much discouraging and contradictory to the notion that humans are innovative and have creative potentials with decent ethics and morality to take care of themselves. All this practicality that we emphasize so much in everyday trivialities have pretty much susceptibility to get crumbled overnight. As they say, the human imagination stubbornly refuses to die.
This purports to be a history of the Occupy Movement, which I suppose it is, but it is more a primer in direct democracy. It was quick, engaging, and reminded me all over again to be angry at things I had forgotten. (But in a good way.)
Me to my partner every 2 minutes watching the election coverage last night - "did you know we don't really live in a democracy? Traditionally elections were considered to be the aristocratic mode of-"
David Graeber has written an extremely accessible book about, not only the origins and inner workings of the Occupy Wall Street/Occupy movement, but about the issues it brought to the fore. What exactly is democracy and what are the origins of the concept? What myths have we held about "freedoms"? What is equality? What are alternatives to our current repressive debacle of a political/economic system? The book also delineates strategies used by protest movements around the world.
This book affirmed so many of the random thoughts I've had swirling through my head for the past 25 years or so, like, "If this corporate economic environment keeps it up, this is eventually gonna an awful lot like feudalism." And, "You know, not every governmental regulation is such a great regulation." It also clarified many concepts and terms that I had never understood before. Until I read this book, I never actually knew what an anarchist was. I just assumed they were the scary people who threw Molotov cocktails. The hand gestures used by Occupy General Assemblies just seemed sort of silly to me. Now I understand their purpose. In fact, Graeber has an entire section on the most common questions he is asked about Occupy. While I always thought of myself as liberal, I have never truly explored the variations or differences of my fellow left wingers. I never thought about the planning, the drawing on experience, the strategy involved in creating the sorts of changes we want to see in the world. Graeber lays a lot of that out in a way that a reasonably intelligent person with a passing interest can understand. He has the academic credentials to lay out cogent arguments, and the boots-on-the-ground experience to show how theory impacts action and every day activity.
At the end of the book, almost parenthetically, he makes the argument for working less, not more, and for a truly horizontal, anarchic society. I'm not sure, economically, how that would all come out in the wash, and he is frank to state that nobody knows how a new economic system would work, just as the inventors of capitalism didn't know how that would look in the ensuing years. But clearly, capitalism isn't working, it is a moral and social disaster for 99% of us, and environmental disaster for 100% of the planet. Graeber enthusiastically endorses alternatives. Very thought provoking work.
This book affirmed so many of the random thoughts I've had swirling through my head for the past 25 years or so, like, "If this corporate economic environment keeps it up, this is eventually gonna an awful lot like feudalism." And, "You know, not every governmental regulation is such a great regulation." It also clarified many concepts and terms that I had never understood before. Until I read this book, I never actually knew what an anarchist was. I just assumed they were the scary people who threw Molotov cocktails. The hand gestures used by Occupy General Assemblies just seemed sort of silly to me. Now I understand their purpose. In fact, Graeber has an entire section on the most common questions he is asked about Occupy. While I always thought of myself as liberal, I have never truly explored the variations or differences of my fellow left wingers. I never thought about the planning, the drawing on experience, the strategy involved in creating the sorts of changes we want to see in the world. Graeber lays a lot of that out in a way that a reasonably intelligent person with a passing interest can understand. He has the academic credentials to lay out cogent arguments, and the boots-on-the-ground experience to show how theory impacts action and every day activity.
At the end of the book, almost parenthetically, he makes the argument for working less, not more, and for a truly horizontal, anarchic society. I'm not sure, economically, how that would all come out in the wash, and he is frank to state that nobody knows how a new economic system would work, just as the inventors of capitalism didn't know how that would look in the ensuing years. But clearly, capitalism isn't working, it is a moral and social disaster for 99% of us, and environmental disaster for 100% of the planet. Graeber enthusiastically endorses alternatives. Very thought provoking work.