ShoSho's Canon
Today is not my day to write reviews, but if I don't log this book in here, I'll never get started keeping a list of amazing books to keep in my heart.
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
David, here, starts off like the memorable scene in The Matrix, "There is no spoon." By the time the book is over, I was the fascinated Neo, tilting my head and making the spoon bend with me. Yea, this is a geeky comparison between a movie and academics, but Graeber was just so pleasant to read that I can't choose to be snobby here.
The real delicious meaty part of this book is not the outline proposed for this new area in anthropology, but the action. This lively anthropologist acknowledges that Anthropology cannot properly restrain itself to books and theory, but must live through people. And hey! Why be scared to hoard all the knowledge?David wants to *use* the knowledge to change the world. Or at least move students off their chairs and face the scariest thing: his/her own world.
Much easier to groan and proclaim pre-ordained absolute knowledge of our own social group, but we're really just avoiding a bit of spring cleaning. Even the intelligent student, often taught in line with a government directed curriculum, is all too often seen turning a weary head away from new "radical" ideas, no matter how much more sensible and logical the idea is presented.
David Graeber toys at the beginnings of proposed action. He makes no games about the pure laboratory research that this new branch of Anthropology will take, but rather commits it to expand into action. While at first, David sticks to putting out guide posts, he later can't seem to resist further anthropological analysation and deduction.
Instead of taking a mocking tone towards the horrendous Governments, the ignorant multitude, and the closed and arrogant Academia, the author takes a suited Anthropologist view as an outsider, and courteously picks and points out ways societies, applied political practices, and life itself differs around the world. David does not condemn or embrace any single topic he addresses or uses as example. As far as academic theories, he does further judge the validity of each, but never fails to compliment it on some point.
Reading David's words is like talking to a genuinely interesting person but knowing that he has to leave soon. The truly enjoyable, unique view to this entire book is the position taken by the author. An anarchist anthropologist would come with all the views, morals and dedication taken by most schools of anthropologists (being truthful to logic, onesself, and reuslting actions in a community), and directly follow the best course for onnesself as seen fit through years of researching societies. To question upheld truths, to never demean others, to realize change through previously ignored but effective manners...
In other words, be courteous, thoughtful and kind.
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
David, here, starts off like the memorable scene in The Matrix, "There is no spoon." By the time the book is over, I was the fascinated Neo, tilting my head and making the spoon bend with me. Yea, this is a geeky comparison between a movie and academics, but Graeber was just so pleasant to read that I can't choose to be snobby here.
The real delicious meaty part of this book is not the outline proposed for this new area in anthropology, but the action. This lively anthropologist acknowledges that Anthropology cannot properly restrain itself to books and theory, but must live through people. And hey! Why be scared to hoard all the knowledge?David wants to *use* the knowledge to change the world. Or at least move students off their chairs and face the scariest thing: his/her own world.
Much easier to groan and proclaim pre-ordained absolute knowledge of our own social group, but we're really just avoiding a bit of spring cleaning. Even the intelligent student, often taught in line with a government directed curriculum, is all too often seen turning a weary head away from new "radical" ideas, no matter how much more sensible and logical the idea is presented.
David Graeber toys at the beginnings of proposed action. He makes no games about the pure laboratory research that this new branch of Anthropology will take, but rather commits it to expand into action. While at first, David sticks to putting out guide posts, he later can't seem to resist further anthropological analysation and deduction.
Instead of taking a mocking tone towards the horrendous Governments, the ignorant multitude, and the closed and arrogant Academia, the author takes a suited Anthropologist view as an outsider, and courteously picks and points out ways societies, applied political practices, and life itself differs around the world. David does not condemn or embrace any single topic he addresses or uses as example. As far as academic theories, he does further judge the validity of each, but never fails to compliment it on some point.
Reading David's words is like talking to a genuinely interesting person but knowing that he has to leave soon. The truly enjoyable, unique view to this entire book is the position taken by the author. An anarchist anthropologist would come with all the views, morals and dedication taken by most schools of anthropologists (being truthful to logic, onesself, and reuslting actions in a community), and directly follow the best course for onnesself as seen fit through years of researching societies. To question upheld truths, to never demean others, to realize change through previously ignored but effective manners...
In other words, be courteous, thoughtful and kind.