A critical reading of "The Wisdom of Kandiaronk, The Indigenous Critique, the Myth of Progress and the Birth of the Left" from David Graeber & David Wengrow's upcoming book The Dawn of Everything.
In this chapter Graeber & Wengrow argue that:
The European Enlightenment was heavily influenced by Native American critiques of European culture.
That European intellectuals reacted against this by developing the theory of "stages of human progress" from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to pastoralists to farmers to market civilization.
That Jean-Jacques Rousseau synthesized the American critique and the stages of progress theory into a seemingly egalitarian critique of European social hierarchies which resigns to accept hierarchy as the price of civilization.
That this synthesis was the birth of the "intellectual left".
That the concept of human equality has no meaning and should be discarded.
PLEASE SHARE THIS SERIES!
Audio Podcast
click
the link on your device to open the audio podcast in your mobile app,
or else search for “worbs” on your podcast app. Full transcripts
available on the episode pages.
What Is Politics Video Channel
(video version of this and all episodes available here, plus other stuff)
Audio Podcast RSS Feed
Patreon
Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture for me to produce these!
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11
Podcasts 
