A lot of the best Graeber has an “undeniable” quality
March 27, 2024 12:41 AM Subscribe
It has taken a little while and repeated readings for it to sink in, but I think that Graeber was reaching the point of rejecting, or at least severely (if implicitly) qualifying, almost all of these positions by late in his authorship. Particularly in On Kings (2017), his collaboration with his mentor Sahlins, and The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), co-written with the archeologist David Wengrow and completed just a couple of weeks before his death, Graeber’s politics grew more “mainstream” in a number of respects, even as his narrative of the origins of political authority and economic hierarchy remained fresh, radical, and richly documented, and even as his prose style retained all its charm. But perhaps LSE professorships, FSG book contracts, and the approval of the Financial Times have moderating or even co-opting effects after all. from What Happened to David Graeber? [LARB, ungated]
Graeber, previously
Graeber, previously
It's interesting that an anarchist can be "disheartened" by the book, but Sartwell seems to have forgotten that Graeber was an anthropologist, not merely a political activist. What he seems to object to the most is precisely what Graeber (and Wengrow) learned from anthropology.
E.g. Sartwell complains that the book rejects "the classic Weberian definition of the state" and thus undermines the "anarchist critique of the state, from William Godwin to Mikhail Bakunin to Emma Goldman." That is, it deviates from anarchist ideology as defined by people dead at least 80 years.
The thing is, the book departs from classical analysis of the state precisely because it's not supported by anthropology. The authors spend a lot of time explaining this: that societies were not all utopian before The State, but could be authoritarian and hierarchical. Not always, but enough to cast doubt on a single-villain ideology starring The State.
They also repeat, over and over, that modern societies have "got stuck" in hierarchy and authoritarianism, a position that is hardly compatible with Sartwell's complaint that Graeber was becoming a "state socialist" or even, omigod, a liberal. Graeber & Wengrow criticize Rousseauvian idealization of pre-state life not only because it's factually wrong, but because it closes off the possibility of more radical egalitarianism in modern society. To describe hunter-gathering is a lost utopia means it has nothing to teach us, and hope for change is precisely what they want to make room for.
I have plenty of quibbles about the book, but Sartwell's reading is pretty baffling. It really is not a program for modern life-- it discusses little past 1800. The authors obviously have strong opinions, and mostly anarchist ones, for how society should work, but the main point is to correct errors they think political thinkers have about the past.
posted by zompist at 2:37 AM on March 27 [54 favorites]
E.g. Sartwell complains that the book rejects "the classic Weberian definition of the state" and thus undermines the "anarchist critique of the state, from William Godwin to Mikhail Bakunin to Emma Goldman." That is, it deviates from anarchist ideology as defined by people dead at least 80 years.
The thing is, the book departs from classical analysis of the state precisely because it's not supported by anthropology. The authors spend a lot of time explaining this: that societies were not all utopian before The State, but could be authoritarian and hierarchical. Not always, but enough to cast doubt on a single-villain ideology starring The State.
They also repeat, over and over, that modern societies have "got stuck" in hierarchy and authoritarianism, a position that is hardly compatible with Sartwell's complaint that Graeber was becoming a "state socialist" or even, omigod, a liberal. Graeber & Wengrow criticize Rousseauvian idealization of pre-state life not only because it's factually wrong, but because it closes off the possibility of more radical egalitarianism in modern society. To describe hunter-gathering is a lost utopia means it has nothing to teach us, and hope for change is precisely what they want to make room for.
I have plenty of quibbles about the book, but Sartwell's reading is pretty baffling. It really is not a program for modern life-- it discusses little past 1800. The authors obviously have strong opinions, and mostly anarchist ones, for how society should work, but the main point is to correct errors they think political thinkers have about the past.
posted by zompist at 2:37 AM on March 27 [54 favorites]
As someone who doesn't have an anarchist bone in her body, I know that I have a blind spot and so I bought The Dawn of Everything to broaden my horizons. Alas, life got very busy again, and I wanted to give it my full attention, so I haven't gotten very far into it yet. But from the little I've read, through the lense of my bias, it seems to me that the problem presented is not so much with hierarchy per se, but with its reification.
The books turns against this idea that reified hierarchy is the price we pay for any advanced level of civilisation, and looks at various cultures that pulled off impressive feats of longterm planing and coordination while still defining leadership roles as mostly ceremonial, seasonal, situational, contingent, contextual. It always seemed to me somewhat practical in certain situations to give someone authority to speed up decisions, because you don't always have time for a lot of debate, but as soon as people start to claim it's fated, inborn, inherent, inherited things start to get very unserious. The problem is not so much assuming authority in a specific situation, the problem is when people start to make it part of their identity. Authority isn't you, it's just a hat you can wear. A lot of misery comes from not being able to let go of the hat.
So far, this is all quite in line with my preconceived notions, so I can see why someone might find that insufficiently radical. But I've only read a few chapters so far!
posted by sohalt at 3:02 AM on March 27 [24 favorites]
The books turns against this idea that reified hierarchy is the price we pay for any advanced level of civilisation, and looks at various cultures that pulled off impressive feats of longterm planing and coordination while still defining leadership roles as mostly ceremonial, seasonal, situational, contingent, contextual. It always seemed to me somewhat practical in certain situations to give someone authority to speed up decisions, because you don't always have time for a lot of debate, but as soon as people start to claim it's fated, inborn, inherent, inherited things start to get very unserious. The problem is not so much assuming authority in a specific situation, the problem is when people start to make it part of their identity. Authority isn't you, it's just a hat you can wear. A lot of misery comes from not being able to let go of the hat.
So far, this is all quite in line with my preconceived notions, so I can see why someone might find that insufficiently radical. But I've only read a few chapters so far!
posted by sohalt at 3:02 AM on March 27 [24 favorites]
I agree with Zompist, I have been thinking about this for a while, but it did seem to be a text who tried to orient a history of the state, to reorder the projecto f anarchism, away from technoprimitivism, or as (they) said, State as unnuanced monster.
posted by PinkMoose at 4:18 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
posted by PinkMoose at 4:18 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
How is his analysis any different from D&G's urstaat?
posted by Richard Saunders at 5:07 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
posted by Richard Saunders at 5:07 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
What I got from The Dawn of Everything was that it was an attempt to ignite a sense of political possibility.
The message was that people have always made conscious decisions that bring political systems into being. There's never been a "primitive man" who unconsciously drifted into inevitable, "natural" structures. Homo sapiens have always talked with each other about how their societies work, how other societies work, how they want society to work in the future.
Nor did the Agriculture Revolution or the Industrial Revolution make only a limited set of politics possible. Historians of the late 1800s who liked imperialism focused most of our attention on the most hierarchical systems of the past, the great pharaohs and emperors and dynasties, and they dismissed the more complex periods of history as times of failure. Graeber and Wengrow said, no, those periods were (and are) full of political possibility that were explored in many different ways by lots of different groups of people.
That's what I got from the book. It didn't seem like an abandonment of anarchism so much as an answer to people who say, "Sounds nice, but how could we possibly get there?" Graeber and Wengrow were saying, "We just have to do what people have always done - use our political imagination."
posted by clawsoon at 6:14 AM on March 27 [35 favorites]
The message was that people have always made conscious decisions that bring political systems into being. There's never been a "primitive man" who unconsciously drifted into inevitable, "natural" structures. Homo sapiens have always talked with each other about how their societies work, how other societies work, how they want society to work in the future.
Nor did the Agriculture Revolution or the Industrial Revolution make only a limited set of politics possible. Historians of the late 1800s who liked imperialism focused most of our attention on the most hierarchical systems of the past, the great pharaohs and emperors and dynasties, and they dismissed the more complex periods of history as times of failure. Graeber and Wengrow said, no, those periods were (and are) full of political possibility that were explored in many different ways by lots of different groups of people.
That's what I got from the book. It didn't seem like an abandonment of anarchism so much as an answer to people who say, "Sounds nice, but how could we possibly get there?" Graeber and Wengrow were saying, "We just have to do what people have always done - use our political imagination."
posted by clawsoon at 6:14 AM on March 27 [35 favorites]
When I read Dawn of Everything, the impression I got was that the authors went in looking for anthropological evidence that anarchy had been used as an organizing principle for past societies and therefore, could be a viable method for political organization today, and what they found from the historical evidence was much more mixed.
So rather than creatively interpret the historical evidence to support their argument, they instead changed their argument to reflect what they found: that human societies have been organized in a variety of ways, that the idea of linear progress is a myth, (and that the political organization of the Five Nations Iroquois tribes in the American northeast inspired the political transformation of Europe during the Enlightenment).
I can see where the author sees this as a step back, and maybe he's right. But there are still some pretty radical ideas in the book.
posted by subdee at 7:03 AM on March 27 [9 favorites]
So rather than creatively interpret the historical evidence to support their argument, they instead changed their argument to reflect what they found: that human societies have been organized in a variety of ways, that the idea of linear progress is a myth, (and that the political organization of the Five Nations Iroquois tribes in the American northeast inspired the political transformation of Europe during the Enlightenment).
I can see where the author sees this as a step back, and maybe he's right. But there are still some pretty radical ideas in the book.
posted by subdee at 7:03 AM on March 27 [9 favorites]
I read Graeber’s later work interrogating the concept of the state as a means of pushing back against the insurrectionary current that dominated anarchism in the 2010s. This insurrectionary current views the state as so all-encompassing that every institution and every rule must be resisted and broken. Graeber was an organizationalist, and was trying to rehabilitate aspects of complex society and defend things like public services as incidentally attached to the contemporary state, rather than inherently bound to it.
So of course some anarchist is going to argue Graeber is a liberal for defending, well, anything other than smashing stuff. This should be completely unsurprising to anyone with real-world organizing experience.
For example, while attending a bail fundraiser party, I once found myself in an argument with someone who had gone around smashing bus shelters at a march (which occurred earlier the same day). They felt the bus was an oppressive organ of the state denying people rides through oppressive fares, and that the transit agency should be “on notice.” This position proved far more popular than my argument that public transit is good, actually, and public employees should be considered our allies.
Graeber engaged with Labour because public services are good, and people need them now or they will die. He wasn’t going soft, he was living the anarchist dictum that we are trying to build a new world in the shell of the old. And that necessitates building lives in the world as it exists, so people can live to struggle for better conditions and less domination.
posted by Headfullofair at 7:47 AM on March 27 [49 favorites]
So of course some anarchist is going to argue Graeber is a liberal for defending, well, anything other than smashing stuff. This should be completely unsurprising to anyone with real-world organizing experience.
For example, while attending a bail fundraiser party, I once found myself in an argument with someone who had gone around smashing bus shelters at a march (which occurred earlier the same day). They felt the bus was an oppressive organ of the state denying people rides through oppressive fares, and that the transit agency should be “on notice.” This position proved far more popular than my argument that public transit is good, actually, and public employees should be considered our allies.
Graeber engaged with Labour because public services are good, and people need them now or they will die. He wasn’t going soft, he was living the anarchist dictum that we are trying to build a new world in the shell of the old. And that necessitates building lives in the world as it exists, so people can live to struggle for better conditions and less domination.
posted by Headfullofair at 7:47 AM on March 27 [49 favorites]
I loved "The Dawn of Everything" but it reminded me of this Existential Comics.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:15 AM on March 27 [13 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:15 AM on March 27 [13 favorites]
It really is not a program for modern life-- it discusses little past 1800.
Oh, this is an excellent recommendation of a book for me!
posted by jb at 10:28 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
Oh, this is an excellent recommendation of a book for me!
posted by jb at 10:28 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
...rather than creatively interpret the historical evidence to support their argument, they instead changed their argument to reflect what they found...
In other words, they were being good scholars.
that human societies have been organized in a variety of ways, that the idea of linear progress is a myth
Do any academic historians or other social scientists seriously believe in linear progress? It might be in the general culture, but I feel like the rejection of whiggish history was something I was taught in my first undergraduate class. (That said, I did purposely take a course that was titled "Ordinary People in Changing Times" because I wanted to learn about the working class - so maybe my program had a certain bias to start with.)
I am looking forward to reading The Dawn of Everything. Even as someone who loves to learn pre-modern history, I have long been bothered by the romanticization of pre-modern and/or non-Western cultures. I have studied enough pre-1800 history to know that there is always more nuance - for example, many pre-modern cultures were NOT great environmentalists - and those that were better at sustainability often had become so through hard lessons of what happened if they did not conserve certain resources. There have been societies with more or less hierarchy, but relatively egalitarian societies still could have great amounts of violence.
posted by jb at 10:45 AM on March 27 [5 favorites]
In other words, they were being good scholars.
that human societies have been organized in a variety of ways, that the idea of linear progress is a myth
Do any academic historians or other social scientists seriously believe in linear progress? It might be in the general culture, but I feel like the rejection of whiggish history was something I was taught in my first undergraduate class. (That said, I did purposely take a course that was titled "Ordinary People in Changing Times" because I wanted to learn about the working class - so maybe my program had a certain bias to start with.)
I am looking forward to reading The Dawn of Everything. Even as someone who loves to learn pre-modern history, I have long been bothered by the romanticization of pre-modern and/or non-Western cultures. I have studied enough pre-1800 history to know that there is always more nuance - for example, many pre-modern cultures were NOT great environmentalists - and those that were better at sustainability often had become so through hard lessons of what happened if they did not conserve certain resources. There have been societies with more or less hierarchy, but relatively egalitarian societies still could have great amounts of violence.
posted by jb at 10:45 AM on March 27 [5 favorites]
I loved the book. The point I took away from it was that humans have always tried to find new ways to organize themselves, and all the choices we have collectively made have good sides and bad sides. The urge to use "markets" and "trade" (or "religion) to explain everything in human history is an ideological choice. The book really opened up new possibilities for me.
posted by vibrotronica at 10:47 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
posted by vibrotronica at 10:47 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
They felt the bus was an oppressive organ of the state denying people rides through oppressive fares, and that the transit agency should be “on notice.”
As opposed to having no bus? That is better for people who can't drive? Of course, they didn't break open the turnstiles to let people in for free, they just broke the shelters - so now people are cold and wet while waiting for the expensive bus.
I have to admit that I flirted with anarchism when I was 19 or 20. It was very seductive. But I have to admit that I never came across such basic nonsense. (I was exposed to Skinner's Walden Two style of anarchy, which really would be better described as very small state-communities rather than no state. No state usually becomes "warlord state" within weeks of the breakdown.)
posted by jb at 10:50 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
As opposed to having no bus? That is better for people who can't drive? Of course, they didn't break open the turnstiles to let people in for free, they just broke the shelters - so now people are cold and wet while waiting for the expensive bus.
I have to admit that I flirted with anarchism when I was 19 or 20. It was very seductive. But I have to admit that I never came across such basic nonsense. (I was exposed to Skinner's Walden Two style of anarchy, which really would be better described as very small state-communities rather than no state. No state usually becomes "warlord state" within weeks of the breakdown.)
posted by jb at 10:50 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
I was hoping this article would explain what happened to him as in why did he die? Last I heard he died of pancreatitis pending results of an autopsy although this was mid-initial-COVID-crisis.
posted by latkes at 11:19 AM on March 27 [2 favorites]
posted by latkes at 11:19 AM on March 27 [2 favorites]
On a slight tangent, I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be much Graeber/James C. Scott engagement, at least not that I can find. Graeber not getting tenure at Yale supposedly because of his politics seems a bit complicated by Yale having Scott "Two Cheers for Anarchism" as Sterling Professor. Disclaimer that I have read and loved Dawn of Everything, but haven't read Graeber's earlier work.
posted by Rhedyn at 12:04 PM on March 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Rhedyn at 12:04 PM on March 27 [2 favorites]
If Graeber was backing away from anarchism towards the end of his life, well, he wouldn't be the first anarchist thinker to do so. And getting involved with Labour under Corbyn is definitely not an anarchist thing to do.
The rest of the article is not very convincing, though. For example:
Likewise, the passage from The Dawn of Everything about inequality isn't saying that wealth disparities don't exist or aren't a problem, it's saying that framing the phenomenon as "inequality" prevents us from thinking about the kind of fundamental structural transformations that anarchists are actually interested in. (A better Gini coefficient doesn't mean we've gotten rid of bosses, cops, and landlords.) As I understand it, the book as a whole is trying to illuminate what kind of structural transformations are possible. Again, this seems very useful from an anarchist point of view.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 12:22 PM on March 27 [13 favorites]
The rest of the article is not very convincing, though. For example:
“The state” is a concept that falls apart under analysis and should be abandoned. Of course, that makes anti-statism just as senseless, for what is an anti-statist fighting against, really?This is a non sequitur. Anarchists are against domination. What we call "the state" is just one form that domination takes. State violence and coercion don't cease to exist just because the state turns out to be a simplistic concept or a historically contingent formation. If anything, improving our understanding of "the state" makes us better anarchists.
Likewise, the passage from The Dawn of Everything about inequality isn't saying that wealth disparities don't exist or aren't a problem, it's saying that framing the phenomenon as "inequality" prevents us from thinking about the kind of fundamental structural transformations that anarchists are actually interested in. (A better Gini coefficient doesn't mean we've gotten rid of bosses, cops, and landlords.) As I understand it, the book as a whole is trying to illuminate what kind of structural transformations are possible. Again, this seems very useful from an anarchist point of view.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 12:22 PM on March 27 [13 favorites]
Just want to say I'm loving this dialog! Rare to see a nuanced discussion of anarchism(s) and anti-authoritarian thinking. Thank you for the post chavenet and thanks all for the informative conversation so far!
posted by latkes at 1:06 PM on March 27 [6 favorites]
posted by latkes at 1:06 PM on March 27 [6 favorites]
Thanks for posting this! I read TDOE because a book group I was in wanted to read it, and I really did not enjoy it. As soon as I hit the first "But what is inequality anyway? We can't define it, so why bother trying to end it?" my hackles went up.
My sense wasn't that the authors were trending liberal; it smelled very strongly of neoliberalism to me.
posted by helpthebear at 2:54 PM on March 27 [1 favorite]
My sense wasn't that the authors were trending liberal; it smelled very strongly of neoliberalism to me.
posted by helpthebear at 2:54 PM on March 27 [1 favorite]
I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be much Graeber/James C. Scott engagement, at least not that I can find. Graeber not getting tenure at Yale supposedly because of his politics seems a bit complicated by Yale having Scott "Two Cheers for Anarchism" as Sterling Professor.
My first thought was, different departments (Scott is in Political Science, Graeber was in Anthropology), but a quick google finds that Scott was already tenured elsewhere when he was hired at Yale in 1976 - probably directly into a tenured position. He also didn't do his first groundbreaking ethnographic work (which resulted in Weapons of the Weak) until 1978-1980; his wikipedia article says that he was tenured at the time.
I never met Graeber, but I did know some people who knew him around the time that he was denied tenure. The rumours among the students is that he was denied tenure because he supported the nascent graduate student union and also the case of a particular student in the department about some issue. Other rumours were that he also wasn't much of a team player; departments rely on professors to do a lot of thankless committee and administrative work, and if he wasn't interested or wasn't cooperative while doing that, that could affect the decision. (I don't know that it did, it was just one of the rumours). Obviously, these are stupid reasons not to grant tenure, but faculty are people and have all the biases of anyone (and sometimes more, since many successful academics are convinced they are geniuses regardless of their ability.*)
Mostly what I remember is hearing about Debt coming out a few years later and thinking, wow, Yale Anthropology made a very stupid choice. Here was Graeber, just about the most famous anthropologist on the planet after Margaret Mead, and Yale was nowhere in his story. It was a perfect own goal.
I'll always remember when the famous tenured professor Jay Winter claimed that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide in all of history, because he just didn't know any history much before 1915. Meanwhile, his colleague Ben Kiernan (also a historian and head of the Genocide Studies program) had already published an article on genocide in Carthage in 146 BCE. Winter was unshaken in his unfounded confidence.
I was going to anonymize which professor was so wrong and arrogant - but then I realized, I don't care anymore. Winter was a glib ass who was terrible to work for and whose historical analysis I wouldn't trust with a cup of salt. It's a shame - his first book had some excellent demographic research. But he fancied himself a historian of the "culture of war" and couldn't be bothered to learn, you know, the history that actually happened.
James Scott, on the other hand, is a kind, thoughtful and delightful teacher. He had more reason than most to be arrogant, but wasn't at all.
posted by jb at 2:59 PM on March 27 [14 favorites]
My first thought was, different departments (Scott is in Political Science, Graeber was in Anthropology), but a quick google finds that Scott was already tenured elsewhere when he was hired at Yale in 1976 - probably directly into a tenured position. He also didn't do his first groundbreaking ethnographic work (which resulted in Weapons of the Weak) until 1978-1980; his wikipedia article says that he was tenured at the time.
I never met Graeber, but I did know some people who knew him around the time that he was denied tenure. The rumours among the students is that he was denied tenure because he supported the nascent graduate student union and also the case of a particular student in the department about some issue. Other rumours were that he also wasn't much of a team player; departments rely on professors to do a lot of thankless committee and administrative work, and if he wasn't interested or wasn't cooperative while doing that, that could affect the decision. (I don't know that it did, it was just one of the rumours). Obviously, these are stupid reasons not to grant tenure, but faculty are people and have all the biases of anyone (and sometimes more, since many successful academics are convinced they are geniuses regardless of their ability.*)
Mostly what I remember is hearing about Debt coming out a few years later and thinking, wow, Yale Anthropology made a very stupid choice. Here was Graeber, just about the most famous anthropologist on the planet after Margaret Mead, and Yale was nowhere in his story. It was a perfect own goal.
I'll always remember when the famous tenured professor Jay Winter claimed that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide in all of history, because he just didn't know any history much before 1915. Meanwhile, his colleague Ben Kiernan (also a historian and head of the Genocide Studies program) had already published an article on genocide in Carthage in 146 BCE. Winter was unshaken in his unfounded confidence.
I was going to anonymize which professor was so wrong and arrogant - but then I realized, I don't care anymore. Winter was a glib ass who was terrible to work for and whose historical analysis I wouldn't trust with a cup of salt. It's a shame - his first book had some excellent demographic research. But he fancied himself a historian of the "culture of war" and couldn't be bothered to learn, you know, the history that actually happened.
James Scott, on the other hand, is a kind, thoughtful and delightful teacher. He had more reason than most to be arrogant, but wasn't at all.
posted by jb at 2:59 PM on March 27 [14 favorites]
I read and liked Graeber before Occupy, and he always felt much more open and generous in his considerations of alternatives in his writing, rather than being a doctrinaire anarchist (he also came across as much more impatient and snappy in his online interactions, from Usenet posts onwards). The brand of anarchism he comes from is a bit more accommodating of apparently contradictory sentiments and alliances, which is why I can see him simultaneously (and mostly benignly) hobnobbing with Black Bloc kids, Jeremy Corbyn supporters and, yes, Peter Thiel.
posted by ntk at 7:09 PM on March 27 [3 favorites]
posted by ntk at 7:09 PM on March 27 [3 favorites]
Do any academic historians or other social scientists seriously believe in linear progress? It might be in the general culture, but I feel like the rejection of whiggish history was something I was taught in my first undergraduate class.
I can guarantee from professional expertise that no, historians, anthropolgists, the motley social scientists do not believe in linear progress and have not done so for a very long time. It is in fact one of the larger problems in getting history, anthropology out to the wider public, that, for example, the tech-tree idea of progress is still extremely prevalent.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:05 AM on March 29 [4 favorites]
I can guarantee from professional expertise that no, historians, anthropolgists, the motley social scientists do not believe in linear progress and have not done so for a very long time. It is in fact one of the larger problems in getting history, anthropology out to the wider public, that, for example, the tech-tree idea of progress is still extremely prevalent.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:05 AM on March 29 [4 favorites]
he also came across as much more impatient and snappy in his online interactions
don't we all
posted by clawsoon at 7:32 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]
don't we all
posted by clawsoon at 7:32 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]
I once found myself in an argument with someone who had gone around smashing bus shelters at a march (which occurred earlier the same day). They felt the bus was an oppressive organ of the state denying people rides through oppressive fares, and that the transit agency should be “on notice.” This position proved far more popular than my argument that public transit is good, actually, and public employees should be considered our allies.
Oof. I've always been frustrated by people like that, and have tended to suspect that their "Smash the State" ideology is, to a large degree, a post facto rationalization of their inchoate desire to smash whatever's nearby and smashable.
They tend to be young and male, and it often seems as if they could have just as easily ended up at the other extreme of the political spectrum, had they encountered a different book or online forum or activist group at the right moment.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:21 PM on April 1 [2 favorites]
Oof. I've always been frustrated by people like that, and have tended to suspect that their "Smash the State" ideology is, to a large degree, a post facto rationalization of their inchoate desire to smash whatever's nearby and smashable.
They tend to be young and male, and it often seems as if they could have just as easily ended up at the other extreme of the political spectrum, had they encountered a different book or online forum or activist group at the right moment.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:21 PM on April 1 [2 favorites]
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