The app for independent voices
John, you remind me why I love David Graeber. So many memorable quotes! I especially liked “An ‘opinion’ is what you have when you don’t have any power.”
You're right in your assessment, however, with all that I've read of his work, I never read Lost People. Your quotes on words as magic are very pertinent. Ironically, if that's the right word, it's because the technique of magic words has been used by the Shemitic shamans to rule over us for 3500 yrs, if not the whole 5000 since debt replaced morality.
So when David says that British society is anti-Semitic, I would argue it's ruled by those who see their divine right handed down from Noah to Shem to Abraham to Jacob/ Israel. To repudiate the right of some to rule over others has to go back to its inception in the Torah.
I did my damndest to get my fan mail from some flounder to David! Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun, wanted me to interview David. I wrote up questions I thought would hook him in. But Sy had stepped back and let the woke patrol run The Sun, who said they'd given it to one of their established interviewers. It never happened.
I wrote to his university email, to his publicist, and even sent a copy of my book--with its dedication including him--to his university mailbox during a one-night stayover in Manchester. That would have been 2019, the year of his wedding to Nika. I never heard back.
When a friend called to tell me news of his death, I felt that opportunity was gone forever. But as it settled in, my feeling changed. Unlike you, John, I had only ever talked to David in my head. But many of my best arguments were formed in those conversations! My whole economic plan was developed in dialogue with him. Now, he felt more accessible. I didn't need to share him with anyone. He was always present and, I'm certain, got my points ;-)
I don't know if I'd say David was my biggest influence because that implies a passive state--a river that changes its course because of a stream. I'd say David was my biggest confluence of two rivers running together. And given the magic of words and the fluid nature of reality, who knows if I confluenced him too?
Here are some of the episodes I've done on his and David Wengrow's ideas, including the first section of my book that draws on Debt:
Thanks for this, John!
