Okay, seems like it's time for me to read #TheDawnofEverything for literally the 6th time because every critique (from the left) I have read of it so far is completely confusing. They all seem to be arguing heatedly against theses that I didn't at all interpret Graeber & Wengrow to be making. Am I stupid? Why do people seem to be so vehement about statements that I cannot for the life of me recall being in the book?
Maybe it's kickback against the grandiose title, which yeah, I can see raising an eyebrow at (I kinda did myself), because anything purporting to be a history of "everything" is a little uh....yeah. But once I got past that to the book's (supposed??) actual thesis statement, I felt I could accept fairly easily accept the questions the authors were asking and the arguments they made towards the answers to those questions. Without, of course, applying a 100% certainty that these are the definitive answers, because I don't think there can actually be definitive answers to anything.
What I valued most about the book was its opposition to entrenched Western cultural narratives about history, particularly deep history, that uphold a linear, progressivist view of social & cultural development; and its inherent optimism about the ability of human beings and human societies to address social issues in thoughtful and creative ways (thus belying the old narrative that industrialization, capitalism, & authoritarianism were "inevitable" or worse, "natural" outcomes of history).
So I'm going to try again, because I don't understand the content of some of these critiques — many of them seem to be arguing against the same things I saw the book arguing against, or for what I saw it to be arguing for. Others seem to contradict the book's premise only to turn around and essentially restate it. So maybe it's me that doesn't get it, which is depressing, because I hate the thought that I'm just getting stupider. Guess we'll see.