This one made me think of a conversation that Conner Habib recorded with David Graeber. At one point, they talk about Indigenous groups who say they prefer the missionaries to the anthropologists, essentially because the anthropologists don't actually believe (or *can't* believe, within the paradigm in which they are operating?) that there is anything real beyond the natural-material, which makes them in some sense more alien, or more condescending, or just more incomprehensible, than the missionaries, who at least take the spirits seriously. I'm riffing on what actually gets said in the Habib/Graeber conversation, but part of what's interesting is that (at least to my ears) it reveals Graeber as firmly on the naturalist-materialist side, while Habib is a full-on weirdo (and doesn't have an academic career) and is therefore much more willing to take seriously that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy (even the anarchist variants of it). To me, any serious animist approach to the world can't involve drawing a line between "natural" and "unnatural" and only granting spirit to the former, it has to recognise "modernity" and "the Revolution" as powers, beings, whatever language we use. And I see that in Gordon White and in Vanessa's work – and in the theologian Walter Wink talking about "the powers and principalities" (which I met through Alastair McIntosh's work). And then, perhaps, we get to the logic of "might is right" and what other logics one might follow, if one is not satisfied with that logic. Also the question of whether, great powers as they may be, "modernity" and its ilk might also have blind spots. Since I'm reading it with Alfie just now, I'm tempted to say that Lord of the Rings covers a surprising amount of this ground. Anyway, here's that Habib/Graeber conversation: https://soundcloud.com/user-940109391/aewch-99-david-graeber-or
Also - I got partway through that Graeber-Habib conversation and it was most interesting. I was especially pleased by the bit about Bat-Mite.
Also had not appreciated that, at least in David Graeber's summary, CG Jung apparently anticipated Martin Shaw's problem with Jungians.
As to the main point, though, I ran into David Graeber as part of the reading around this here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.14318/hau5.2.003 . I have a lot of sympathy for his conclusion. It's kind of what I meant when talking about fairies a few weeks back. It's nice to talk to people who aren't trying to be sophisticated. Who just say 'sure there are fairies' or 'of course there aren't.'
There's a fantasy novel called 'Wizard of the Pigeons' by Megan Lindholm - don't suppose you've read that?
Mainly though. I don't think might makes right. I don't see how that could even be meaningful. I think most people know that and people who don't aren't likely to be joining this conversation. I just think - and this hardly original - that it's really tempting to forget that right doesn't make might.
Just an update to say that I did manage to listen to the whole thing and Graeber does directly refer to that paper of his. He also says that he wrote it because he finds 'the ontological turn' *patronising*. That was really interesting for me because that was exactly my reaction to Nikolas saying "if you believe in [spirits] then they are real." Which I wrote about in this post: https://nicholaswilkinson.substack.com/p/nam-ong-paris-and-actually-norfolk . Graeber actually talked about indigenous people (in Canada) preferring right wing to left wing activists because the right wing guys will argue with them. To me it seemed like you couldn't respect someone's views if you'd made it impossible for yourself to argue with them. It's like when someone says "well I'm sure that works for you" or "it's great if you find that helpful."
Anyway right after that, I listened to the BBC In Our Time episode on Hope. That was interesting and - in the end bit on the podcast version - one of the people on the programme mentioned Tolkien and his eucatastrophe.
Thanks for listening – and for this humbling reminder of how memory can muddle things up and create shapes that suit our thinking, rather than being true to what was said! I think this bit from Gordon White's recent post on kingship and symbolic power was bleeding into my recollection:
"the reason left cosmologies like anarchism fail to make cut-through in Indigenous societies is at least in part because tribal cosmovisions understand the sacred role of chiefs and kings. Communism and anarchism show up with their critiques of how factories are run in nineteenth century European monarchies and expect it all to be swept away."
Though that's a separate argument again from the one about missionaries vs secular leftists, which may come from another source or just my unreliable narration. (Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It opens with the line, "Everything in this book really happened, but some of the things that happened only happened in my head.")
Are you sure? Because the version on Amazon begins "for several years now, I've been puzzled by some lines of Auden's." :-)
But seriously, though, I think those two arguments are indeed different but related. Because you can neutralize what belongs to the other world by saying "it's only true 'for them". And so you can escape the problem that indigenous people might actually believe some 'problematic' things because those things exist in a different world and are therefore not be able to threaten you. Right?
I suppose (unlike a sword or even a shield), a wall doesn't speak for itself about whom it is protecting... unless, of course there's a gate with stringent restrictions on moving one way but not the other...
I had a weird thought, while thinking about this over a pot of tea just now. I thought 'I miss Richard Dawkins'. First time I've ever articulated that and I'm not even sure where it came from.
Heh! Well, strictly speaking, the line I quoted comes from the final paragraph of the introduction, but in my memory it seems to stand alone, as a warning notice, between the Auden stuff and the start of the story he's about to tell.
I like that thought about walls. The Nastassja Martin book is a particularly extreme and illuminating testimony to the safety of the role of the anthropologist and what happens when that is ruptured, when suddenly there is more at stake, not only because of the bear attack but because she finds herself needing to return to the Even friends she was living with, because their culture can help her make sense of what has happened to her in a way that none of the Russian or French medical professionals have been able to. It doesn't offer any tidy answers, but it would be a good place to start for thinking about what happens when a tear comes about in the wall between worlds, or rather when we discover the wall wasn't really there.
Yes, I don't imagine that you or anyone likely to be reading this actually believes that "might makes right". I'm intrigued, though, about this other position, "right makes might", and where you're encountering that. And I'm wondering about the difference between "right makes might" and the kinds of thin strands of hope that I tend to speak for, realising that I may be predisposed to them as a result of having LotR read to me when I was seven...
This one made me think of a conversation that Conner Habib recorded with David Graeber. At one point, they talk about Indigenous groups who say they prefer the missionaries to the anthropologists, essentially because the anthropologists don't actually believe (or *can't* believe, within the paradigm in which they are operating?) that there is anything real beyond the natural-material, which makes them in some sense more alien, or more condescending, or just more incomprehensible, than the missionaries, who at least take the spirits seriously. I'm riffing on what actually gets said in the Habib/Graeber conversation, but part of what's interesting is that (at least to my ears) it reveals Graeber as firmly on the naturalist-materialist side, while Habib is a full-on weirdo (and doesn't have an academic career) and is therefore much more willing to take seriously that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy (even the anarchist variants of it). To me, any serious animist approach to the world can't involve drawing a line between "natural" and "unnatural" and only granting spirit to the former, it has to recognise "modernity" and "the Revolution" as powers, beings, whatever language we use. And I see that in Gordon White and in Vanessa's work – and in the theologian Walter Wink talking about "the powers and principalities" (which I met through Alastair McIntosh's work). And then, perhaps, we get to the logic of "might is right" and what other logics one might follow, if one is not satisfied with that logic. Also the question of whether, great powers as they may be, "modernity" and its ilk might also have blind spots. Since I'm reading it with Alfie just now, I'm tempted to say that Lord of the Rings covers a surprising amount of this ground. Anyway, here's that Habib/Graeber conversation: https://soundcloud.com/user-940109391/aewch-99-david-graeber-or
Also - I got partway through that Graeber-Habib conversation and it was most interesting. I was especially pleased by the bit about Bat-Mite.
Also had not appreciated that, at least in David Graeber's summary, CG Jung apparently anticipated Martin Shaw's problem with Jungians.
As to the main point, though, I ran into David Graeber as part of the reading around this here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.14318/hau5.2.003 . I have a lot of sympathy for his conclusion. It's kind of what I meant when talking about fairies a few weeks back. It's nice to talk to people who aren't trying to be sophisticated. Who just say 'sure there are fairies' or 'of course there aren't.'
There's a fantasy novel called 'Wizard of the Pigeons' by Megan Lindholm - don't suppose you've read that?
Mainly though. I don't think might makes right. I don't see how that could even be meaningful. I think most people know that and people who don't aren't likely to be joining this conversation. I just think - and this hardly original - that it's really tempting to forget that right doesn't make might.
Just an update to say that I did manage to listen to the whole thing and Graeber does directly refer to that paper of his. He also says that he wrote it because he finds 'the ontological turn' *patronising*. That was really interesting for me because that was exactly my reaction to Nikolas saying "if you believe in [spirits] then they are real." Which I wrote about in this post: https://nicholaswilkinson.substack.com/p/nam-ong-paris-and-actually-norfolk . Graeber actually talked about indigenous people (in Canada) preferring right wing to left wing activists because the right wing guys will argue with them. To me it seemed like you couldn't respect someone's views if you'd made it impossible for yourself to argue with them. It's like when someone says "well I'm sure that works for you" or "it's great if you find that helpful."
Anyway right after that, I listened to the BBC In Our Time episode on Hope. That was interesting and - in the end bit on the podcast version - one of the people on the programme mentioned Tolkien and his eucatastrophe.
Thanks for listening – and for this humbling reminder of how memory can muddle things up and create shapes that suit our thinking, rather than being true to what was said! I think this bit from Gordon White's recent post on kingship and symbolic power was bleeding into my recollection:
"the reason left cosmologies like anarchism fail to make cut-through in Indigenous societies is at least in part because tribal cosmovisions understand the sacred role of chiefs and kings. Communism and anarchism show up with their critiques of how factories are run in nineteenth century European monarchies and expect it all to be swept away."
Though that's a separate argument again from the one about missionaries vs secular leftists, which may come from another source or just my unreliable narration. (Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It opens with the line, "Everything in this book really happened, but some of the things that happened only happened in my head.")
Are you sure? Because the version on Amazon begins "for several years now, I've been puzzled by some lines of Auden's." :-)
But seriously, though, I think those two arguments are indeed different but related. Because you can neutralize what belongs to the other world by saying "it's only true 'for them". And so you can escape the problem that indigenous people might actually believe some 'problematic' things because those things exist in a different world and are therefore not be able to threaten you. Right?
I suppose (unlike a sword or even a shield), a wall doesn't speak for itself about whom it is protecting... unless, of course there's a gate with stringent restrictions on moving one way but not the other...
I had a weird thought, while thinking about this over a pot of tea just now. I thought 'I miss Richard Dawkins'. First time I've ever articulated that and I'm not even sure where it came from.
Heh! Well, strictly speaking, the line I quoted comes from the final paragraph of the introduction, but in my memory it seems to stand alone, as a warning notice, between the Auden stuff and the start of the story he's about to tell.
I like that thought about walls. The Nastassja Martin book is a particularly extreme and illuminating testimony to the safety of the role of the anthropologist and what happens when that is ruptured, when suddenly there is more at stake, not only because of the bear attack but because she finds herself needing to return to the Even friends she was living with, because their culture can help her make sense of what has happened to her in a way that none of the Russian or French medical professionals have been able to. It doesn't offer any tidy answers, but it would be a good place to start for thinking about what happens when a tear comes about in the wall between worlds, or rather when we discover the wall wasn't really there.
Yes, I don't imagine that you or anyone likely to be reading this actually believes that "might makes right". I'm intrigued, though, about this other position, "right makes might", and where you're encountering that. And I'm wondering about the difference between "right makes might" and the kinds of thin strands of hope that I tend to speak for, realising that I may be predisposed to them as a result of having LotR read to me when I was seven...
Yes, I think you get me... My dad left me this weird stone orb, you see and...
Wait, isn't Alfie like 4? You're reading him LoTR??
Ha, he's actually 7, so I figured it was LoTR time!
Dude. It's Hobbit time. Wow.
We did the Hobbit a year ago. Did I mention that I am expected to improvise melodies to all of the songs? Some of those songs are loonnnggg...
Did you ever hear the BBC radio version? They cut Tom Bombadil, though so it's probably not that much help. Anyway I'm impressed.