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I had a big fight with this guy on twitter because I told him his video on Graeber and Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything misportrayed their argument as being purely idealist. He ended up yelling at me about how little I understood and how much he understood and how society is purely downstream of materialist systems (in a real Just So sort of way). Very unpleasant!
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How to utterly misunderstand the substance of a book: a masterclass
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It was really disappointing, and I think he felt like he had backed himself into a corner that he had to defend or lose face. He insisted that every single example of either social flexibility (ie seasonal variation of social forms) or counterintuitive social forms (ie hierarchical state-like foragers or egalitarian farmers) was actually the exclusive, mechanical product of specific material conditions.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger @whatzaname @FrenchPanda @magitweeter @RD4Anarchy @ThatWeltschmerz @gnutelephony@floss.social @violetmadder @johnbrowntypebeats @AdrianRiskin @ciggysmokebringer @glitzersachen that's pretty much how I was feeling the other day, about that Alex chap, that he'd been backed into a corner. A shame.
(I'd actually forgotten his whole "strong man/weak man" schtick until you reminded me, mind)
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I think a lot of people never learn HOW to learn or gracefully acknowledge shortcomings or growth in their own understanding. If they DO absorb something or change their tune, it won't show up until later on as if it was all their own idea and had nothing to do with the actual discussion that taught them something new or changed their mind.
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The Worbs guy had the added baggage of a published youtube video in which he staked out a highly-specific critique of the book that. When pushed him on, it, he admitted that he didn’t actually disagree with anything they had asserted in Dawn, but he couldn’t back down from critiquing *something* about the book.
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I think I was lucky in that I'd already established common ground, so I never felt attacked, when I've been in that position.
I'd suspect I might dig my heels in otherwise, as would most people