If you want to read an embarrasingly thin-skinned response to Henry Farrell by David Graeber go here. Holy shit.
Doesn't sell the book very well, but minus the psychoanalysis and name-calling the post is pretty terrific. It gets much more useful after the hate is out of the way.
Farrell promises a response.
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Allow me also to remark as well how flattered I am by so much of this discussion. When I wrote the book it never occurred to me I would end up being compared with the likes of Polanyi, Nietzsche, or even Ernest Mandel.
I see neither Howie Mandel nor Hitler on the list, so what's the big problem?
~
Yikes. I got about 1/3 of the way through that blizzard of chaff before remembering that I had better things to do. Thanks for making me overcook my chicken, Mr. McGravitas!
Is that what the kids are calling it these days, M. Krebs?
~
"Blizzard of Chaff" might be a pretty good name for a black metal band.
I have been following that thread all agog. All ye be warned, Graeber cut a bitch what get up in his Chapter 12.
I haven't read teh book. And despite Graeber's unhinged reply and teh fact that I'm a big Farrell fanboi, I think David Graeber's probably right on this. No one has any problem acknowledging millenia of history showing that empires are bloodthirsty and cruel - that they use military might to enforce their hegemony. And then all of sudden when we get to Chapter 12 it's all "but this time it's different."
That said, I haven't read the book. Nor do I think I have the background to actually figure out who is more objectively right even if I had read Chapter 12. But there are certain patterns of behaviour that repeat themselves, although I suppose that this time it could be different.
I recommend the book. I think there's reason to be skeptical of the way things are framed in 12 and elsewhere: "what are we to conclude from this coincidence and that coincidence" arguments should be attacked, but you gotta attack and win.
what does it say about your writing when you have to write this long of a response to it? oh, i know, let's ask erik erikson!
Is it as bad as everyone's making it out to be? I mean it's not like he's pulling a Jonah-esque "consider all these groups that happen to be vegetarians".
I'm looking at it from a distance, and from way out here it looks like people generally agree that there is this unpleasant connection between military might and global dominance - how could there not be? - EXCEPT that in the current situation, you gotta consider all these other niggly little bits that make it totally different this time around.
This time I am totally going to stop at one drink. This time your mom and I are totally going to "just talk".
Maybe Graeber does have a ridiculously erroneous and cartoonish view of international relations - I don't know. But does it matter? Teh zillions of things that International Relations folks know and which Graeber ignores or glosses over or gets wrnog - seems kinda weak tea. My understanding is that Graeber put together a narrative showing the relationships between people, money and the promise of outright violence over five millenia. And then in Chapter 12 he points out that we have a One Superpower situation now that is not unlike previous One Superpower situations.
All of that said, d00d really is a dick.
Also too, latest update is that you got a shoutout. 150 comments on a million word post where even teh lurkers have advanced degrees and teh standout of it all is probably still your one sentence.
Is it as bad as everyone's making it out to be?
No.
But yeah, wow. I just don't believe how he could think that would be a good idea, and he's asking the kind of contextual reading from Farrell that he refuses to allow for himself.
I guess I gotta read teh book now.
Wait. It's over 500 pages and weighs a pound and a half? There better be pictures of naked ladies innit.
It's a kind of trivia heaven though. Debt, after all, covers a whole lot of ground, from the way you frame moral relations to how you organize a state, and Graeber does a really good job of staying interesting in the use of his examples.
Farrell's response is up. It's also 500 pages and there's no nekkid ladies. It's liek he doesn't even know he's on teh Intarb00bs.
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