Anthropologist David Graeber died today. He influenced me a lot, which is weird since I’m not an anthropologist nor have ever taken anthropology class. But how I think about politics and how I try to act politically owes a lot to him. That he’s suddenly gone is still shocking to me.
I first heard David Graeber speak at Left Forum in 2006 about democracy. As someone who was studying classics in undergrad, I was intrigued that this man was taking so seriously how the Athenians voted over 2,000 years ago. I then heard him speak several times over the next ten years, but only once in a formal academic setting. It was clear that he loved to talking to people outside the academy and considered them real thinkers, not just an audience.
He also showed up, again and again. Often it was public, whether for Yale grad students, for Occupy Wall Street or any number of other causes. But he also showed up privately. When I worked in a graduate program admissions office, I was tasked with filing recommendation letters. I came across one from Graeber. I was struck how he supported a student not only because they were brilliant, but because they were a genuinely kind person.
He was a funny person and was a skillful enough writer he was also funny in his essays. One Christmas eve, I was waiting out the clock at an office job. I pretended to be working while reading “The Sadness of Post-Workerism: ‘Art and Immaterial Labour’ Conference a sort of review” and looking at the snow out the window. A year later and the woman would became my wife was making fun of me for reading the bibliography of *Debt: The First Five Thousand Years* on the way back from the bookstore.
I love reading Graeber because of the breadth of his research – the legacy of slavery in Madagascar, the morality of debt in the 21st century, causes of murder in 19th century Greece. He was rigorous and principled in his analysis, and showed that you can do that without becoming dogmatic. Instead, his analysis sprang from his participation and desire for a better world.
But what I come back to again and again his faith that we can both discover and change the origins of our problems.
I first heard David Graeber speak at Left Forum in 2006 about democracy. As someone who was studying classics in undergrad, I was intrigued that this man was taking so seriously how the Athenians voted over 2,000 years ago. I then heard him speak several times over the next ten years, but only once in a formal academic setting. It was clear that he loved to talking to people outside the academy and considered them real thinkers, not just an audience.
He also showed up, again and again. Often it was public, whether for Yale grad students, for Occupy Wall Street or any number of other causes. But he also showed up privately. When I worked in a graduate program admissions office, I was tasked with filing recommendation letters. I came across one from Graeber. I was struck how he supported a student not only because they were brilliant, but because they were a genuinely kind person.
He was a funny person and was a skillful enough writer he was also funny in his essays. One Christmas eve, I was waiting out the clock at an office job. I pretended to be working while reading “The Sadness of Post-Workerism: ‘Art and Immaterial Labour’ Conference a sort of review” and looking at the snow out the window. A year later and the woman would became my wife was making fun of me for reading the bibliography of *Debt: The First Five Thousand Years* on the way back from the bookstore.
I love reading Graeber because of the breadth of his research – the legacy of slavery in Madagascar, the morality of debt in the 21st century, causes of murder in 19th century Greece. He was rigorous and principled in his analysis, and showed that you can do that without becoming dogmatic. Instead, his analysis sprang from his participation and desire for a better world.
But what I come back to again and again his faith that we can both discover and change the origins of our problems.