With permission, I'm copy/pasting comments from Blain Neufield on FB to this page (tech issues, now solved).
Blain:
I’ve now heard positive things about the Graeber and Wengrow book from a number of people I respect. Your post was the tipping point, so I’ll have to get it now. Thanks.
Overall I really liked this post. My comments focus on a couple of “quibbles” I have with it. But please read them in the context of overall sympathy with your perspective.
Regarding: “…makes more sense than the idea that the stunted and hobbled European culture of 1500 CE would suddenly have big, great insights.”
This strikes me as an odd way to characterize Europe during the Renaissance. Before the “discovery” of the Americas, Europe had been undergoing an intellectual transformation for many decades (economic, intellectual, and technological changes led to, and partially were caused by, the expansion of international trade—it was the desire for new trade routes to the east that famously motivated Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic).
And things would only accelerate after 1500. I haven’t read the book by Graeber and Wengrow yet, and I don’t doubt that the contact with indigenous peoples in the Americas (and elsewhere) had a profound impact on European self-understanding and thinking. I’m sure that many non-European insights were appropriated (stolen) by Europeans. But many of the changes that did occur can’t plausibly be seen to have been caused by interactions with non-European peoples. In fact, I don’t think contact with the Americas had any significant impact on, let alone caused, some of the main events in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries (the period *before* the Enlightenment).
In the early 16th century, the Reformation occurs, which shattered the European-wide commitment to a single “authority” on all matters concerning the “truth.” This event (with its subsequent Wars of Religion), combined with the invention of the printing press, revolutionized the intellectual environment of Europe. Written tracts could be produced in great numbers and distributed widely. New ideologies, philosophies, ways of thinking arose. Add to this the rise of “modern science” (Copernicus, Bacon, and so forth). (The latter development was influenced by ideas from other parts of the world, especially the Muslim world, but also greatly changed thanks in part to the shattering of intellectual hierarchy and authority in Europe.)
The Enlightenment of the late 17th century and the 18th century emerges out of these developments (the rise of the empirical “scientific method” with Bacon, the rise of “modern philosophy” with Descartes, the breakdown of unified intellectual authority with the Reformation, etc.). It is during this period that the perspectives of non-Europeans infiltrate into (and, I’m sure, in many cases are appropriated by) European thinkers. The idea of a “state of nature” – with radically different notions of what “primitive” peoples are like (often appealing to mistaken beliefs about the indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere) – plays an obviously important role here. It provides an intellectual tool for thinking about, and criticizing, existing political and social orders (from Hobbes through Rousseau).
I think that Graeber and Wengrow note that many critiques of European society were formulated from a non-European (North American) perspective (at least this is what I gleaned from a review I read elsewhere). They observe that these critiques had been attributed to European intellectuals adopting the “guise” of non-Europeans in order to make their criticisms in a politically safe way (much as Montesquieu pretended to discover letters from a “Persian” that were critical of the politics and society of France). Graeber and Wengrow suggest that in fact these critiques really were offered by non-European commenters (real people, not fictional inventions like Montesquieu’s “Persian”), and that European intellectuals appropriated them for their own purposes (and then obscured or denied the original sources). If this is correct (again, I’m basing this on a book review), then it’s vitally important that that fact be added to our understanding of the Enlightenment. It’s important to recognize this truth (such a commitment, of course, is itself an Enlightenment one). But to suggest that this is what “caused” the Enlightenment strikes me as implausible.
I also disagree with the claim that “those great new ideas (“the Enlightenment”) were mostly made of other people’s uncredited ideas (Islam and the East).” The “mostly” here seems way, way too strong. There definitely were ideas from other parts of the world that influenced Enlightenment thinkers—and it’s important that this be recognized and more widely known. In the past little or no credit had been given to those non-European influences. (I also think that the boundaries between “European” and “non-European” thought are quite blurry. You mention Islam – of course, much of Islamic philosophy, e.g., “Avicennism,” was shaped by Aristotle. And Ibn Tufayl’s “Philosophus Autodidactus,” influenced by Avicennism, in turn had a important impact on European literature and philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, something not generally known today.) But I don’t think it’s accurate at all to swing so far as to downplay the genuinely novel contributions of the Enlightenment. While I think I share your irritation with “Enlightenment triumphalists” (like Pinker), I don’t think opposing that outlook requires dismissing the Enlightenment as “mostly” a parasitic movement.
Finally, I found the dig at Rousseau a bit puzzling. Maybe I misunderstood it. But of all the major thinkers of the Enlightenment, Rousseau was the harshest critic of European treatment of non-European peoples (he once said something to the effect that it was a tragedy that Europeans went to Africa to plunder and not to learn). His “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” inverts the traditional European hierarchy: European civilization corrupts and destroys human freedom and what is innately good in human beings (it replaces “amour de soi,” love of life, with “amour propre,” pride, and hence envy). The indigenous peoples are happier and freer than Europeans, according to Rousseau. (He didn’t think European civilization was beyond saving – hence his “Social Contract.” But he was disgusted by European hierarchy and hypocrisy – things he thought “primitive” non-Europeans were either free of or at least suffered from to a far lesser extent.)
Jeff:
Wow, thank you! That’s fantastic to read. Of course there’s little nuance in my broad sweeps and irritated-with-everything pronouncements, and I appreciate your clarifications hugely.
With permission, I'm copy/pasting comments from Blain Neufield on FB to this page (tech issues, now solved).
Blain:
I’ve now heard positive things about the Graeber and Wengrow book from a number of people I respect. Your post was the tipping point, so I’ll have to get it now. Thanks.
Overall I really liked this post. My comments focus on a couple of “quibbles” I have with it. But please read them in the context of overall sympathy with your perspective.
Regarding: “…makes more sense than the idea that the stunted and hobbled European culture of 1500 CE would suddenly have big, great insights.”
This strikes me as an odd way to characterize Europe during the Renaissance. Before the “discovery” of the Americas, Europe had been undergoing an intellectual transformation for many decades (economic, intellectual, and technological changes led to, and partially were caused by, the expansion of international trade—it was the desire for new trade routes to the east that famously motivated Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic).
And things would only accelerate after 1500. I haven’t read the book by Graeber and Wengrow yet, and I don’t doubt that the contact with indigenous peoples in the Americas (and elsewhere) had a profound impact on European self-understanding and thinking. I’m sure that many non-European insights were appropriated (stolen) by Europeans. But many of the changes that did occur can’t plausibly be seen to have been caused by interactions with non-European peoples. In fact, I don’t think contact with the Americas had any significant impact on, let alone caused, some of the main events in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries (the period *before* the Enlightenment).
In the early 16th century, the Reformation occurs, which shattered the European-wide commitment to a single “authority” on all matters concerning the “truth.” This event (with its subsequent Wars of Religion), combined with the invention of the printing press, revolutionized the intellectual environment of Europe. Written tracts could be produced in great numbers and distributed widely. New ideologies, philosophies, ways of thinking arose. Add to this the rise of “modern science” (Copernicus, Bacon, and so forth). (The latter development was influenced by ideas from other parts of the world, especially the Muslim world, but also greatly changed thanks in part to the shattering of intellectual hierarchy and authority in Europe.)
The Enlightenment of the late 17th century and the 18th century emerges out of these developments (the rise of the empirical “scientific method” with Bacon, the rise of “modern philosophy” with Descartes, the breakdown of unified intellectual authority with the Reformation, etc.). It is during this period that the perspectives of non-Europeans infiltrate into (and, I’m sure, in many cases are appropriated by) European thinkers. The idea of a “state of nature” – with radically different notions of what “primitive” peoples are like (often appealing to mistaken beliefs about the indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere) – plays an obviously important role here. It provides an intellectual tool for thinking about, and criticizing, existing political and social orders (from Hobbes through Rousseau).
I think that Graeber and Wengrow note that many critiques of European society were formulated from a non-European (North American) perspective (at least this is what I gleaned from a review I read elsewhere). They observe that these critiques had been attributed to European intellectuals adopting the “guise” of non-Europeans in order to make their criticisms in a politically safe way (much as Montesquieu pretended to discover letters from a “Persian” that were critical of the politics and society of France). Graeber and Wengrow suggest that in fact these critiques really were offered by non-European commenters (real people, not fictional inventions like Montesquieu’s “Persian”), and that European intellectuals appropriated them for their own purposes (and then obscured or denied the original sources). If this is correct (again, I’m basing this on a book review), then it’s vitally important that that fact be added to our understanding of the Enlightenment. It’s important to recognize this truth (such a commitment, of course, is itself an Enlightenment one). But to suggest that this is what “caused” the Enlightenment strikes me as implausible.
I also disagree with the claim that “those great new ideas (“the Enlightenment”) were mostly made of other people’s uncredited ideas (Islam and the East).” The “mostly” here seems way, way too strong. There definitely were ideas from other parts of the world that influenced Enlightenment thinkers—and it’s important that this be recognized and more widely known. In the past little or no credit had been given to those non-European influences. (I also think that the boundaries between “European” and “non-European” thought are quite blurry. You mention Islam – of course, much of Islamic philosophy, e.g., “Avicennism,” was shaped by Aristotle. And Ibn Tufayl’s “Philosophus Autodidactus,” influenced by Avicennism, in turn had a important impact on European literature and philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, something not generally known today.) But I don’t think it’s accurate at all to swing so far as to downplay the genuinely novel contributions of the Enlightenment. While I think I share your irritation with “Enlightenment triumphalists” (like Pinker), I don’t think opposing that outlook requires dismissing the Enlightenment as “mostly” a parasitic movement.
Finally, I found the dig at Rousseau a bit puzzling. Maybe I misunderstood it. But of all the major thinkers of the Enlightenment, Rousseau was the harshest critic of European treatment of non-European peoples (he once said something to the effect that it was a tragedy that Europeans went to Africa to plunder and not to learn). His “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” inverts the traditional European hierarchy: European civilization corrupts and destroys human freedom and what is innately good in human beings (it replaces “amour de soi,” love of life, with “amour propre,” pride, and hence envy). The indigenous peoples are happier and freer than Europeans, according to Rousseau. (He didn’t think European civilization was beyond saving – hence his “Social Contract.” But he was disgusted by European hierarchy and hypocrisy – things he thought “primitive” non-Europeans were either free of or at least suffered from to a far lesser extent.)
Jeff:
Wow, thank you! That’s fantastic to read. Of course there’s little nuance in my broad sweeps and irritated-with-everything pronouncements, and I appreciate your clarifications hugely.
Seems like comments are not being allowed - please know this is a glitch. There's no "paid" version of this. I'm working on it. :)