The exceptional outsider democratists

A wonderful, posthumous gift from David Graeber invites us to think differently about the roots of democratic culture and the functioning of democratic communities.

David Graeber was one of the most creative, brilliant minds of his generation who we lost too young in 2020. His effervescent mind produced some of the most creative, challenging thinking of the last century — ideas that invite us to reconsider many of our foundational assumptions about society and how they might not rest on the firm ground we assume or expect. His collaboration with archaeologist David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, is a profound reimagining of how we think about the emergence of modern humans and modern human societies.

Just a few weeks ago, we got a wonderful posthumous gift in the form of one more text from David — Pirate Enlightenment is a small book but in his usual way uses a deep, thoughtful exploration of human society to invite entirely new questions about how we think about the philosophical enlightenment foundations of democratic societies. We too often take these assumptions for granted or assume are best explored in histories of white Western now industrialized modern nationstates. Turns out that perhaps the great democratic experimentalists of that era were, perhaps, pirates.

Like many of his provocations, they land like invitations rather than confrontations. Even when they might turn our world a little upside down, they always feel like a kindness. “Perhaps this thing you’re standing on isn’t the best thing for you — I’m not going to pull it out from under you or knock you off it — but perhaps you might step over here and take a look and then decide for yourself if this place might make some new things possible…”

Read and enjoy.