1 00:00:07,319 --> 00:00:12,199 So there is this part about the Inuit, where this guy, Graeber, 2 00:00:13,610 --> 00:00:16,326 explains the remarkable experience of one anthropologist (Freuchen) 3 00:00:18,849 --> 00:00:20,928 who meets with Eskimo people, 4 00:00:21,061 --> 00:00:26,650 goes fishing with them, and comes back empty-handed. 5 00:00:26,650 --> 00:00:31,622 He hasn't caught much, and as he comes back to his shelter, 6 00:00:31,775 --> 00:00:36,251 he finds plenty of fish, because another one, who caught a great deal, 7 00:00:36,785 --> 00:00:41,449 has piled some and given it to him. So naturally he thanks him. 8 00:00:42,190 --> 00:00:45,187 But the other one gets offensed and says: “Do not ever thank me for this”. 9 00:00:45,722 --> 00:00:47,522 The Inuit answers him: 10 00:00:47,826 --> 00:00:50,884 “Up in our country we are human!” the hunter said. 11 00:00:51,151 --> 00:00:54,708 “And since we are humane we help each other. 12 00:00:57,130 --> 00:01:00,403 We do not like hearing thanks, for such matters. 13 00:01:01,243 --> 00:01:03,546 What I have today, you could have tomorrow. 14 00:01:04,084 --> 00:01:08,619 Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves... 15 00:01:11,314 --> 00:01:14,307 and by whips one makes dogs.” 16 00:01:15,796 --> 00:01:18,859 You need to hear the explanation in order to really grasp how powerful this is... 17 00:01:18,859 --> 00:01:21,469 And then, it's worth reading again and again a dozen times, 18 00:01:21,469 --> 00:01:24,152 it's astonishing really, profound. 19 00:01:24,492 --> 00:01:27,493 “The last sentence is a bit of a classical wording of anthropology, 20 00:01:27,493 --> 00:01:31,220 and one will find similar refusals of accounting credits and debits...” 21 00:01:31,485 --> 00:01:35,271 — refusal to calculate credits and debits! — 22 00:01:35,501 --> 00:01:37,407 “... throughout the anthropological literature 23 00:01:37,407 --> 00:01:39,274 on egalitarian hunting societies. 24 00:01:39,942 --> 00:01:41,645 Far from seeing himself as human 25 00:01:41,645 --> 00:01:44,338 because of his ability to calculate economics, 26 00:01:44,338 --> 00:01:47,183 the hunter asserts that we are truly human 27 00:01:47,183 --> 00:01:50,183 when we refuse to do this sort of calculations. 28 00:01:52,683 --> 00:01:56,699 When we refuse to measure or memorize, who gave what, 29 00:01:56,823 --> 00:01:59,610 to whom, precisely because those behaviors 30 00:01:59,610 --> 00:02:01,645 inevitably create a world 31 00:02:01,654 --> 00:02:06,454 where we will undertake comparing power to power 32 00:02:07,355 --> 00:02:08,940 measure them, 33 00:02:09,940 --> 00:02:11,535 calculate, 34 00:02:12,515 --> 00:02:16,312 and reduce ourselves, progressively, mutually, to a state of slavery... 35 00:02:16,797 --> 00:02:18,517 or that of dogs, a debt bondage. 36 00:02:20,539 --> 00:02:23,701 Not that this man, like untold millions of similar 37 00:02:23,701 --> 00:02:26,059 egalitarian spirits throughout history... 38 00:02:26,059 --> 00:02:27,517 not that this man was unaware 39 00:02:27,517 --> 00:02:29,915 that humans have a propensity to calculate. 40 00:02:30,515 --> 00:02:32,745 Had he not known, he couldn't have digressed the way he did. 41 00:02:32,750 --> 00:02:34,986 Indeed we are enclined to calculate. 42 00:02:35,102 --> 00:02:36,754 We have all sorts of inclinations. 43 00:02:36,911 --> 00:02:39,009 In any situation of the everyday life, 44 00:02:39,011 --> 00:02:41,583 we are enclined in many ways that simultaneously 45 00:02:41,583 --> 00:02:44,258 drive us in different directions, often contradictory. 46 00:02:44,258 --> 00:02:46,322 None of them is truer than the other. 47 00:02:47,093 --> 00:02:50,088 Which do we chose as the foundation of our humanity, 48 00:02:50,088 --> 00:02:52,142 and put at the ground of our civilization ? 49 00:02:52,142 --> 00:02:53,602 Such is the real question.” 50 00:02:54,488 --> 00:02:56,955 And so lately, that's not too long ago, 51 00:02:56,955 --> 00:02:58,981 it's been two, three hundred years... 52 00:02:59,497 --> 00:03:01,091 for the last 300 years, 53 00:03:03,124 --> 00:03:05,470 merchants have colonized our collective psyche! 54 00:03:05,470 --> 00:03:07,546 And we account for debits and credits! 55 00:03:08,722 --> 00:03:13,483 A merchant, doing his transaction... 56 00:03:14,251 --> 00:03:16,696 as we pay, we negate the relationship between individuals. 57 00:03:17,513 --> 00:03:19,639 There is a relationship during the transaction, 58 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:22,075 until payment puts and end to it, 59 00:03:22,655 --> 00:03:24,553 and we become strangers again. 60 00:03:25,342 --> 00:03:26,910 Whereas humans, since the dawn of time 61 00:03:26,910 --> 00:03:28,567 — as anthropologists explain, it's amazing! —, 62 00:03:28,567 --> 00:03:32,916 it's that humans, before merchants colonized us 63 00:03:32,916 --> 00:03:34,817 and dehumanize us, 64 00:03:35,285 --> 00:03:39,668 humans knew how crucial were those mindful acknowledgments; 65 00:03:39,668 --> 00:03:43,271 the acceptance of perpetual dependency and reciprocity. 66 00:03:43,865 --> 00:03:45,368 And so when we... 67 00:03:47,448 --> 00:03:50,251 That which predates money, isn't barter: 68 00:03:50,353 --> 00:03:54,987 barter had no use but to conciliate strangers on a transaction. 69 00:03:54,987 --> 00:03:57,599 However, a society with no boundary for the future, 70 00:03:57,774 --> 00:04:00,712 aiming at living together, didn't swap. 71 00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:03,762 We used to lend things: 72 00:04:04,018 --> 00:04:06,514 “okay, you need this tool, I'll lend it to you, 73 00:04:06,514 --> 00:04:07,867 sure, just use it“, 74 00:04:07,867 --> 00:04:10,373 as the Inuit says, “you need it, it's yours, take it, 75 00:04:10,373 --> 00:04:15,178 well, yes I lend you some... And you will return, 76 00:04:15,178 --> 00:04:17,581 you might give a little more back, or you might give a little less...”. 77 00:04:17,783 --> 00:04:19,951 They never give back exactly the same amount, 78 00:04:19,959 --> 00:04:25,497 thus always leaving a small obligation that ensures we don't rip each other's faces...