WEBVTT

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So there is this part about the Inuit, where this guy, Graeber,

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explains the remarkable experience of one anthropologist (Freuchen)

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who meets with Eskimo people,

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goes fishing with them, and comes back empty-handed.

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He hasn't caught much, and as he comes back to his shelter,

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he finds plenty of fish, because another one, who caught a great deal,

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has piled some and given it to him. So naturally he thanks him.

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But the other one gets offensed and says: “Do not ever thank me for this”.

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The Inuit answers him:

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“Up in our country we are human!” the hunter said.

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“And since we are humane we help each other.

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We do not like hearing thanks, for such matters.

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What I have today, you could have tomorrow.

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Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves...

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and by whips one makes dogs.”

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You need to hear the explanation in order to really grasp how powerful this is...

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And then, it's worth reading again and again a dozen times,

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it's astonishing really, profound.

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“The last sentence is a bit of a classical wording of anthropology,

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and one will find similar refusals of accounting credits and debits...”

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— refusal to calculate credits and debits! —

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“... throughout the anthropological literature

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on egalitarian hunting societies.

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Far from seeing himself as human

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because of his ability to calculate economics,

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the hunter asserts that we are truly human

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when we refuse to do this sort of calculations.

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When we refuse to measure or memorize, who gave what,

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to whom, precisely because those behaviors

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inevitably create a world

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where we will undertake comparing power to power

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measure them,

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calculate,

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and reduce ourselves, progressively, mutually, to a state of slavery...

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or that of dogs, a debt bondage.

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Not that this man, like untold millions of similar

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egalitarian spirits throughout history...

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not that this man was unaware

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that humans have a propensity to calculate.

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Had he not known, he couldn't have digressed the way he did.

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Indeed we are enclined to calculate.

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We have all sorts of inclinations.

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In any situation of the everyday life,

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we are enclined in many ways that simultaneously

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drive us in different directions, often contradictory.

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None of them is truer than the other.

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Which do we chose as the foundation of our humanity,

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and put at the ground of our civilization ?

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Such is the real question.”

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And so lately, that's not too long ago,

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it's been two, three hundred years...

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for the last 300 years,

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merchants have colonized our collective psyche!

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And we account for debits and credits!

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A merchant, doing his transaction...

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as we pay, we negate the relationship between individuals.

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There is a relationship during the transaction,

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until payment puts and end to it,

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and we become strangers again.

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Whereas humans, since the dawn of time

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— as anthropologists explain, it's amazing! —,

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it's that humans, before merchants colonized us

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and dehumanize us,

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humans knew how crucial were those mindful acknowledgments;

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the acceptance of perpetual dependency and reciprocity.

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And so when we...

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That which predates money, isn't barter:

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barter had no use but to conciliate strangers on a transaction.

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However, a society with no boundary for the future,

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aiming at living together, didn't swap.

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We used to lend things:

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“okay, you need this tool, I'll lend it to you,

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sure, just use it“,

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as the Inuit says, “you need it, it's yours, take it,

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well, yes I lend you some... And you will return,

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you might give a little more back, or you might give a little less...”.

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They never give back exactly the same amount,

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thus always leaving a small obligation that ensures we don't rip each other's faces...