Andy Thibault

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Cool Justice 
Fair Play And Anarchism At Yale
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
November 14, 2005

I was predisposed to like this guys' material. After all, if he's an enemy of the state, a foe of rapacious corporations and a popular voice for shaking up the status quo, I figured he must have something good to say. Then, I began to read professor David Graeber's "Direct Action and Anarchism in the United States Since Seattle." I've been choking on this tract, trying to plow through and make sense of it, for a couple weeks.

Based on this reading and other Graeber publications, he cannot be accused of being a good writer. Still, the jury is out on his overall scholarship and teaching performance.

Anarchism has been a subject of interest for me since college days in the 1970's. I read about the bugs in Siberia helping each other out instead of killing each other in Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid," a counterpoint to Darwin's natural selection imperative. This distinction is the basis for much of anarchist thought and practice. The anarchists appeal to me because they oppose all illegitimate hierarchies. The pressure they put on various organizations and societies tends to shine a little light on who gets what and how.

Graeber made a big splash last month when the news wires moved a 1,000-word feature on the non-renewal of his contract as an associate professor of anthropology at Yale. He contends he got the boot, in part, because of his anarchist writings and activities.

A vocal contingent of Yale students is supporting Graeber, writing letters to administrators and contributing to a web site called Graeber Solidarity. He filed a grievance challenging his departure date of June 2006.

"Dr. Graeber has the rare ability," wrote grad student Mieka Ritsema, " to convey complicated concepts and theories in digestible language, yet he loses none of the complexity of the argument …[students] were … enthralled by his lectures." Others praised him for his availability outside of class and his teaching of social science theory.

Graeber also published an informative - though somewhat dense - essay in the Nation magazine about cops in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Miami planting false stories in the media about violent activities    by modern-day anarchists.

 What then, to make of "Direct Action and Anarchism in the United States Since Seattle," which runs 24 pages in 10-point type? A sampling: "The phrase `anti-globalization' was coined by the corporate media, and people inside the movement, especially inside the NGOish, direct action end of things, have never felt very comfortable with it. Essentially, this is a movement against Neoliberalism … the problem is that in the U.S., one cannot say one is a movement against Neoliberalism because, since media insist on framing such issues only in propagandistic terms ("free trade" "free market"), no one would know what you mean … The real origins of the movement for example lie in an international network called People's Global Action (PGA). PGA emerged from a 1998 Zapatista encuentro in Barcelona …"

Not necessarily terrible for an academic, but, did anyone edit this mess? I asked Graeber. "No, it was just a draft," he told me, for a specialized audience in Italy familiar with the concepts and players. I read several other Graeber works, including "The New Anarchists," New Left Review, and "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology," Prickly Paradigm Press. These pieces were much easier to navigate.

Graeber is a revolutionary theorist and activist calling for infusion of anarchist thought into disciplines including anthropology, sociology, economics and political science.

It appears Yale fired him for reasons beyond scholarship or performance. The running dog capitalists will likely try to buy him out and give him an offer he can't refuse.

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