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The commentary for this book is ridiculous: “revolutionary”, “intellectual feast”, “genuinely ground breaking”, “a marvel of a book”—seriously? But, really, this book is incredible.

To start with, I cannot grasp how they wrote these 700 pages of unending extremely researched examples and arguments, articulated in an extremely convincing but also almost fun way. This is a life’s work.

What this book is doing is presenting a lot of examples with multiple references and explanations of multiple social structures of the past. It—very convincingly—answers questions on the origin of inequality, on the origin and possibility of democratic cities, on the fluctuation of social norms. Kandiaronk and the Wendat of North America have definitely become my favourite.

But, mostly, what this book wants to say is that across history we can really see humanity experimenting with so many different social structures; so what happened and we’re stuck with the same one for a while now?

I definitely recommend this book to everyone—including all my friends who cannot see democracy working on a large scale because of the large scale!

A favourite excerpt:
“This is why the English word ‘free’ is actually derived from a root meaning ‘friend’. Slaves could not have friends because they could not make commitments to others, since they were entirely under someone else’s power and their only obligation was to do exactly what their master said. If a Roman legionary was captured in battle and enslaved, then managed to escape and return home, he had to go through an elaborate process of restoring all his social relationships, including remarrying his wife, since the act of enslaving him was considered to have severed all previous relationships. The West Indian sociologist Orlando Patterson has referred to this as a condition of ‘social death’.”

This is truly an amazing book. Never before have I read and understood such a refreshing and revolutionary approach to education and intelligence. If Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is about intelligence from the viewpoint of machines, The Ignorant Schoolmaster is about human and humane intelligence.

One-way lectures and punishment for exploring hard to acquire knowledge were always ideas I was against. But what I hadn't considered before reading this book was that, actually, it's explanations that make people feel stupid. Or, as this book calls it: explications that stultify. Teachers who explain are the ones who enslave and subjugate because they imply it's their higher intelligence that allows them to understand and everybody else not to. I've certainly been guilty of offering explanations all my life, with the Socratic method (the worst of all according to Jacques) showing me the way. I've felt there was something problematic there—but I hadn't dared to make the truly radical thought that it was the nature of explaining that was problematic.

Jacques Rancière (just like Ivan Illich in Deschooling Society) convincingly argues against knowledge-based superiority and in favour of intellectual emancipation. Equality is not a goal, he says, it's where we start from:

But the belief in intellectual inequality and in the superiority of one’s own intelligence does not belong to scholars and dis­tinguished poets alone. Its force comes from the fact that it embraces the entire population under the guise of humility. I can’t, the ignorant one you are encouraging to teach himself declares; I am only a worker. Listen carefully to everything there is in that syllogism. First of all, “I can’t” means “I don't want to; why would I make the effort?” Which also means: I un­doubtedly could, for I am intelligent. But I am a worker: people like me can’t; my neighbor can’t. And what use would it be for me, since I have to deal with imbeciles?

Radical critique of education. Published in 1971, which made it very interesting to read and think how much things have changed but also how much things have stayed the same. Connected a lot to the author through the book, we would probably be friends if met in real life!

I believe that no more than four—possibly even three—distinct “channels” or learning exchanges could contain all the resources needed for real learning. The child grows up in a world of things, surrounded by people who serve as models for skills and values. He finds peers who challenge him to argue, to compete, to cooperate, and to understand; and if the child is lucky, he is exposed to confrontation or criticism by an experienced elder who really cares. Things, models, peers, and elders are four resources each of which requires a different type of arrangement to ensure that everybody has ample access to it.

Radical. Revolutionary. Transcendental. I probably understood half of it.

The negativity of otherness—that is, the atopia of the Other, which eludes all ability—is constitutive of erotic experience: “The other bears alterity as an essence. And this is why [we] have sought this alterity in the absolutely original relationship of eros, a relationship that is impossible to translate into powers.”

“We are not the defenders of the river. We are the river.”
— Fisherman, Magdalena River, Colombia

Core idea of capitalism: one not only has to always profit but also do it in an accelerating way. When one does not grow enough, it's an economic crisis. The movement of degrowth raises the arguments against this social imaginary. Always growing is irrational, with no basis, but more importantly it is fatally dangerous. Earth is a balanced system; humanity is one of the cogs and by massively exploiting the Earth's resources the balance is no more and the system collapses.Degrowth is about scaling down world production, as it's the only way to prevent the aforementioned environmental collapse. There are several pathways:1. End planned obsolescence. The lightbulb's life is the most famous example.2. Advertising. Manipulating people to make irrational purchases does increase the GDP yet it doesn't improve our well-being.3. Usership. Not every house needs a lawn mower every day.4. End food waste. 30%-50% of all the food that's being produced is wasted.5. Scale down eco-destructive industries. E.g. fossil fuel and beef.Undoubtedly, these pathways require massive economic and social restructuring. Countless problems, expected and unexpected, will arise. The author provides answers and solutions to many, yet, of course it could never be enough. Alas, it seems it's the only way to mitigate the sixth extinction.Looking back millions of years into the Earth system’s history there have been five mass extinction events. It looks like the sixth one has began.

“Recent figures show that around 85% of global fish stocks are now depleted or facing collapse. Haddock have fallen to 1% of their former volume; halibut, those magnificent giants of the sea, to one-fifth of 1%. Fish catches are beginning to decline around the world, for the first time in recorded history. In the Asia-Pacific, fishery yields are on track to hit zero by 2048.

Most of this is due to aggressive overfishing: just as with agriculture, corporations have turned fishing into an act of warfare, using industrial megatrawlers to scrape the seafloor in their hunt for increasingly scarce fish, hauling up hundreds of species in order to catch the few that have ‘market value’, turning coral gardens and colourful ecosystems into lifeless plains in the process. Whole ocean landscapes have been decimated in the scramble for profit.”

— Excerpt from chapter: Welcome to the Anthropocene

The book begins with a very succinct state of affairs on the Earth system. Hopelessness overtakes one's mind as the amount of suffering and death humanity has caused during the last 500 years is immeasurable. In exchange for what? Inequality in survival potential — caused by the few at the top. But, Jason's other book is a much more complete case for this argument: [b:The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions|32603498|The Divide A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions|Jason Hickel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1496341783l/32603498.SY75.jpg|53184514]When a constituent of a system does not play its role then the system’s collapse is inevitable. This is what happened a few thousand years ago, during the Austronesian expansion, when humans left mainland Asia and settled in the islands of south-east Pacific Ocean. Being accustomed to the huge ecosystem of mainland Asia, they didn’t consider that those small islands have a much more delicate life balance. Their rate of tree cutting and animal hunting were unsustainable, which lead to whole islands collapsing and being abandoned. However, the settlers learned from their mistakes. They understood how the ecosystem worked and did, subsequently, achieve a balance that allowed all organisms of the ecosystem to live.This is the challenge we are facing, only this time on a planet level rather than on a small island. Odds are against us. It will require global collaboration in an unprecedented level. It's one of the greatest collective challenges of all time. If one is looking for something to work on, this is a considerably attractive choice.The author says this is a book about hope. It’s difficult to apprehend that, especially in the beginning of the book. As it progresses, potential solutions are offered but their application and success do not seem likely.In the end, after having the whole picture together, one can finally understand. True optimism is not blind optimism. And true hope is not one without knowing the bleakness of reality. One has to know; and still venture into this high-stakes undertaking — not because they fear death, but because they are excited about life. This is why this book is about hope.---Also published on my blog: sirodoht.com/blog/book-less-is-more-by-jason-hickel/