Talk:David Graeber

Erasure of Graeber's academic bullying

Due to Graeber's leftist supporters, bringing any encyclopediac balance to the article is currently impossible. The following passage is being consistently removed: "Graeber was also a signatory to an open letter denouncing Cambridge social scientist Noah Carl on the grounds his work was “ethically suspect” and “methodologically flawed", which led to the young academic losing his position. Graeber contended Carl had "a racist motive", yet offered up no research paper by Carl to support his claim." Citations are Graeber's own tweet about the matter, the signed letter, and a Quillette article: https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1070766617305452544 / https://medium.com/@racescienceopenletter/open-letter-no-to-racist-pseudoscience-at-cambridge-472e1a7c6dca / https://quillette.com/2018/12/07/academics-mobbing-of-a-young-scholar-must-be-denounced/ Intellectually insulting, specious, and infantile excuses that any of these sources are 'unreliable', or that including the passage is 'encyclopediac', are merely tiresome. Graeber sought to destroy the careers of fellow academics whose opinion he disagreed with. In this, he very much exemplified the very worst of Leninist/Stalinist Woke activists. This appalling aspect of his personality and career should be noted in the article if it is to be balanced because, as his tweet shows, his hubris made him publicly proud of being ruthlessly cruel for the purpose of enabling his goals. MisterWizzy (talk) 04:35, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

It is a 'literally who' with sources that are literally twitter (lmfao) and some right wing psuedo-blog news website that clearly has an agenda. Even if this was notable, which it is not, you have not provided a single good source. Please go take your idiotic stuck-in-2016 anti-SJW nonsense rhetoric elsewhere, nobody here is interested.. SP00KYtalk 09:34, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Perfect proof of all I wrote. Even Graeber's own tweeted statement is dismissed as not a "good source": i.e. they can't even be bothered to come up with a half-decent lie. MisterWizzy (talk) 13:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Nobody's saying he didn't sign the letter. The tweet is an okay source, but not alone. We need a reliable, secondary source to establish that it was a significant event in his biography and so we can give some context from a neutral point of view (i.e. not repeating the smears of Graeber's political enemies as if they were fact). If we included a paragraph on everything Graeber tweeted about, this article would be a bit on the long side. – Joe (talk) 06:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The tweet cannot be used as it contains a statement about a third party. Twitter : Self-published and questionable sources such as twitter can only be used if (among other things) "it does not involve claims about third parties". Burrobert (talk) 12:14, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

As one of the editors who removed the drivel (which was added without edit summary) that prompted an ES with content, namely "Hagiography pushing to erase critical fact" I'd like to point out that this article is far from a hagiography, and the alleged incident is not critical to Graeber, and no comment on whether it is even a fact. MisterWizzy should assume good faith, and take a less combative approach on this talk page. JesseRafe (talk) 15:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Graeber was a ... (see Quillette article)--Ralfdetlef (talk) 08:56, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Grammatical error

The sentence "He later worked as a plate stripper on offset printers" is incorrect. Either "He later worked as a plate stripper for offset printers" (meaning for those who print offset), or "He later worked as a plate stripper on offset presses" or "He later worked as an offset plate stripper" would be more correct. The distinction is that the "printer" runs the press; the press is not a "printer." There are computer printers, but not offset printers. Minor point, but glaring. Sorry, not confident enough to edit the article directly on my one.

Thank you Rwsiii (talk) 01:18, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for explaining this subtlety. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Dawn of Everything should be more prominent

I believe The Dawn of Everything should be mentioned in the overview at the top, and should be in the "Known for" in the infobox, as it was an international bestseller and prize winner (as mentioned in that book's article).

For comparison, The Utopia of Rules and Bullshit Jobs are mentioned in the overview and "Known for," but they aren't mentioned in their articles as being bestsellers or winners/finalists for any prize. If having four entries in "Known for" (these three plus Debt: The First 5,000 Years) is considered too many, those two could be removed, or else all four books could be there. Another telling metric: the articles mention The Dawn of Everything being translated into "more than thirty languages" but Bullshit Jobs only being translated into "12 languages." Graue (talk) 22:12, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this and think it could also be expanded upon in the Main Works section, where it is currently mentioned in two separate short and slightly repetitive sentences. Not sure about the conventions regarding an appropriate number of “known for” entries but with translations being a fair indicator it certainly surpasses Utopia of Rules in its reach. Schnixen (talk) 12:15, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I went ahead and added TDoE to the overview and "Known for." If someone feels it's too long, they can remove one (probably Utopia of Rules). Graue (talk) 08:16, 7 November 2025 (UTC)