Cannibal Metaphysics on Immediatism Podcast

Anarchists have a troubled relationship with anthropology. Many of us are sympathetic to the enduring tribulations of people and worldviews that are indigenous in the onslaught of western culture's hegemony. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro is known for having offered, in the book Cannibal Metaphysics, a vision of anthropology as the "practice of the permanent decolonization of thought." He shows that "Amazonian and other Amerindian groups inhabit a radically different conceptual universe than ours -- in which nature and culture, human and nonhuman, subject and object are conceived in terms that reverse our own. (From the publisher's description)".

In these three episodes of Immediatism podcast, the full introductory essay by editor and translator Peter Skafish is read. Contained in these episodes is a full description of Viveiros de Castro's ideas on how indigenous groups use myth rather than only history and assign subjectivity beyond just "human" humans. Said to approach a true relativism, this is a disruptive book potentially of interest to anyone against identity politics, trying to be a truly unique autonomous individual, or wanting to experience beyond their own worldview and to mess with conceptual concepts familiar within modern civilization and its language.

Part 1
https://immediatism.com/archives/podcast/774-viveiros-de-castros-canniba...
Part 2
https://immediatism.com/archives/podcast/775viveiros-de-castros-cannibal...
Part 3
https://immediatism.com/archives/podcast/776-viveiros-de-castros-canniba...

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There are 3 Comments

Yes, this is what I have been trying to explain for years, the indigenous paradigm is the reverse of the Western. Its simple really, no land ownership, free food, live whereever you like, do what you like, no work, no taxes, no government, a different set of values and aesthetics, its brilliant!

Yes, the indigenous subjectivity can go beyond the physical member and be an object or animal, yet such a belief in oneself's manifestation is not a spook, but a projection of desire outside of the body to encompass the environment. Its a nice sustainable holistic foundation for a mind to begin its interrelationships with other living beings.

PS I forgot the most refreshing aspect of this paradigm, no prisons or asylums, , , beautiful!

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