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Title: What is Green Anarchy? Author: Anonymous Date: 1990s-2000s Language: en Topics: green anarchy, primer, introductory, anti-civ, Black Seed Source: Retrieved on June 10th, 2014 from http://blackseed.anarchyplanet.org/what-is-green-anarchy/ Notes: Originally appeared in “Green Anarchy: Back to Basics” primers
Bridging both time and work, the following is an article that was
featured in one of Green Anarchy magazine’s “Back to Basics” primers. We
see this as a starting point for further exploration and discussion. The
topics covered are central to a green anarchist critique or perspective.
This is not an exhaustive list, but rather the beginnings of what we
hope will be an ongoing conversation – one to be further expanded,
updated, and explored in subsequent issues of Black Seed.
This primer is not meant to be the “defining principles” for a green
anarchist “movement”, nor an anti-civilization manifesto. It is a look
at some of the basic ideas and concepts that collective members share
with each other, and with others who identify as green anarchists. We
understand and celebrate the need to keep our visions and strategies
open, and always welcome discussion. We feel that every aspect of what
we think and who we are constantly needs to be challenged and remain
flexible if we are to grow. We are not interested in developing a new
ideology, nor perpetuating a singular world-view. We also understand
that not all green anarchists are specifically anti-civilization (but we
do have a hard time understanding how one can be against all domination
without getting to its roots: civilization itself). At this point,
however, most who use the term “green anarchist” do indict civilization
and all that comes along with it (domestication, patriarchy, division of
labor, technology, production, representation, alienation,
objectification, control, the destruction of life, etc). While some
would like to speak in terms of direct democracy and urban gardening, we
feel it is impossible and undesirable to “green up” civilization and/or
make it more “fair”. We feel that it is important to move towards a
radically decentralized world, to challenge the logic and mindset of the
death-culture, to end all mediation in our lives, and to destroy all the
institutions and physical manifestations of this nightmare. We want to
become uncivilized. In more general terms, this is the trajectory of
green anarchy in thought and practice.
One qualifier that we feel is important to begin with is the distinction
between “anarchy” and “anarchism”. Some will write this off as merely
semantics or trivial, but for most post-left and anti-civilization
anarchists, this differentiation is important. While anarchism can serve
as an important historical reference point from which to draw
inspiration and lessons, it has become too systematic, fixed, and
ideological…everything anarchy is not. Admittedly, this has less to do
with anarchism’s social/political/philosophical orientation, and more to
do with those who identify as anarchists. No doubt, many from our
anarchist lineage would also be disappointed by this trend to solidify
what should always be in flux. The early self-identified anarchists
(Proudhon, Bakunin, Berkman, Goldman, Malatesta, and the like) were
responding to their specific contexts, with their own specific
motivations and desires. Too often, contemporary anarchists see these
individuals as representing the boundaries of anarchy, and create a
W.W.B.D. [What Would Bakunin Do (or more correctly–Think)] attitude
towards anarchy, which is tragic and potentially dangerous. Today, some
who identify as “classical” anarchists refuse to accept any effort in
previously uncharted territory within anarchism (ie. Primitivism,
Post-Leftism, etc) or trends which have often been at odds with the
rudimentary workers’ mass movement approach (ie. Individualism,
Nihilism, etc). These rigid, dogmatic, and extremely uncreative
anarchists have gone so far as to declare that anarchism is a very
specific social and economic methodology for organizing the working
class. This is obviously an absurd extreme, but such tendencies can be
seen in the ideas and projects of many contemporary anarcho-leftists
(anarcho-sydicalists, anarcho-communists, platformists, federationists).
“Anarchism”, as it stands today, is a far-left ideology, one which we
need to get beyond. In contrast, “anarchy” is a formless, fluid, organic
experience embracing multi-faceted visions of liberation, both personal
and collective, and always open. As anarchists, we are not interested in
forming a new framework or structure to live under or within, however
“unobtrusive” or “ethical” it claims to be. Anarchists cannot provide
another world for others, but we can raise questions and ideas, try to
destroy all domination and that which impedes our lives and our dreams,
and live directly connected with our desires.
While not all green anarchists specifically identify as “Primitivists”,
most acknowledge the significance that the primitivist critique has had
on anti-civilization perspectives. Primitivism is simply an
anthropological, intellectual, and experiential examination of the
origins of civilization and the circumstances that led to this nightmare
we currently inhabit. Primitivism recognizes that for most of human
history, we lived in face-to-face communities in balance with each other
and our surroundings, without formal hierarchies and institutions to
mediate and control our lives. Primitivists wish to learn from the
dynamics at play in the past and in contemporary
gatherer-hunter/primitive societies (those that have existed and
currently exist outside of civilization). While some primitivists wish
for an immediate and complete return to gatherer-hunter band societies,
most primitivists understand that an acknowledgement of what has been
successful in the past does not unconditionally determine what will work
in the future. The term “Future Primitive,” coined by
anarcho-primitivist author John Zerzan, hints that a synthesis of
primitive techniques and ideas can be joined with contemporary anarchist
concepts and motivations to create healthy, sustainable, and egalitarian
decentralized situations. Applied non-ideologically, anarcho-primitivism
can be an important tool in the de-civilizing project.
Green anarchists tend to view civilization as the logic, institutions,
and physical apparatus of domestication, control, and domination. While
different individuals and groups prioritize distinct aspects of
civilization (ie primitivists typically focus on the question of
origins, feminists primarily focus on the roots and manifestations of
patriarchy, and insurrectionary anarchists mainly focus on the
destruction of contemporary institutions of control), most green
anarchists agree that it is the underlying problem or root of
oppression, and it needs to be dismantled. The rise of civilization can
roughly be described as the shift over the past 10,000 years from an
existence within and deeply connected to the web of life, to one
separated from and in control of the rest of life. Prior to civilization
there generally existed ample leisure time, considerable gender autonomy
and equality, a non-destructive approach to the natural world, the
absence of organized violence, no mediating or formal institutions, and
strong health and robusticity. Civilization inaugurated warfare, the
subjugation of women, population growth, drudge work, concepts of
property, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every known disease, to
name a few of its devastating derivatives. Civilization begins with and
relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual freedom. It cannot be
reformed and is thus our enemy.
One way of analyzing the extreme discord between the world-views of
primitive and earth-based societies and of civilization, is that of
biocentric vs anthropocentric outlooks. Biocentrism is a perspective
that centers and connects us to the earth and the complex web of life,
while anthropocentrism, the dominant world view of western culture,
places our primary focus on human society, to the exclusion of the rest
of life. A biocentric view does not reject human society, but does move
it out of the status of superiority and puts it into balance with all
other life forces. It places a priority on a bioregional outlook, one
that is deeply connected to the plants, animals, insects, climate,
geographic features, and spirit of the place we inhabit. There is no
split between ourselves and our environment, so there can be no
objectification or otherness to life. Where separation and
objectification are at the base of our ability to dominate and control,
interconnectedness is a prerequisite for deep nurturing, care, and
understanding. Green anarchy strives to move beyond human-centered ideas
and decisions into a humble respect for all life and the dynamics of the
ecosystems that sustain us.
Another aspect of how we view and relate to the world that can be
problematic, in the sense that it separates us from a direct
interaction, is our shift towards an almost exclusively symbolic
culture. Often the response to this questioning is, “So, you just want
to grunt?” Which might be the desire of a few, but typically the
critique is a look at the problems inherent with a form of communication
and comprehension that relies primarily on symbolic thought at the
expense (and even exclusion) of other sensual and unmediated means. The
emphasis on the symbolic is a movement from direct experience into
mediated experience in the form of language, art, number, time, etc
Symbolic culture filters our entire perception through formal and
informal symbols. It’s beyond just giving things names, but having an
entire relationship to the world that comes through the lens of
representation. It is debatable as to whether humans are “hard-wired”
for symbolic thought or if it developed as a cultural change or
adaptation, but the symbolic mode of expression and understanding is
certainly limited and its over-dependence leads to objectification,
alienation, and a tunnel-vision of perception. Many green anarchists
promote and practice getting in touch with and rekindling dormant or
underutilized methods of interaction and cognition, such as touch,
smell, and telepathy, as well as experimenting with and developing
unique and personal modes of comprehension and expression.
Domestication is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate and
control life according to its logic. These time-tested mechanisms of
subordination include: taming, breeding, genetically modifying,
schooling, caging, intimidating, coercing, extorting, promising,
governing, enslaving, terrorizing, murdering…the list goes on to include
almost every civilized social interaction. Their movement and effects
can be examined and felt throughout society, enforced through various
institutions, rituals, and customs. It is also the process by which
previously nomadic human populations shift towards a sedentary or
settled existence through agriculture and animal husbandry. This kind of
domestication demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land and
the plants and animals being domesticated. Whereas in a state of
wildness, all life shares and competes for resources, domestication
destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (eg pastoral
lands/agricultural fields, and to a lesser degree—horticulture and
gardening) necessitates the end of open sharing of the resources that
formerly existed; where once “this was everyone’s,” it is now “mine”. In
Daniel Quinn’s novel Ishmael, he explains this transformation from the
“Leavers” (those who accepted what the earth provided) to that of the
“Takers” (those who demanded from the earth what they wanted). This
notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property
and power emerged. Domestication not only changes the ecology from a
free to a totalitarian order, it enslaves the species that are
domesticated. Generally the more an environment is controlled, the less
sustainable it is. The domestication of humans themselves involves many
trade-offs in comparison to the foraging, nomadic mode. It is worth
noting here that most of the shifts made from nomadic foraging to
domestication were not made autonomously, they were made by the blade of
the sword or barrel of the gun. Whereas only 2000 years ago the majority
of the world population were gatherer-hunters, it is now .01%. The path
of domestication is a colonizing force that has meant myriad pathologies
for the conquered population and the originators of the practice.
Several examples include a decline in nutritional health due to
over-reliance on non-diverse diets, almost 40–60 diseases integrated
into human populations per domesticated animal (influenza, the common
cold, tuberculosis, etc), the emergence of surplus which can be used to
feed a population out of balance and which invariably involves property
and an end to unconditional sharing.
Toward the beginning in the shift to civilization, an early product of
domestication is patriarchy: the formalization of male domination and
the development of institutions which reinforce it. By creating false
gender distinctions and divisions between men and women, civilization,
again, creates an “other” that can be objectified, controlled,
dominated, utilized, and commodified. This runs parallel to the
domestication of plants for agriculture and animals for herding, in
general dynamics, and also in specifics like the control of
reproduction. As in other realms of social stratification, roles are
assigned to women in order to establish a very rigid and predictable
order, beneficial to hierarchy. Woman come to be seen as property, no
different then the crops in the field or the sheep in the pasture.
Ownership and absolute control, whether of land, plants, animals,
slaves, children, or women, is part of the established dynamic of
civilization. Patriarchy demands the subjugation of the feminine and the
usurpation of nature, propelling us toward total annihilation. It
defines power, control and dominion over wildness, freedom, and life.
Patriarchal conditioning dictates all of our interactions; with
ourselves, our sexuality, our relationships to each other, and our
relationship to nature. It severely limits the spectrum of possible
experience. The interconnected relationship between the logic of
civilization and patriarchy is undeniable; for thousands of years they
have shaped the human experience on every level, from the institutional
to the personal, while they have devoured life. To be against
civilization, one must be against patriarchy; and to question
patriarchy, it seems, one must also put civilization into question.
The disconnecting of the ability to care for ourselves and provide for
our own needs is a technique of separation and disempowerment
perpetuated by civilization. We are more useful to the system, and less
useful to ourselves, if we are alienated from our own desires and each
other through division of labor and specialization. We are no longer
able to go out into the world and provide for ourselves and our loved
ones the necessary nourishment and provisions for survival. Instead, we
are forced into the production/consumption commodity system to which we
are always indebted. Inequities of influence come about via the
effective power of various kinds of experts. The concept of a specialist
inherently creates power dynamics and undermines egalitarian
relationships. While the Left may sometimes recognize these concepts
politically, they are viewed as necessary dynamics, to keep in check or
regulate, while green anarchists tend to see division of labor and
specialization as fundamental and irreconcilable problems, decisive to
social relationships within civilization.
Most anti-civilization anarchists reject science as a method of
understanding the world. Science is not neutral. It is loaded with
motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, the catastrophe
of dissociation, disempowerment, and consuming deadness that we call
“civilization.” Science assumes detachment. This is built into the very
word “observation.” To “observe” something is to perceive it while
distancing oneself emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel
of “information” moving from the observed thing to the “self,” which is
defined as not a part of that thing. This death-based or mechanistic
view is a religion, the dominant religion of our time. The method of
science deals only with the quantitative. It does not admit values or
emotions, or the way the air smells when it’s starting to rain—or if it
deals with these things, it does so by transforming them into numbers,
by turning oneness with the smell of the rain into abstract
preoccupation with the chemical formula for ozone, turning the way it
makes you feel into the intellectual idea that emotions are only an
illusion of firing neurons. Numbers themselves are not truth but a
chosen style of thinking. We have chosen a habit of mind that focuses
our attention into a world removed from reality, where nothing has
quality or awareness or a life of its own. We have chosen to transform
the living into the dead. Careful-thinking scientists will admit that
what they study is a narrow simulation of the complex real world, but
few of them notice that this narrow focus is self-feeding, that it has
built technological, economic, and political systems that are all
working together, which suck our reality in on itself. As narrow as the
world of numbers is, scientific method does not even permit all
numbers—only those numbers which are reproducible, predictable, and the
same for all observers. Of course reality itself is not reproducible or
predictable or the same for all observers. But neither are fantasy
worlds derived from reality. Science doesn’t stop at pulling us into a
dream world—it goes one step further and makes this dream world a
nightmare whose contents are selected for predictability and
controllability and uniformity. All surprise and sensuality are
vanquished. Because of science, states of consciousness that cannot be
reliably disposed are classified as insane, or at best “non-ordinary,”
and excluded. Anomalous experience, anomalous ideas, and anomalous
people are cast off or destroyed like imperfectly-shaped machine
components. Science is only a manifestation and locking in of an urge
for control that we’ve had at least since we started farming fields and
fencing animals instead of surfing the less predictable (but more
abundant) world of reality, or “nature.” And from that time to now, this
urge has driven every decision about what counts as “progress”, up to
and including the genetic restructuring of life.
All green anarchists question technology on some level. While there are
those who still suggest the notion of “green” or “appropriate”
technology and search for rationales to cling to forms of domestication,
most reject technology completely. Technology is more than wires,
silicon, plastic, and steel. It is a complex system involving division
of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit of those
who implement its process. The interface with and result of technology
is always an alienated, mediated, and distorted reality. Despite the
claims of postmodern apologists and other technophiles, technology is
not neutral. The values and goals of those who produce and control
technology are always embedded within it. Technology is distinct from
simple tools in many regards. A simple tool is a temporary usage of an
element within our immediate surroundings used for a specific task.
Tools do not involve complex systems which alienate the user from the
act. Implicit in technology is this separation, creating an unhealthy
and mediated experience which leads to various forms of authority.
Domination increases every time a new “time-saving” technology is
created, as it necessitates the construction of more technology to
support, fuel, maintain and repair the original technology. This has led
very rapidly to the establishment of a complex technological system that
seems to have an existence independent from the humans who created it.
Discarded by-products of the technological society are polluting both
our physical and our psychological environments. Lives are stolen in
service of the Machine and the toxic effluent of the technological
system’s fuels—both are choking us. Technology is now replicating
itself, with something resembling a sinister sentience. Technological
society is a planetary infection, propelled forward by its own momentum,
rapidly ordering a new kind of environment: one designed for mechanical
efficiency and technological expansionism alone. The technological
system methodically destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural
world, constructing a world fit only for machines. The ideal for which
the technological system strives is the mechanization of everything it
encounters.
A key component of the modern techno-capitalist structure is
industrialism, the mechanized system of production built on centralized
power and the exploitation of people and nature. Industrialism cannot
exist without genocide, ecocide, and colonialism. To maintain it,
coercion, land evictions, forced labor, cultural destruction,
assimilation, ecological devastation, and global trade are accepted as
necessary, even benign. Industrialism’s standardization of life
objectifies and commodifies it, viewing all life as a potential
resource. A critique of industrialism is a natural extension of the
anarchist critique of the state because industrialism is inherently
authoritarian. In order to maintain an industrial society, one must set
out to conquer and colonize lands in order to acquire (generally)
non-renewable resources to fuel and grease the machines. This
colonialism is rationalized by racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism.
In the process of acquiring these resources, people must be forced off
their land. And in order to make people work in the factories that
produce the machines, they must be enslaved, made dependent, and
otherwise subjected to the destructive, toxic, degrading industrial
system. Industrialism cannot exist without massive centralization and
specialization: Class domination is a tool of the industrial system that
denies people access to resources and knowledge, making them helpless
and easy to exploit. Furthermore, industrialism demands that resources
be shipped from all over the globe in order to perpetuate its existence,
and this globalism undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency. It is
a mechanistic worldview that is behind industrialism. This is the same
world-view that has justified slavery, exterminations, and the
subjugation of women. It should be obvious to all that industrialism is
not only oppressive for humans, but that it is also fundamentally
ecologically destructive.
Unfortunately, many anarchists continue to be viewed, and view
themselves, as part of the Left. This tendency is changing, as post-left
and anti-civilization anarchists make clear distinctions between their
perspectives and the bankruptcy of the socialist and liberal
orientations. Not only has the Left proven itself to be a monumental
failure in its objectives, but it is obvious from its history,
contemporary practice, and ideological framework, that the Left (while
presenting itself as altruistic and promoting “freedom”) is actually the
antithesis of liberation. The Left has never fundamentally questioned
technology, production, organization, representation, alienation,
authoritarianism, morality, or Progress, and it has almost nothing to
say about ecology, autonomy, or the individual on any meaningful level.
The Left is a general term and can roughly describe all socialist
leanings (from social democrats and liberals to Maoists and Stalinists)
which wish to re-socialize “the masses” into a more “progressive”
agenda, often using coercive and manipulative approaches in order to
create a false “unity” or the creation of political parties. While the
methods or extremes in implementation may differ, the overall push is
the same, the institution of a collectivized and monolithic world-view
based on morality.
Most anarchists and “revolutionaries” spend a significant portion of
their time developing schemes and mechanisms for production,
distribution, adjudication, and communication between large numbers of
people; in other words, the functioning of a complex society. But not
all anarchists accept the premise of global (or even regional) social,
political, and economic coordination and interdependence, or the
organization needed for their administration. We reject mass society for
practical and philosophical reasons. First, we reject the inherent
representation necessary for the functioning of situations outside of
the realm of direct experience (completely decentralized modes of
existence). We do not wish to run society, or organize a different
society, we want a completely different frame of reference. We want a
world where each group is autonomous and decides on its own terms how to
live, with all interactions based on affinity, free and open, and
non-coercive. We want a life which we live, not one which is run. Mass
society brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual, but
also with the earth. It is simply not sustainable (in terms of the
resource extraction, transportation, and communication systems necessary
for any global economic system) to continue on with, or to provide
alternative plans for a mass society. Again, radical de-centralization
seems key to autonomy and providing non-hierarchical and sustainable
methods of subsistence.
We are beings striving for a deep and total break with the civilized
order, anarchists desiring unrestrained freedom. We fight for
liberation, for a de-centralized and unmediated relationship with our
surroundings and those we love and share affinity with. Organizational
models only provide us with more of the same bureaucracy, control, and
alienation that we receive from the current set-up. While there might be
an occasional good intention, the organizational model comes from an
inherently paternalistic and distrusting mindset which seems
contradictory to anarchy. True relationships of affinity come from a
deep understanding of one another through intimate need-based
relationships of day-to-day life, not relationships based on
organizations, ideologies, or abstract ideas. Typically, the
organizational model suppresses individual needs and desires for “the
good of the collective” as it attempts to standardize both resistance
and vision. From parties, to platforms, to federations, it seems that as
the scale of projects increase, the meaning and relevance they have for
one’s own life decrease. Organizations are means for stabilizing
creativity, controlling dissent, and reducing “counter-revolutionary
tangents” (as chiefly determined by the elite cadres or leadership).
They typically dwell in the quantitative, rather than the qualitative,
and offer little space for independent thought or action. Informal,
affinity-based associations tend to minimize alienation from decisions
and processes, and reduce mediation between our desires and our actions.
Relationships between groups of affinity are best left organic and
temporal, rather than fixed and rigid.
As anarchists, we are fundamentally opposed to government, and likewise,
any sort of collaboration or mediation with the state (or any
institution of hierarchy and control). This position determines a
certain continuity or direction of strategy, historically referred to as
revolution. This term, while warped, diluted, and co-opted by various
ideologies and agendas, can still have meaning to the anarchist and
anti-ideological praxis. By revolution, we mean the ongoing struggle to
alter the social and political landscape in a fundamental way; for
anarchists, this means its complete dismantling. The word “revolution”
is dependent on the position from which it is directed, as well as what
would be termed “revolutionary” activity. Again, for anarchists, this is
activity which is aimed at the complete dissolving of power. Reform, on
the other hand, entails any activity or strategy aimed at adjusting,
altering, or selectively maintaining elements of the current system,
typically utilizing the methods or apparatus of that system. The goals
and methods of revolution cannot be dictated by, nor performed within,
the context of the system. For anarchists, revolution and reform invoke
incompatible methods and aims, and despite certain anarcho-liberal
approaches, do not exist on a continuum. For anti-civilization
anarchists, revolutionary activity questions, challenges, and works to
dismantle the entire set-up or paradigm of civilization. Revolution is
also not a far-off or distant singular event which we build towards or
prepare people for, but instead, a life-way or practice of approaching
situations.
Anarchists in general, and green anarchists in particular, favor direct
action over mediated or symbolic forms of resistance. Various methods
and approaches, including cultural subversion, sabotage, insurrection,
and political violence (although not limited to these) have been and
remain part of the anarchist arsenal of attack. No one tactic can be
effective in significantly altering the current order or its trajectory,
but these methods, combined with transparent and ongoing social
critique, are important. Subversion of the system can occur from the
subtle to the dramatic, and can also be an important element of physical
resistance. Sabotage has always been a vital part of anarchist
activities, whether in the form of spontaneous vandalism (public or
nocturnal) or through more highly illegal underground coordination in
cell formation. Recently, groups like the Earth Liberation Front, a
radical environmental group made up of autonomous cells targeting those
who profit off of the destruction of the earth, have caused millions of
dollars of damage to corporate outlets and offices, banks, timber mills,
genetic research facilities, sport utility vehicles, and luxury homes.
These actions, often taking the form of arson, along with articulate
communiqués frequently indicting civilization, have inspired others to
take action, and are effective means of not only bringing attention to
environmental degradation, but also as deterrents to specific earth
destroyers. Insurrectionary activity, or the proliferation of
insurrectionary moments which can cause a rupture in the social peace in
which people’s spontaneous rage can be unleashed and possibly spread
into revolutionary conditions, are also on the rise. The riots in
Seattle in 1999, Prague in 2000, and Genoa in 2001, were all (in
different ways) sparks of insurrectionary activity, which, although
limited in scope, can be seen as attempts to move in insurrectionary
directions and make qualitative breaks with reformism and the entire
system of enslavement. Political violence, including the targeting of
individuals responsible for specific activities or the decisions which
lead to oppression, has also been a focus for anarchists historically.
Finally, considering the immense reality and all-pervasive reach of the
system (socially, politically, technologically), attacks on the
techno-grid and infrastructure of the mega-machine are of interest to
anti-civilization anarchists. Regardless of approaches and intensity,
militant action coupled with insightful analysis of civilization is
increasing.
As the march towards global annihilation continues, as society becomes
more unhealthy, as we lose more control over our own lives, and as we
fail to create significant resistance to the death-culture, it is vital
for us to be extremely critical of past “revolutionary” movements,
current struggles, and our own projects. We cannot perpetually repeat
the mistakes of the past or be blind to our own deficiencies. The
radical environmental movement is filled with single-issued campaigns
and symbolic gestures and the anarchist scene is plagued with leftist
and liberal tendencies. Both continue to go through rather meaningless
“activist” motions, rarely attempting to objectively assess their
(in)effectiveness. Often guilt and self-sacrifice, rather than their own
liberation and freedom, guide these social do-gooders, as they proceed
along a course that has been plotted out by the failures before them.
The Left is a festering sore on the ass of humanity, environmentalists
have been unsuccessful at preserving even a fraction of wild areas, and
anarchists rarely have anything provocative to say, let alone do. While
some would argue against criticism because it is “divisive”, any truly
radical perspective would see the necessity of critical examination, in
changing our lives and the world we inhabit. Those who wish to quell all
debate until “after the revolution”, to contain all discussion into
vague and meaningless chatter, and to subdue criticism of strategy,
tactics, or ideas, are going nowhere, and can only hold us back. An
essential aspect to any radical anarchist perspective must be to put
everything into question, certainly including our own ideas, projects,
and actions.
The green anarchist perspective is diverse and open, yet it does contain
some continuity and primary elements. It has been influenced by
anarchists, primitivists, Luddites, insurrectionalists, Situationists,
surrealists, nihilists, deep ecologists, bioregionalists, eco-feminists,
various indigenous cultures, anti-colonial struggles, the feral, the
wild, and the earth. Anarchists, obviously, contribute the
anti-authoritarian push, which challenges all power on a fundamental
level, striving for truly egalitarian relationships and promoting
mutual-aid communities. Green anarchists, however, extend ideas of
non-domination to all of life, not just human life, going beyond the
traditional anarchist analysis. From primitivists, green anarchists are
informed with a critical and provocative look at the origins of
civilization, so as to understand what this mess is and how we got here,
to help inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, green
anarchists rekindle an anti-technological/industrial direct action
orientation. Insurrectionalists infuse a perspective which waits not for
the fine-tuning of a crystalline critique, but identify and
spontaneously attack current institutions of civilization which
inherently bind our freedom and desire. Anti-civilization anarchists owe
much to the Situationists, and their critique of the alienating
commodity society, which we can break from by connecting with our dreams
and unmediated desires. Nihilism’s refusal to accept any of the current
reality understands the deeply engrained unhealth of this society and
offers green anarchists a strategy which does not necessitate offering
visions for society, but instead focuses on its destruction. Deep
ecology, despite its misanthropic tendencies, informs the green
anarchist perspective with an understanding that the well-being and
flourishing of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth
and intrinsic value of the non-human world independent of use value.
Deep ecology’s appreciation for the richness and diversity of life
contributes to the realization that the present human interference with
the non-human world is coercive and excessive, with the situation
rapidly worsening. Bioregionalists bring the perspective of living
within one’s bioregion, and being intimately connected to the land,
water, climate, plants, animals, and general patterns of their
bioregion. Eco-feminists have contributed to the comprehension of the
roots, dynamics, manifestations, and reality of patriarchy, and its
effect on the earth, women in particular, and humanity in general.
Recently, the destructive separation of humans from the earth
(civilization) has probably been articulated most clearly and intensely
by eco-feminists. Anti-civilization anarchists have been profoundly
influenced by the various indigenous cultures and earth-based peoples
throughout history and those who still currently exist. While we humbly
learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier
ways of interacting with life, it is important to not flatten or
generalize native peoples and their cultures, and to respect and attempt
to understand their diversity without co-opting cultural identities and
characteristics. Solidarity, support, and attempts to connect with
native and anti-colonial struggles, which have been the front-lines of
the fight against civilization, are essential as we attempt to dismantle
the death-machine. It is also important to understand that we, at some
point, have all come from earth-based peoples forcibly removed from our
connections with the earth, and therefore have a place within
anti-colonial struggles. We are also inspired by the feral, those who
have escaped domestication and have re-integrated with the wild. And, of
course, the wild beings which make up this beautiful blue and green
organism called Earth. It is also important to remember that, while many
green anarchists draw influence from similar sources, green anarchy is
something very personal to each who identify or connect with these ideas
and actions. Perspectives derived from one’s own life experiences within
the death-culture (civilization), and one’s own desires outside the
domestication process, are ultimately the most vivid and important in
the uncivilizing process.
For most green/anti-civilization/primitivist anarchists, rewilding and
reconnecting with the earth is a life project. It is not limited to
intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but
instead, it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we
are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from our selves, each other,
and the world, and the enormous and daily undertaking to be whole again.
Rewilding has a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and
developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to
feed, shelter, and heal ourselves with the plants, animals, and
materials occurring naturally in our bioregion. It also includes the
dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and
infrastructure of civilization. Rewilding has an emotional component,
which involves healing ourselves and each other from the 10,000 year-old
wounds which run deep, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical
and non-oppressive communities, and deconstructing the domesticating
mindset in our social patterns. Rewilding involves prioritizing direct
experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every
dynamic and aspect of our reality, connecting with our feral fury to
defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more
trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and
regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands
of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the
process of becoming uncivilized.
For the Destruction of Civilization!
For the Reconnection to Life!