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Title: A Dialog on Primitivism Author: Various Authors Language: en Topics: AJODA, AJODA #51, AJODA #52, critique, primitivist Source: Retrieved on February 21st, 2009 from http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk Notes: Two part special in âAnarchy â A Journal of Desire Armedâ 51â52
There are many prejudiced caricatures and objections concerning
primitivism; for example that its proponents want to go âback to the
Stone Age,â or that any move away from industrial capitalism would
result in an immediate mass die-off of thousands â if not millions â of
humans. These dismissals showcase a lack of seriousness on the part of
anti-primitivists, and their refusal to engage in any kind of
substantial dialog around the issues of the origins of capitalism and
the various mechanisms of social control and domination. While
understandable coming from non-anarchists (who are engaged in promoting
one or another form of domination and exploitation), such a knee-jerk
reaction from anarchists and antiauthoritarians is cause for concern.
Can it really be the case that the issues of industrialization,
urbanism, centralized technologies, and the furthering of hierarchical
power relations that arise from these phenomena are off-limits to
anarchist discourse?
As far as I can tell, most primitivists only want to go back as far as
the Iron Age. As for the supposed mass die-off, this devastation
wouldnât touch the majority of people in the non- and semi-industrial
areas of Asia, Africa, and South America, who are already experiencing
mass starvation and death. People in these places are suffering and
dying at the hands of the current regimes of austerity imposed by the
International Monetary Fund, and occasionally backed up by US/UN
military force. Then thereâs the overproduction and exporting of cash
crops (with its disruption of traditionally sustainable land use and
agriculture, and the reliance on petro-chemical fertilizers and
genetically engineered seed) to offset government debts. The idea that
these areas need to become even more industrialized in order to âsaveâ
their populations from starvation and mass death is the self-serving
position of the brains behind the World Bank, IMF, NAFTA, GATT, WTO,
etc. It is appalling that many anarchists seem to believe the
assumptions and conclusions of these technocrats, bankers, and
capitalists.
In order to clarify some of the misunderstandings about primitivism, I
initiated this dialog with John Zerzan, considered by many to be the
main theoretician and spokesperson of anarcho-primitivism, one of the
newest trends within antiauthoritarianism.
Lawrence Jarach: There are many ecologically minded anarchists these
days, from Social Ecologists to Green Anarchists, to Earth Firsters, to
primitivists. It seems that there are many areas of overlapping concerns
and analyses, but also differences in terms of strategies for promoting
these visions of a better future. Green anarchists for example, seem to
take their strategic cue from the direct action wing of Earth First!,
while not necessarily espousing the EF! ideas of neo-Malthusianism.
Primitivism, on the other hand, seems to be a more theoretical
perspective, celebrating (critically, of course) the pre-civilization
99% of human existence when there was no state or any other
institutionalized forms of political power. Social Ecology, as
articulated by Murray Bookchin, seems to emphasize the rational ability
of humans to intervene ethically and wisely in the natural world, while
leaving much of the industrial base of modern capitalism untouched aside
from some sort of federated quasi-syndicalist self-management. Social
Ecologists take the existence of urban industrialism for granted, while
primitivist discourse rejects the inevitability of it. Social Ecologists
build on the assumptions of leftism (which has social control as one of
its foundational principles) and their analyses and strategies for
social change come from it. My sense is that primitivism is a critical
and analytical framework, while green anarchists engage in actions that
make sense from that framework. Would it be correct to say that while
all social ecologists are leftists, not all green anarchists are
primitivists? What are the differences as you understand them?
John Zerzan: Yes, all social ecologists seem to embrace not only mass
production and highly developed technology, but also the division of
labor and domestication that undergird them and drive them forward to
new levels of standardization and estrangement. Social ecology is
perhaps the last refuge of the left, as âgreenâ awareness necessarily
spreads. But it is also true that green anarchists may actually hold
onto some of the same basic institutions. Iâm referring to those who
explicitly reject the âprimitivistâ point of view. To me primitivism
(and I use the term reluctantly, as shorthand, hoping it does not harden
into an ideology or dogma) means questioning and rejecting such basic
institutions as division of labor and domestication. Green Anarchist
(U.K.) is very clearly primitivist, rejecting civilization and its
basis, agriculture (domestication). The founding editor of Green Anarchy
(U.S.), on the other hand, is a green anarchist but not a primitivist.
He has no problem with domestication.
What I fear, as the new movement develops, is the age-old enemy,
co-optation or recuperation. Green anarchism sounds good, itâs the
coming thing, but it may be too vague or flabby. What does it really
mean? How far do green anarchists want to go, see the need to go? What
institutions does Green Anarchism place off-limits to critique, that are
not part of the deepening crisis?
LJ: The first and seemingly main objection thrown at a primitivist
outlook is that âmillions will die immediatelyâ whether through
starvation or genocide, if the state and industrial civilization were
dismantled. How do you respond to this accusation?
JZ: Civilization has always told people that they canât survive without
its comforts and protections. Outside the city walls lie danger, chaos,
death. Weâve always been held hostage to civilization, which is not to
forget that billions of people now inhabit the planet. Perhaps the key
word in your question is âimmediately.â In other words, if the whole
prevailing apparatus vanished instantly somehow, millions probably would
die. (Many have died and continue to die untimely deaths under the
present system, by the way.)
The key is in how a changeover would come about. Perhaps the only way it
could happen is when most people decide that change needs to happen, and
thus become involved in making it happen. When/if this occurs, a
transition would be creatively undertaken in the interests of those
involved. Not in an instant, but as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
Briefly, one specific example is a new paradigm for food. The work of
Mollison and, even more, Fukuoka, for instance, show that a great deal
of vegetables can be grown in very small areas. This method not only
avoids the great energy waste of global transportation, storage, etc.,
but can move in anti-domestication directions. Fukuokaâs âno-workâ
approach reminds me of the Johnny Appleseed story, which certainly also
had anti-private property implications.
LJ: The line that civilizers throw at the rest of us concerning survival
reminds me of the same line that technocrats throw at the rest of us
about so-called labor-saving devices freeing up our time so that it can
be used for more interesting and fun things. In fact, all these devices
have made it possible for the workers operating them to increase their
productive output for the same wage as before the introduction of the
device. The âlabor-savingâ is on the bossâs side: he can save on the
wage-labor he has to expend, thereby increasing his profits. Itâs the
typical authoritarian lie: âthis is for your own good.â Do you think it
would be possible to invent a device that actually would be time-saving
and still be acceptable for technophobes or primitivists?
JZ: I recall someone with Fifth Estate asserting, about 20 years ago,
that there simply is no âlabor-saving device.â Basically meaning that
when any machine or device is deconstructed, it can be seen to contain
more congealed or required labor than is actually âsavedâ by its use.
This would include all kinds of hidden inputs, such as storage,
transportation, marketing, etc. Iâve never heard this assertion refuted.
For me, however, it is not so much whether or not there is a saving,
work-wise, as whether or not division of labor is involved. If division
of labor destroys wholeness, autonomy, non-hierarchy, that is more
important. In fact, it may be that only non-division-of-labor devices
(like a lever or incline) are actually labor-saving.
LJ: The critique of civilization and technology leads to some
interesting ideas from a philosophical and even epistemological
perspective. For example the conclusion that you have drawn concerning
the process of symbolic thought (language, music, numbers, art): that it
results in domestication, and that it is domestication of plants and
animals that then leads to civilization, which in turn would be
impossible without institutionalized hierarchies and political power.
Yet clearly we cannot reject the use of language or music or other forms
of symbolic thought today. Does a critique necessitate a rejection? I
donât like automobiles or computers, but I have one of each. Because I
have a critique of their manufacture and use within the parameters of
21^(st) century American industrial capitalism, does that mean that I
canât use them? If I didnât have the critique, would I be âoff the hookâ
in terms of my responsibility for the continuation of their hegemony?
JZ: As for how to dismantle symbolic culture itself, all I can say is
that first the topic needs to be addressed. It hasnât been yet, so letâs
start there. But a critique does mean a rejection, otherwise itâs just
talk, just more accommodation to what is. In the same vein, people may
deny that a problem exists; but this may turn out later to have been an
unforgivable failure of moral imagination. History has judged, over and
over, that for subsequent generations, ignorance and denial do not
excuse the complicity inherent in doing nothing. Acquiescence to
slavery, Nazi ascendancy, and Stalinist terror are only three of many
recent examples. A lot of contemporary authors present a near-complete
indictment, only to cop out at the very end. Any number of books say, in
effect, âNaturally, I donât advocate actually dismantling the present
society. I just mean that we have to think about it differently.â Or
some similar inconsequential nonsense. Thatâs how people get published.
LJ: I see your point about the relation of critique to rejection. And I
have no problem with the idea that should the industrial infrastructure
become unusable, Iâd have to turn to alternate modes of transportation
and communication. In the meantime, does it make sense to use the
technologies that exist in order to spread these critiques? Iâm thinking
about the new website primitivism.com which, upon first hearing the
term, sounds totally absurd. Yet the site contains the best essays on
the topic Iâve seen in one place, plus thereâs a discussion board where
the assumptions of primitivism are challenged and refined. You and I
have had already had discussions about using radio and television.
Where, if at all, do we draw the line of not using what we might
consider to be the most destructive technologies? Is it up to each of is
to decide? And wouldnât this drawing of the line create a moral
hierarchy in terms of ranking the worst technologies?
JZ: We are all complicit in the reproduction of society. We all live in
it, not on some other planet or in a gatherer-hunter mode. So I am
generally wary about feeling able to establish priorities about the use
of technologies.
But Iâm not sure a âmoral hierarchyâ is involved in trying to avoid
being completely arbitrary about it, on the other hand. In other words,
various technologies have different characteristics which make some more
estranging than others. Some are more mediated, artificial, and remote.
Radio is less colonizing than TV, I would say. Non-commercial
cable-access TV does not have all the negatives that network television
does. There are some obvious distinctions, even if one could argue that
at times other factors might override them. Perhaps, for example, an
urgent need to communicate with a lot of people in a given situation.
I guess this tends to get into the knotty question of media, related but
somewhat different. If we conclude that we need to use certain
technologies so as not to be at a severe disadvantage, we should
remember what they consist of and not forget to make such analysis
clear. Who else tries to discuss the nature of technology and its
consequences?
LJ: There are things about modern civilization that are indispensable
for the continuation of urban existence-sewage treatment for example. Is
a primitivist vision at all compatible with urban life? Does it
necessitate the abandonment of cities? What about people who want to
live in cities, and who could (hypothetically) be able to develop an
anarchic method of controlling and maintaining urbanism without the more
unsavory aspects of it? (Iâm thinking here of the anarcho-syndicalist
tradition specifically.) Would green anarchists denounce and/or oppose
this hypothetical anti-hierarchical, antiauthoritarian urbanism as
incompatible with a truer anarchic vision? And if so, how would that not
be an ideological objection? I guess what Iâm getting at here is that
there seems to be in primitivism (as a theory) and green anarchism (as
its practice) just as much danger of ideological rigidity and dogmatism
as in any other theory. Are there any possibilities for transitional
stages between urbanism and primitivism? If not, doesnât that make
primitivism maximalist, with all the inherent moralism of a maximalist
program?
JZ: I want to live in a city at present, for various reasons. Language,
art, etc. are also interesting, even indispensable given the present
conditions. But in a disalienated world would these compensations or
consolations be necessary or interesting? âThe Case Against Art,â for
instance, does not really bash art; it is mainly an exploration of how
art arrived, along with alienation. The corollary question, again, is
whether artâs role will always be needed.
Getting back to the city, think of all the negative developments that
bring cities into existence. What are they for? Commerce, rule,
taxation, specialization, etc., etc. Take those away and whereâs the
city? The things that sustain a city are still part of the problem.
Maybe in its place weâll see fluid sites of festival, reunion, play. Who
knows?
The challenge of an anti-civilization transition is a very real, serious
one. It wonât be effected by snapping our fingers or making absolutist
judgments about what must be.
There is also the danger of temporizing, of half-measures, of being
co-opted. An old line says that those who make half a revolution only
dig their own graves, only strengthen the hold of the old society. The
change needs to be qualitative, decisive, pursued with all possible
speed and resolve. There is a danger of merely re-forming the basic
system by changing only some of it, and thus not breaking its hold over
life.
LJ: I met a guy at the North American Anarchist Conference whoâs
diabetic. As he was testing his blood-sugar level with a computerized
monitor, someone snidely asserted to me that this guy would be dead if
it werenât for âtechnology.â Aside from the totally uncritical
acceptance of the insulated and arrogant ideology and healing modality
of allopathic medicine as represented by the American Medical
Association, this does bring up a pertinent question. Are there any good
things that have come out of civilization? Advances in medicine for
example? Without the advances in fiberoptics, my father probably would
have died from his heart attack, like my grandfather. That particular
medical application derived from the seemingly unrelated technology of
communications, which probably wouldnât have advanced to that point if
it werenât for its military applications. Outside of the necessity for
self-preservation and self-replication of institutions of power and
knowledge, have there been any tangible benefits for humans? Longer
life-expectancy, sanitation (clean water being the best example of
that), the ability to communicate with more people...it would seem that
none of these things would be available in such so-called abundance (if
we can afford to buy them) if not for the existence of civilization. On
the other hand, whatever technological so-called benefits have accrued
to people outside the institutions that create them have been either
incidental or accidental.
JZ: I suppose most everyone is hopeful about such things as âadvances in
medicine.â Fredy Perlman no doubt hoped that he would survive his last
heart surgery in 1985.
On the other hand, we can also see that the technological system always
promises solutions to problems it has created. âJust a little more
technological advance and all will be fine.â What a lie that is, and has
been from the beginning.
Stress, toxins, isolation, the sheer magnitude of alienation bring such
a multiplicity of disease. Epidemic cancer, tens of millions on
anti-depressants just to get through the day, alarming rates of
health-threatening obesity, new âmysteryâ illnesses all the time (such
as fibromyalgia, with no known cause), millions of kids under five
drugged into compliance with this empty world. The list could go on and
on.
We have always been held captive by civilization, in various ways. At
some point the captivity may not seem worth it to most people, as life,
health, freedom, authenticity continue to dwindle away.
LJ: When you were in LA, and on the tour you had of parts of Europe and
the East Coast, were there any questions that people asked you that made
you think about some of the assumptions that you took for granted? Did
any experiences prod you to think about the distinguishing
characteristics of primitivism/green anarchy? What was the worst
experience on your travels? The best? JZ: I frankly donât remember being
challenged all that much, maybe because primitivist theses are a novelty
to so many people. The main opposition came from anarcho-leftists, often
desperate in their defense of the old anarchism, the failed,
superficial, workerist, productionist model. I didnât hear anything new
in their protestations, except, in their defensiveness, evidence that
they are losing and know it.
The turnouts were good, the range of questions good, and I sensed a
receptiveness to new ideas. In fact, the main hit I got overall was the
awareness that something new is needed. I didnât have any negative
experiences, really.
LJ: What are the main objections (and their shortcomings) to primitivism
that derive from âold anarchismâ? How are they different from the
non-anarchist protestations? You told me about a Social Ecologist at the
talk you gave at Yale, where she stood up, denounced primitivism and
you, then stormed out of the room-effectively shutting down any
possibility of discussion, heated or otherwise. Is condemnation like
that typical of the interactions you have with anarcho-leftists?
JZ: Classical anarchism is a fixed body of ideas that is not fully
informed by the conditions of contemporary society. The plight of both
outer nature and inner nature has worsened hugely, in my opinion, since
the 19^(th) century. Thus we are led to question what used to be givens,
question and indict some basic institutions that seem to be at the root
of our present extremity.
Anarchism, insofar as it wants to remain part of the left, does not
appear to want such questioning. It may be that non-anarchists are more
open to new perspectives than dogmatic âold anarchists.â Hope Iâm wrong,
but Social Ecologists, [and] various leftist anarchists seem quite
closed to examining basics like division of labor, domestication,
technology, civilization.
If asked if Iâm a primitivist Iâd answer that I am, although the term is
not really satisfactory. I prefer anticivilizationist, though that has
its problems too. Labels are quite the pain in the ass. At one point I
stopped calling myself an anarchist because I didnât agree with most
anarchists but I did start calling myself an anarchist again eventually
â the name belongs to me as much as anyone else.
Primitivism is an extreme response to an extreme situation of
industrialism out of control. For me, simply critiquing the present
techno-structure is not enough: I want to begin to dismantle it. How far
do I want to go? How far can we go? I donât know. That remains to be
seen.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties, the last era of unvarnished
techno-optimism. Not that there isnât a strong, even omnipresent,
pro-tech sentiment today. But it has been tempered by a widespread
realization of the extent to which industrialism has degraded the
planetâs ecology.
I began to move toward a primitivist position in the early eighties
under the influence of the Fifth Estate and writers such as Perlman,
Ellul, Camatte, and Zerzan. However, these writings only gave me a
theoretical basis for what I already intuitively knew: civilization is
an integral part of alienation. In other words, my instinctive dislike
of techno music is completely normal.
In the anarcho-primitivist milieu no theoretical orthodoxy reigns.
Influences are wide-ranging, from post-situationist to Stirnerist to
taoist, deep ecologist, classical class struggle libertarian-communist,
to the approach of John Zerzan. There is no lack of room for anyone who
wants to carve out a space!
In recent years the Fifth Estate, which in the seventies and eighties
did much to set the basis of a primitivist approach, has moved to a less
radical, or in a term employed by FE editor Peter Werbe, a more âmodestâ
outlook. In the letters column of the previous Anarchy, a correspondent
of Werbeâs quotes him as saying: âAt present, I feel a little foolish
advocating the end of civilization when what that looks like is Congo or
Afghanistan.â Congo or Afghanistan? In the Congo a regional war is
taking place involving half a dozen states. Acting as a perk for
Zimbabweâs participation, for example, is access to diamond mines. In
Afghanistan various radical Islamic outfits formerly fighting the
Soviets subsequently began fighting among themselves. The last I heard
the Taliban were clutching copies of the Koran, not old Fifth Estate
reprints from the eighties.
My outlook is not premised on the lifeways of specific primitive groups
or a belief in the existence of a past golden age of humanity in harmony
with nature (although this may have occurred). It is based on trying to
achieve the kind of world I desire along with others. But I also believe
it valuable to examine groups which have lived in less encumbered ways,
and in coming years I hope to do more anthropological reading.
Although a critique of technique/technology is clearly fundamental, a
danger exists of emphasizing technology to the detriment of other
aspects of domination. Such is the case in the works of Jacques Ellul
and Ellul influenced Ted Kaczynski. On the other hand Ellul does show
convincingly that power in modern society is predominantly in the hands
of technocrats rather than economic or political movers and shakers.
Agriculture remains a controversial question. Whether one prefers an
agricultural or a hunter-gatherer approach, agriculture will continue to
play a role for a considerable time to come, as a transitional phase if
not always an end in itself. In Quebec much traditional land lies fallow
because market forces make it too expensive to grow crops. Subsistence
farming has a long history in Quebec and people could renew this
tradition as a way of achieving local autonomy. Some cultivated land
could also be simply abandoned to the wild.
Primitivism is a more radical, more negative approach than mainstream
anarchism which continues to confine its goal to self-managing the
current structure, or one that is slightly modified. If the goals of
primitivists appear even less likely to be achieved than those of more
conventional radicals, the fact is that today revolutionaries of all
stripes are far from achieving their goals. I see no need to moderate my
approach just because we live in non-revolutionary times.
Living in the city, it is impossible to avoid the corrosive effects of
urban alienation. I attempt to attenuate them by avoiding computers, by
walking when possible, and by staying in contact with city green spaces.
At last yearâs local anarchist book fair I participated in a panel on
the subject of the Internet. I argued that it would be preferable to
foster face-to-face communication instead. I also do book tables at
which I sell selected books and magazines.
Well, the scope of this hastily written article has been modest.
Hopefully this special issue on such an important topic will lead to a
fruitful debate.
The life ways of gatherer-hunter communities have become a central focus
of study for many anarchists in recent years, for several good reasons.
First of all, and most obviously, if we are to look at actually-existing
anarchist societies, the prehistory of the species seems to have been a
golden age of anarchy, community, human autonomy and freedom. Various
forms of the state, enclosures of the social commons, and accumulations
of dead labor (capital) have been the axiomatic organizing principles of
civilized societies from the dawn of history. But, from all available
evidence, they seem to have been entirely absent in the vast prehistory
of the human species. The development of civilization has been the
flipside of the steady erosion of both personal and communal autonomy
and power within precivilized, anarchic societies and the remnant life
ways still surviving from them.
Furthermore, in the last several decades within the fields of
anthropology and archeology there has been an explicit and (in its
implications) quite radical revaluation of the social life of these
noncivilized, gatherer-hunter and horticultural societies, both
prehistoric and contemporary. This revaluation has led, as many
anarchist writers have pointed out (especially John Zerzan, David Watson
[aka George Bradford, etc.] and Bob Black), to a greater understanding
and appreciation for several key aspects of life in these societies:
their emphasis on personal and community autonomy (entailing their
refusal of non-reciprocal power to their head-men or chiefs), their
relative lack of deadly warfare, their elegance of technique and
tool-kit, their anti-work ethos (refusal to accumulate unnecessary
surplus, refusal to be tied down to permanent settlements), and their
emphasis on communal sharing, sensuality, celebration and play.
The rise of ecological critiques and the revaluation of nature in the
last decades of the twentieth century have entailed for many a search
through history for examples of ecologically sustainable societies â
societies which didnât despoil the wilderness, massacre the wildlife and
exploit all of the natural resources in sight. Unsurprisingly, any
genuine search for ecological communities and cultures predominantly
turns up hunter and gatherer societies which have never (outside of
situations where they were pressured by encroaching civilizations)
developed any compelling needs to build surplus accumulations of food or
goods, nor to ignore or despoil their animal kin or natural
surroundings. Their long-term stability and the elegance of their
adaptations to their natural environments make hunting and gathering
societies the sustainable society and sustainable economy par
excellence.
Additionally, the cumulative failures of both the revolutionary social
movements of the last several centuries and the continuing march of
capital and technology in reshaping the world have called into question
as never before the illusory ideology of progress that underpins modern
civilization (as well as most oppositional movements). A progress that
has promised inevitable, incremental improvements in our individual
lives and the lives of all humanity (if only we keep the faith and
continue supporting capitalist technological development) has been
proven increasingly hollow. It has become harder and harder to maintain
the lie that life now is qualitatively better than in all previous
epochs. Even those who most want to fool themselves (those on the
margins of capitalist privilege, power and wealth) must face increasing
doubts about their rationality and their ethical values, not to mention
their sanity, in a world of global warming, mass extinctions, epidemic
oil and toxic chemical spills, global pollution, massive clearing of
rain forests, endemic Third World malnutrition and recurrent famine. All
amidst an increasing polarization between an international elite of the
superrich and vast masses of the powerless, landless and poor. In
addition, it has become increasingly questionable whether the multiple
pleasures of electric heat, chlorinated water, hydrocarbon-powered
transport and electronic entertainment will ever outweigh the insidious
costs of industrial enslavement, programmed leisure and our seeming
reduction to objects of a scientific experiment to determine at what
point we will finally lose all trace of our humanity.
The development of contemporary primitivist theories (and especially
anarcho-primitivism) might thus seem to be an easy, logical and
inevitable step from these foundations, although this would be to
overlook other alternatives equally rooted in resistance culture. At the
least, primitivism, as a multifaceted and still-developing response to
the epochal crises now facing humanity, deserves our serious evaluation.
It is certainly one of the several possible responses which does attempt
to make sense of our current predicament in order to suggest a way out.
Yet, at the same time there remain many problems with primitivist
positions that have been expressed thus far. As well as potentially
serious problems with the very concept of primitivism itself as a mode
of theory and practice. It may make sense to examine some of the sources
of primitivism first in order to identify and develop a few of its most
obvious difficulties and suggest some solutions.
There are several strands of development which seem to have more or less
coalesced to form the current primitivist mélange of theories and
practices, at least within North America (Iâm not as familiar with
British primitivism). But two or three strands stand out as the most
influential and important: (1) the strand growing out of Detroitâs
anarcho-Marxist Black & Red and the anarchists contributing to the Fifth
Estate, including for awhile (2) John Zerzan, although he and the FE
eventually parted ways over disagreements about the status and
interpretation of agriculture, culture and domestication. Thirdly (3)
some activists coming out of the Earth First! milieu, often influenced
by deep ecologists, promote a âBack to the Pleistoceneâ perspective (the
Pleistocene, being the geologic period during which the human species
emerged).
Although there have been hints of radical primitivism within â and even
before the advent of â the modern anarchist movement, contemporary
primitivism owes most to Fredy Perlman and the Detroit Black & Red
collective through which his work was published, beginning in the 1960s.
Most influential of all has been his visionary reconstruction of the
origins and development of civilization, Against His-Story, Against
Leviathan published in 1983. In this work, Perlman suggested that
civilization originated due to the relatively harsh living conditions
(in one place and time) which were seen by the tribal elite to require
the development of a system of public waterways. The successful building
of this system of public waterways required the actions of many
individuals in the manner of a social machine under the direction of the
tribal elite. And the social machine that was born became the first
Leviathan, the first civilization, which grew and reproduced through
wars, enslavement and the creation of ever greater social machinery. The
situation we now face is a world in which the progeny of that original
civilization have now successfully taken over the globe and conquered
nearly all human communities. But, as Perlman points out, though almost
all humanity is now trapped within civilizations, within Leviathans,
there is still resistance. And, in fact, the development of
civilizations from their beginnings on has always faced resistance from
every non-civilized, free human community. History is the story of early
civilizations destroying the relatively freer communities around them,
incorporating them or exterminating them, and the succeeding story of
civilizations wrestling with each other, civilizations exterminating,
incorporating or subjugating other civilizations, up to the present day.
Yet resistance is still possible, and we can all trace our ancestral
lineages to people who were once stateless, moneyless and in some
profound sense more free.
Fredy Perlmanâs vision was taken up and elaborated upon by others
involved in the Fifth Estate newspaper project, most notably, David
Watson, who has written under a number of pseudonyms, including George
Bradford. The Fifth Estate was itself an underground newspaper in the
â60s, which evolved into a revolutionary anarchist newspaper in the
mid-â70s, and then into an anarcho-primitivist project later in the
â80s. Though the Fifth Estate has recently backed away from some of the
more radical implications of its earlier stances, it remains one of the
major strands of the contemporary primitivist milieu.
And although Watsonâs work is clearly based on Perlmanâs, he has also
added his own concerns, including the further development of Lewis
Mumfordâs critique of technology and the âmegamachine,â a defense of
primitive spirituality and shamanism, and the call for a new, genuine
social ecology (which will avoid the errors of Murray Bookchinâs
naturalism, rationalism, and post-scarcity, techno-urbanism). Watsonâs
work can now be evaluated in a new collection of his most significant
Fifth Estate writings of the 1980s titled Against the Megamachine
(1998). But heâs also the author of two previous books: How Deep is Deep
Ecology (1989, written under the name of George Bradford) and Beyond
Bookchin: A Preface to Any Future Social Ecology (1996).
John Zerzan
John Zerzan, probably now the most well-known torch-bearer for
primitivism in North America, started questioning the origins of social
alienation in a series of essays also published in the Fifth Estate
throughout the â80s. These essays eventually found their way into his
collection Elements of Refusal (1988, and a second edition in 1999).
They included extreme critiques of central aspects of human culture â
time, language, number and art â and an influential critique of
agriculture, the watershed change in human society which Zerzan calls
âthe basis of civilization.â (1999, p.73) However, while these âoriginsâ
essays, as they are often called, were published in the Fifth Estate,
they were not always welcomed. And, in fact, each issue of FE in which
they appeared usually included commentaries rejecting his conclusions in
no uncertain terms. Eventually, when the Fifth Estate collective tired
of publishing his originary essays, and when Zerzan was finding it
harder and harder to endure the FEâs obvious distaste for his line of
investigation, Zerzan turned to other venues for publication, including
this magazine, Anarchy, Michael Williamâs short-lived Demolition Derby,
and ultimately Englandâs Green Anarchist as well, among others. A second
collection of his essays, Future Primitive and Other Essays, was
co-published by Anarchy/C.A.L. Press in association with Autonomedia in
1994. And, additionally, he has edited two important primitivist
anthologies, Questioning Technology (co-edited by Alice Carnes, 1988,
with a second edition published in 1991) and most recently Against
Civilization (1999).
John Zerzan may be most notorious for the blunt, no-nonsense conclusions
of his originary critiques. In these essays, and in his subsequent
writings â which will be familiar to readers of Anarchy magazine, he
ultimately rejects all symbolic culture as alienation and a fall from a
pre-civilized, pre-domesticated, pre-division-of-labor, primitive state
of human nature. He has also become notorious in some circles for his
embrace of the Unabomber, to whom he dedicated the second edition of
Elements of Refusal, indicating for those who might have been unsure,
that he really is serious about his critiques and our need to develop a
fundamentally critical, uncompromising practice.
The primitivist strand developing from the Earth First! direct-action
âin the defense of Mother Earthâ milieu is heavily entwined with the
formulation of deep ecology by Arne Naess, Bill Devall and George
Sessions, among others. In this strand the Earth First! direct action
community (largely based in the western US, and largely anarchist) seems
to have found itself in search of a philosophical foundation appropriate
to its non-urban defense of wilderness and human wildness â and found
some irresistible ammunition, if not a coherent theory, in deep ecology.
Earth First! as a substantially, but certainly not completely, informal
organization had its own origins in the nativist eco-anarchism of Edward
Abbey (whose nature writings â like Desert Solitaire â and novel The
Monkey Wrench Gang were hugely influential) and the nativist radical
environmentalism of David Foreman and friends. In fact, the original
Earth First! often maintained an explicitly anti-immigration,
North-American-wilderness-for-U.S.-&-Canadian-citizens-only approach to
saving whatever wilderness could still be saved from the increasing
human depredation of mining, road-building, clear cutting, agricultural
exploitation, grazing and tourism in the service of contemporary mass
consumer society â without ever feeling compelled to develop any
critical social theory. However, once Earth First! expanded out of the
southwest U.S. and became the focus of a widespread direct action
movement it became clear that most of the people joining the blockades,
marches, banner-hangings and lock-downs were more than a little
influenced by the decidedly non-nativist social movements of the 1960s
and â70s (the civil rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, feminist and
anarchist movements, etc.). The contradictions between the rank-and-file
and the informal leadership in control of the Earth First! journal came
to a head with the resignation of Foreman and his subsequent
inauguration of the Wild Earth journal with its focus on a conservation
biology perspective more to his liking. The new Earth First! leadership
(and the new journal collectives since Foremanâs departure) reflect the
actual diversity of the activists now involved in the entire Earth
First! milieu â an eclectic mix of liberal/reformist environmentalists,
eco-leftists (and even eco-syndicalists affiliated with the IWW), some
greens, a variety of eco-anarchists and many deep ecologists. But
regardless of this diversity, it is clear that deep ecology may well
have the most widespread influence within the EF! milieu as a whole,
including those who consider themselves to be primitivists. This seems
to be mostly because Earth First! is primarily a direct action movement
in defense of non-human Nature, and clearly not a socially-oriented
movement, despite the often radical social commitments of many of the
participants. Deep ecology provides the theoretical justification for
the kind of Nature-first, society-later (if at all) attitude often
prevalent in EF! It substitutes a specially constructed biocentric or
eco-centric vision (âthe perspective of a unified natural worldâ as Lone
Wolf Circles puts it) for the supposed anthropocentric perspectives
which privilege human values and goals in most other philosophies. And
it offers a nature philosophy that merges with nature spirituality,
which together help justify an eco-primitivist perspective for many
activists who wish to see a huge reduction in human population and a
scaling-down or elimination of industrial technology in order to reduce
or remove the increasing destruction of the natural world by modern
industrial society. Although the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (no
primitivist himself) is usually credited with the creation of deep
ecology, the book which originally made itâs name in North America was
Bill Devall and George Sessionâs Deep Ecology (1986). Arne Naessâ book,
Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, appeared in
1990, while George Sessions contributed Deep Ecology for the
Twenty-First Century in 1994.
As is obvious from this brief overview (which necessarily leaves out
discussion of many details as well as other important participants and
influences), the strands of the primitivist milieu are not just diverse,
but often in important ways incompatible. To identify with primitivism
can mean very different things to those influenced by Fredy Perlman or
David Watson, John Zerzan or Arne Naess. Fredy Perlman poetically
commemorates the song and dance of primitive communities, their
immersion in nature and kinship with other species. For David Watson,
primitivism first of all implies a celebration of the sustainable,
preindustrial (though not necessarily pre-agricultural) life ways of
many peoples, which he believes are most-importantly centered on tribal
cultures (especially tribal religions) and convivial tools and
techniques. For John Zerzan, primitivism is first and foremost a stance
demanding an end to all possible symbolic alienations and all division
of labor in order that we experience the world as a reclaimed unity of
experience without need for religion, art or other symbolic
compensations. While for those influenced by deep ecology, primitivism
means a return to a preindustrial world inhabited by a small human
population able to live not only in harmony with nature, but above all
with a minimal impact on all other animal and plant (and even bacterial)
species.
Although I appreciate and respect the insights of most primitivist
currents, there are obvious problems with the formulation of any
critical theory primarily focusing around a primitivist identity (or any
other positively conceived identity). As Bob Black has contended:
âThe communist-anarchist hunter-gatherers (for that is what, to be
precise, they are), past and present, are important. Not (necessarily)
for their successful habitat-specific adaptations since these are, by
definition, not generalizable. But because they demonstrate that life
once was, that life can be, radically different. The point is not to
recreate that way of life (although there may be some occasions to do
that) but to appreciate that, if a life-way so utterly contradictory to
ours is feasible, which indeed has a million-year track record, then
maybe other life-ways contradictory to ours are feasibleâ (Bob Black,
âTechnophilia, An Infantile Disorder,â published in Green Anarchist & on
the web at: www.primitivism.com).
If it was obvious that primitivism always implied this type of
open-ended, non-ideological stance, a primitivist identity would be much
less problematic. Unfortunately, for most primitivists an idealized,
hypostatized vision of primal societies tends to irresistibly displace
the essential centrality of critical self-theory, whatever their
occasional protestations to the contrary. The locus of critique quickly
moves from the critical self-understanding of the social and natural
world to the adoption of a preconceived ideal against which that world
(and oneâs own life) is measured, an archetypally ideological stance.
This nearly irresistible susceptibility to idealization is primitivismâs
greatest weakness.
This becomes especially clear when attempts are made to pin down the
exact meaning of the primitive. In a vitally important sense there are
no contemporary âprimitiveâ societies and there is not even any single,
identifiable, archetypal âprimitiveâ society. Although this is
acknowledged even by most primitivists, its importance is not always
understood. All societies now (and historically) in existence have their
own histories and are contemporary societies in a most important sense,
that they exist in the same world â even if far from the centers of
power and wealth â as nation-states, multinational corporations and
global commodity exchange. And even ancient societies which existed
before the advent of agriculture and civilization in all likelihood
adapted many unimaginably diverse and innovative life ways over the
course of their existence. But, beyond some basic speculations, we can
simply never know what these life ways were, much less, which were the
most authentically primitive. While this doesnât mean that we canât
learn from the life ways of contemporary hunters and gatherers â or
horitculturalists, nomadic herders, and even subsistence agricultural
communities, it does mean that there is no point in picking any one form
of life as an ideal to be uncritically emulated, nor of hypostatizing an
archetypal primitive ideal based on speculations always about what might
have been.
As all critics of primitivism never tire of pointing out, we canât
simply go back in time. Though this is not because (as most critics
believe) that social and technical âprogressâ is irreversible, nor
because modern civilization is unavoidable. There are many historical
examples of both resistance to social and technical innovations, and
devolutions to what are usually considered (by the believers in
Progress) not just simpler, but inferior or backward, life ways. Most
importantly, we canât go back in the sense that wherever we go as a
society, we have to make our departure from where we are right now. We
are all caught up in an historical social process which constrains our
options. As Marxists typically put it, the present material conditions
of production and social relations of production largely determine the
possibilities for social change. Although anarchists are increasingly
(and correctly) critical of the productivist assumptions behind this
type of formulation, it remains more generally true that existing
conditions of social life (in all their material and cultural
dimensions) do have an inertia that makes any thoughts of a âreturnâ to
previously existing (or more likely imagined) life ways extremely
problematic.
But neither do we necessarily need to go forward into the future that
capital and the state are preparing for us. As we are learning from
history, their progress has never been our progress â conceived as any
substantial diminution of social alienation, domestication or even
exploitation. Rather, we might do much better to dispense with the
standard timelier of all philosophies of history in order to finally go
our own way.
Only without the unnecessary, always ideological, constraints imposed by
any directional interpretations of history, are we finally free to
become whatever we will, rather than what some conception of progress
(or of return) tells us we need to be. This doesnât mean that we can
ever just ignore what we, as a global society, are right now. But it
does mean that ultimately no ideology can contain or define the social
revolutionary impulse without falsifying it. The vitality of this
critical impulse has an existence prior to any theorizing in each and
every contradiction between our immediate desires for unitary,
non-alienated lives and all of the current social relations, roles and
institutions which prevent these desires from being realized.
Much more important for us than the revaluation of what are called
primitive societies and life ways is the critical examination of the
society within which we live right now and the ways which it
systematically alienates our life-activities and denies our desires for
a more unitary and satisfying way of life. And this must always be
foremost a process of negation, an imminent critique of our lives from
within rather than from without. Ideological critiques, while containing
a negative component, always remain centered outside of our lives around
some sort of positive ideal to which we must eventually conform. The
power of their (oversimplified) social criticisms is gained at the
expense of denying the necessary centrality of our own lives and our own
perspectives to any genuine critique of our social alienation.
The primitivist milieu has developed and popularized critiques of
civilization, progress and technology and that is its most important
strength. I donât consider myself a primitivist because of what I see as
the inherently ideological thrust of any theory which idealizes a
particular form of life (whether or not it has ever actually existed).
But this does not mean that I am any less critical of civilization,
progress or technology. Rather, I see these critiques as essential to
the renewal and further radicalization of any genuine attempts at
general contemporary social critique.
Primitivism as an ideology is stuck in an unenviable position ultimately
demanding the construction of a complex form of society (however much
disputed in particulars) that obviously requires not only massive social
transformations, technical changes and population dislocations, but the
relatively quick abandonment of at least 10,000 years of civilized
development. It is an understatement to say that this poses enormous
risks for our survival as individuals, and even, conceivably, as a
species (due to the primarily to potential threats of nuclear, chemical
and biological warfare that could be unleashed). Yet primitivism can at
best offer only indeterminate promises of highly speculative results,
even under the most favorably imaginable circumstances: the eventual,
worldwide demoralization and capitulation of the most powerful ruling
classes, without too many significant civil wars fought by factions
attempting to restore the collapsing old order in part or in total. Thus
primitivism, at least in this form, is never likely to command the
support of more than a relatively small milieu of marginal malcontents,
even under conditions of substantial social collapse.
But the critique of civilization doesnât have to mean the ideological
rejection of every historical social development over the course of the
last 10 or 20,000 years. The critique of progress doesnât mean that we
need to return to a previous way of life or set about constructing some
preconceived, idealized state of non-civilization. The critique of
technology doesnât mean that we canât successfully work to eliminate
only the most egregious forms of technological production, consumption
and control first, while leaving the less intensive, less socially- and
ecologically-destructive forms of technology for later transformation or
elimination (while also, of course, attempting to minimize their
alienating effects). What all this does mean is that it can be much more
powerful to formulate a revolutionary position that wonât lend itself so
readily to degeneration into ideology. And that primitivism, shorn of
all its ideological proclivities, is better off with another name.
What should a social revolutionary perspective be called which includes
critiques of civilization, progress and technology, all integrated with
critiques of alienation, ideology, morality and religion? I canât say
that there is any formulation that wonât also have significant potential
for degeneration into ideology. But I doubt that we would do worse than
âprimitivism.â
I will likely continue to identify most with the simple label of
âanarchist,â trusting in part that over time the most valid critiques
now identified closely with primitivism will be increasingly
incorporated into and identified closely with the anarchist milieu, both
within anarchist theory and anarchist practice. Anarcho-leftists wonât
like this process. And neither will anarcho-liberals and others. But the
critique of civilization is here to stay, along with its corollary
critiques of progress and technology. The continued deepening of
worldwide social crises resulting from the unceasing developments of
capital, technology and state will not allow those anarchists still
resistant to the deepening of critique to ignore the implications of
these crises forever.
We now stand at the beginning of a new century. Many would say weâre no
closer to anarchy now than we were a two centuries ago in the times of
Godwin, Courderoy or Proudhon. Many more might say that we are
increasingly further away. Or are we? If we can formulate a more
powerful critique, more resistant to the temptations of ideology; and if
we can develop a more radical and intransigent, yet open-ended practice,
perhaps we still have a fighting chance to influence the inevitable
revolutions still to come.
An anarchist search for the primitive actually involves multiple
questions. Is civilization itself really the problem? Is its overcoming
a realistic possibility? Is it to be overthrown or abandoned?
The radical anthropology that many anarchists have recently taken
interest in has the merit of demonstrating that humanity has lived the
great bulk of its time on earth in hunter-gatherer bands free of class
hierarchy, alienated division of labor, sexual inequality, and
devastating technological warfare. In light of all the failed
revolutions of modern history it provides us with a glimpse of the only
human communities that have ever really been what could be called
anarchist or communist in a sustained and successful way. This in itself
is a powerful counter to Hobbesian and other ideologues who argue that
the nature of the human beast requires authoritarian controls. But
drawing a politics out of this anthropology is tricky. Civilization may
well have been a mistake from the start, but it could be something that
we are more or less stuck with. The idea of primitivism implies, in its
most radical form, a return to a golden age of hunter-gatherer society,
although few if any of even the most ardent critics of civilization
advocate this course. An absolutist primitivism can arrive at the
conclusion that the human species itself is the problem, with a
resulting misanthropic nihilism. Although I will agree that civilization
has deeply alienated humanity from the rest of nature, and that today it
seems to take on the aspect of a colossal prolonged train wreck, I donât
believe that all of its products (e.g., books, chess, wine, to name a
few of my own likes) are evil; some aspects of civilization are probably
worth preserving even as its more oppressive and harmful aspects deserve
dismantling. We certainly need to free ourselves from a toxic
overcivilization and reconcile with nature, but I am skeptical about the
feasibility and even desirability of an absolute destruction or
abandonment of civilization. Before returning to these questions, I will
briefly examine the origins of contemporary primitivism (if thatâs
really what we want to call it) and its quarrel with Marxism and
leftism.
Recent years have seen the emergence of a green anarchism, but it should
be remembered that contemporary primitivism and its affines (deep
ecology excepted) have strong roots in European ultraleft Marxism, or
rather, in attempts to transcend it following the great near-revolution
of 1968 in France and gathering momentum up to the present time. Jacques
Camatte, formerly a member of a Bordiguist party, is one of the key
figures and was an important influence on Fredy Perlman and the Fifth
Estate. In the 1960s Stalinism was still very much dominant as an
ideological opposition to capitalism, even in some Western countries
such as France and Italy. The rejection of Marxism involved not just
Stalinism and the various nationalistic ideologies (re)emerging from its
decay, however, but went on to question even the less
authoritarian/ideological and more critical strands of Western Marxism
such as left or council communism and the Situationist International and
its imitators, which had all seemingly burned out in failure or
irrelevance after about 1970. The various theorists today associated
with the general idea and milieu of âprimitivismâ went in varying
directions from there, mostly toward a critical engagement with an
anarchism that had begun to emerge from a long eclipse. Among them
Camatte remains most indebted to Marx.
The Marxist schema of history had a place, albeit a rather small one,
for prehistory in the category of âprimitive communism,â which would,
the theory went, return on a âhigherâ level through the historical
dialectic of class struggle. Camatte, and others such as Fredy Perlman
and John Zerzan, came to the conclusion that the working class could no
longer be considered the revolutionary subject, and questioned the
supposed necessity of the long detour through civilization (the
âwandering of humanityâ or âHis-storyâ) with its various stages
organized around modes of production. Marx, in contrast to just about
any flavor of Marxists you can think of, had some âprimitivistâ
tendencies of his own, which can be seen, for example, in the
Ethnological Notebooks and in his early Paris writings on alienation, in
which he pointed to communism as the emergence of human community, the
natural man and woman whose free creativity, and not the development of
economic forces of production, is the goal. At his best, Marx offered
the perspective of radical subjectivity rather than faith in an
objective process operating by rigid teleology and economic determinism.
Unfortunately, it is the latter face of Marxism that the world has come
to know all too well, and Engels as well as Marx himself have to share
part of the blame for that.
Another radical thinker worth mentioning in this regard is Dwight
Macdonald, also a refugee from left Marxism (in his case, Trotskyism),
whose principal writings date from the 1940s and 1950s, a time when
Stalinism was even more firmly entrenched, indeed at the zenith of its
power. Macdonald was not a contemner of civilization as such (he was, in
fact, rather fond of the ancient Greeks, who were, he noted approvingly,
âtechnologically as primitive as they were esthetically civilizedâ), but
his well-reasoned critique of Marxism placed it firmly in the context of
the Western Enlightenment project of boundless faith in science,
progress, and mastery over nature. Macdonald called for a renewal of an
anarchism both individualist and communitarian, and free of the fetish
of âscientific socialismâ that had sprung from classical anarchist and
Utopian thinkers as much as from Marx. The reemergence of anarchism
since the 1960s has taken a much more critical stance toward science and
technology than that of the bearded prophets of the 19^(th) century.
Insofar as Macdonald helped lay the groundwork for that reemergence, he
can be considered a forerunner of âprimitivism,â although I get the
sense that he may not have entirely approved of it in its present
manifestations.
Whatever good there is that people associate with civilization (e.g.,
cultural, spiritual, or ethical achievements) usually has to do with
something other than just making money, which is the alpha and omega of
this society. The civilization of Capital â to the extent that it has a
civilization of its own, apart from the market â and technology-driven
mass culture â is a parasitic patina overlying the culture of previous
forms of society, which it continually decomposes, recomposes, and
packages as an immense collection of commodities to be sold and
consumed. Camatte has described the present society in bleak terms as a
âmaterial community of capitalâ in which the social classes of the
classic Marxian polarity, bourgeoisie and proletariat alike, have been
suppressed or superseded in a generalized human slavery to wage labor
and the commodity, and in which life itself increasingly takes on the
cast of âvirtual reality.â In this society, by analogy with the âAsiatic
mode of production,â there may be revolts, but there is no exit through
a dialectic of history.
But if the proletariat (whether defined, classically, as those without
ownership of means of production, or more broadly, by Castoriadis and
the Situationists, as those without power or control over their own
lives) will not serve as revolutionary subject and force of negation in
modern society, then who or what will? The antiwar, green, feminist,
gay, and civil-rights ânew social movementsâ (no longer very new at this
point) coming out of the 1960s had their own understandable reasons for
rejecting Marxism and the old workersâ movement, but these movements
have tended to become thoroughly integrated into capitalist society
through postmodern academe and liberal or social democratic party
politics. A deep ecology perspective might see little need for a human
subject to effect revolutionary change, but most anarchists, including
the âprimitivistsâ among them, do have a vision of social revolution.
Although the society of capital seems remarkably resilient, there is (or
was, at least, until very recently) at least some cause for optimism.
Resistance to all the various ideological, technological, and
institutional supports of this society continues and seemed to be
increasing dramatically, although what will now happen in the current
drive to war is a big question mark.
The theory of the proletariat enunciated in the 19^(th) century has lost
its credibility but retains a half-life that continues to resonate. Bob
Black, who is not a primitivist per se but shares many elements of a
primitivist critique of technological society, put it this way: âThe
(sur)rational kernel of truth in the mystical Marxist shell is this: the
âworking classâ is the legendary ârevolutionary agentâ: but only if, by
not working, it abolishes class.â Zerowork takes the refusal or
withdrawal of labor as the starting point of any effort to change or
escape this world, only it rejects leftist efforts to organize such
refusal through parties and unions. It is necessarily ambivalent
(agnostic?) on the question of civilization and technology. In looking
at ways to free humanity from work, there are different directions in
which to turn. Paul La Fargue argued for automation under worker
control, as did the Situationists. In this scenario technology can be
seen as a potential help and not necessarily as an unmitigated force of
oppression. The potential downside is that it entails a continued
dependency on technology. Then there is the example of the
hunter-gatherer peoples, who work hardly at all and donât use or need
automation because nature makes available to them everything they need.
Given that re-creating such lifeways in their original Paleolithic forms
is nigh impossible, however, this example has practical limits as a
model for transforming our own lives.
In considering the importance (or not) of the working class it is well
to observe that most people in the world are not (post)industrial
workers, but peasants. The relationship to the land is most important,
and the categories of discourse associated with Marx and other
19^(th)-century radicals are still relevant, especially the emphasis on
capitalismâs origins as an agricultural revolution. Camatte, who
advocates movements based on community rather than class, has written
much on this subject. The concept of community is frustratingly vague
when applied to contemporary Western societies, but is easier to see in
relation to that greater part of the world where capital has still not
completely penetrated the traditional societies, and social formations
whose roots predate capitalism are still the norm. In his essay on the
Russian Revolution, Camatte emphasized the populist, peasant-based
dimension rather than the class-struggle dialectic of bourgeoisie vs.
proletariat. He made the case that the workersâ councils were in a sense
extensions of the peasant commune, because many of the insurrectionary
workers in the rapidly industrializing Russia of that time were recent
migrants from the countryside, where communal social forms prevailed.
Today, in non-Western societies, urbanization and industrialization
continue to grow and capital makes further inroads through the same
means by which it became established in the West: enclosures and the
uprooting of people from their means of subsistence on the land. But
there is still at least a trace of communitarian dimension in workersâ
lives. People in many parts of Africa and Asia, for example, who have
become workers in cities still have family, food, and other resources in
their native villages in the countryside. These regions are poor in
relation to North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but in the event
of far-reaching industrial collapse it is conceivable they might
actually fare better based on this surviving relationship to the land.
If peasant-based socialism were to take hold on a large scale, many
areas of the world could be pulled out of the global market. But as long
as capital remains securely in power in its metropolitan stongholds,
this scenario probably wonât work. Indeed, it can be said to have been
tried already. Third-World Stalinism was already this attempt in many
regions where, in part because of colonialism, a native bourgeoisie
never really developed. Peasants have served as the foot soldiers for
many revolutions, but these have all been projects of state-run capital
overseen by Marxist and nationalist petty-bourgeois bureaucrats. As the
1917 revolution in Russia remained isolated and fought the White Terror
with Red Terror, the Bolshevik party-state presided over the imposition
of industrial society in that country. This became a pattern repeated
several times disastrously throughout the 20^(th) century as many poor
nations attempted to follow the totalitarian model of Soviet or Chinese
Stalinism. The world is still reeling from this process, although it now
seems to have run its course.
A peasant communalism free of statist bureaucatic mediation would be
worthy of support for the obstacle it could pose to the spread of
capitalâs real domination to every corner of the world and all facets of
life. It would still, of course, be based on agriculture, so it would
not really be an alternative to civilization as such. In Zerzanâs view
agriculture is âthe indispensable basis of civilization,â and
âliberation is impossible without its dissolution.â In the most
developed capitalist nations, cities are home to the majority of the
population, the separation of people from the land is nearly total, and
agriculture is carried out as an intensely industrialized process. But
practically no one, including Zerzan, imagines that either cities or
agriculture could be abandoned overnight. A transition there would
certainly have to be, and it would probably be a prolonged process
undertaken, if history is any indicator, in the teeth of determined
counterrevolutionary efforts aimed at the restoration of the old social
order (unless the present ruling elites simply throw in the towel
peacefully a seemingly unlikely but not impossible scenario). Would we
then be anticipating a withering away of agriculture, to replace the
Marxistsâ âwithering away of the stateâ? The abolition of work is a more
flexible idea and is probably more likely to catch on with the plebeian
multitudes than calls to abolish civilization and technology. But there
is a certain utopian maximalism in this as well. These ideas might serve
better as stars to navigate by, while we sail on Fourierâs seas of
lemonade, seeking our Northwest passage, than as actual destinations.
Work can be radically minimized; it is doubtful that it can ever be
entirely eliminated. As long as weâre not actually living as gatherers
and hunters, some production must take place. Surely there has to be a
way to accomplish it without domination and coercion of our fellow human
beings, or insult to the rest of nature. The âsmall is beautifulâ idea
is appealing. âAppropriateâ technologies, city gardens (horticulture),
and, wherever possible, the revival of artisanal rather than industrial
production are possibilities. The sheer size of the earthâs human
population, however, might make these solutions difficult to implement
under all circumstances. Even if industrial society were cut down to
size right now, the regeneration of nature could take a considerable
time. In the event of another devastating world war-at this moment,
alas, not just possible, but likely-resulting in the destruction of much
of humansociety, the survivors may indeed be compelled to live as
primitivists.
Jarach
âAnarcho-primitivism opposes civilization, the context within which the
various forms of oppression proliferate and become pervasive â and,
indeed, possible. The aim is to develop a synthesis.of the ecologically
focused, non-statist, anti-authoritarian aspects of primitive lifeways
with the most advanced forms of anarchist analysis of power relations.
The aim is not to replicate or return to the primitive, [but] merely to
see the primitive as a source of inspiration, as exemplifying forms of
anarchy.â
â John Moore, A Primitivist Primer
Presenting a vision of a world unencumbered by hierarchical politics and
technological domination over human and non-human life,
anarcho-primitivism has much to contribute to antiauthoritarian
discourse. The analytical value of anarcho-primitivism is that hardly
any aspect of human culture escapes critical examination; from the very
foundations of agriculture and mass production, to the interrelationship
between these phenomena and institutionalized forms of hierarchy and
domination, very little is taken for granted. Where anarchists have
traditionally critiqued the manifestations of hierarchical thinking and
authoritarian social relations, anarcho-primitivists attack the
assumptions behind that thinking.
Anarcho-primitivists are quick to point to the 99% of human existence
before the advent of agriculture, the period of the primacy of
gathering-hunting economic and social arrangements. This primal human
life-way, characterized by the absence of institutionalized forms of
power, shows that something radically different from the current regime
of transnational industrial capitalism and politics-an anarchic
arrangement in fact-is not only possible, but has had an enduring and
successful track record. Further, the existence and durability of these
anarchic cultures shows that the development of a hierarchical and
predatory economic and political system is neither necessary nor
inevitable.
Communism, syndicalism, individualism, and feminism all have anarchists
who adhere to them to one degree or another. But without the anarcho- in
front, these ideologies are merely variations on the themes of statism
and authoritarianism. Primitivism is no different. The critique and
rejection of industrial capitalism and technologically dominated
civilization is not the monopoly of antiauthoritarian thinkers and
activists. Some who are attracted to primitivism are partisans of
misanthropy and other forms of domination. Anarchists who are interested
in extending the relevance of primitivist ideas need to distance
themselves from these dead ends.
Authoritarian primitivists disregard the example of gatherer-hunters;
they see this form of culture as irrelevant. They are more interested in
non-technologized euro-american cultural survival. (Many Deep Ecologists
and the first generation of Earth First! prior to the hippie/redneck
split belong in this category.) The sedentary village societies of
Celtic, Teutonic and/or Norse cultivators and hunters are seen as
relevant models. That they had warrior castes and raiding as an integral
part of their cultures seems to be of no concern to authoritarian
primitivists; indeed, many consider this heroic. Such a predatory system
led directly to the establishment of the European feudal order; it seems
that authoritarian primitivists wish to revitalize this decentralized
social and economic arrangement with themselves as the heads of their
own fiefdoms. They are not interested in the abolition of the division
of labor or of the state; their model requires the adherence to the
philosophy of might makes right.
This tendency is marked by a mythical understanding of land;
bioregionalism (the idea that only indigenous flora and fauna belong in
their native ecosystems) is made to apply to humans as well.
Bioregionalist primitivists promote the so-called natural or organic
belonging of a particular people/nation/ethnicity to a particular
geographical area. The xenophobic populism and racist nationalism
implicit in such a perspective is not difficult to spot. It is also easy
to see the similarities between authoritarian primitivism and the
volksgemeinschaft and blut und boden aspects of nazi ideology. This is
not to say that all primitivists are crypto-fascists, but there are many
characteristics of authoritarian primitivism that overlap with parts of
National Socialism.
Authoritarian primitivism is also characterized by the promotion of the
idea that there are too many people in the world relative to too few
resources. Such a perspective is supposed to be based on scientific
analyses. The elevation of Science (not empiricism, but the belief that
Science is some kind of neutral and objective endeavor, a pure method of
arriving at Truth) to an ideology leaves larger questions unexamined.
Political and ideological assumptions inform all science, and no
knowledge is separable form the use to which it is put. The field of
biology is no exception. Biologism, a belief in the accuracy of
euro-american biological science, plays a major part in the uglier
manifestations of authoritarian and vulgar primitivism. If the
assumption is that the multitude of traditionally dispossessed people
are a threat to the few who possess much, then any scientist â
especially biological determinists â will provide the rationale for
maintaining that dispossession.
The mantra of âtoo many mouths to feedâ is as old as it is false.
Biological research has nothing to do with the deliberate destruction of
tons of grains in order to maintain maximum profits, the waste of water
and plant foods to maintain the meat industry, or government subsidies
for the dairy industry; these are political and economic policies. But
it does have everything to do with the field of genetic modification of
seed crops, which is supposed to feed the multitudes, but is used merely
to maximize profits for the patent-holders of whatever frankenfoods
result. Clearly biology is not some neutral way of examining life. Even
so, authoritarian primitivists latch on to the most reactionary
pronouncements of neo-Malthusian biologists as if it were the only game
in town. We are treated to such memorable terms as âcarrying capacityâ
with no examination of what it is thatâs being âcarried.â It isnât the
human and non-human populations of a given ecosystem; it is of course
the current organization of industrial capitalism and the profits of the
beneficiaries of it.
Vulgar primitivism may be characterized primarily by a romantic
idealization of primal cultures. From this type of primitivist we can
hear uncritical celebrations of gatherer-hunters as egalitarian and
peaceful people who live without any division of labor, in total harmony
with themselves, each other, and their environments. In these cultures
there is no state to be sure, and the locations of power are rarely
institutionalized and almost always distributed horizontally. There are
other types of cultures that share these same characteristics.
Pastoralists possess domesticated animals and engage in small-scale and
subsistence agriculture, and they have no institutionalized power
structures either; this type of culture is certainly worthy of study for
the same reasons gatherer-hunters are. But vulgar primitivists have
little interest in pastoralists and small-scale agriculturalists. This
is a selective (some might say manipulative) use of the anthropological
literature.
The accusation of primitivists wanting to go âback to the Stone Ageâ is
most applicable to vulgar primitivists. Some primitivists proudly
proclaim that they really do want to live that way, if we can believe
many of the articles in the mainstream press concerning contemporary
anarchists. The most serious primitivist theorists I know, and whose
essays Iâve read, advocate a simpler non-industrialized life, with much
lower impact on the environment; they are interested in permaculture,
composting toilets, wild foods, self sufficiency and generally living
âoff the grid.â The technological level of such a culture would most
closely resemble rural life in the pre-Industrial Revolution era,
combined with a âback to the landâ ethos of late 20^(th) century
America. Tools and production methods up to and including the 16^(th)
through the early 19^(th) centuries might be totally appropriate for
that kind of life. This model also fits in well with the idea of local,
small-scale autonomous communities that network or federate with each
other-a usual (but not the only) anarchist model.
Vulgar primitivists also latch onto biologism. This can be seen in some
primitivist discourse concerning overpopulation. The anti-primitivist
accusation of promotion of a âmass die-offâ comes into play here, and
the more vulgar primitivists are reluctant to respond to it, apparently
because they donât think a âmass die-offâ of humans would be such a bad
thing. The misanthropy inherent in this perspective is self-defeating
for antiauthoritarians. Misanthropy very easily lends itself to
authoritarian ideas and practices; if people in general are inherently
stupid and destructive, doesnât it make sense to have some kind of
enlightened leadership to oversee us, so that we donât hurt our
environments or ourselves? This is one of the most basic authoritarian
lies. In addition, there is a clear contradiction to this generalized
misanthropy from within primitivism: how can vulgar primitivists justify
the idea of an implacable human drive for destruction if humans existed
so well for hundreds and thousands of years-without destroying their
environments and each other?
The people who should be held directly accountable for the rampant
destruction of the natural world are the scientists who (re-)engineer
its genetic structure, the capitalists who profit from its exploitation,
and the ideologists who justify all of it. This is a small part of
humanity (both historically and contemporarily); even though a majority
of people in the North benefits from the continuation of this regime of
destruction, responsibility should be placed where it belongs-with those
who create and maintain that regime. Primitivists discredit themselves
when they blame âhumanityâ (as if we were some kind of plague). This
diverts attention away from the real culprits.
Vulgar primitivists have taken the accusations hurled at primitivism by
anti-primitivists as badges of honor. So they promote the reactionary
ideas that there are too many mouths to feed, and that a critique of
industrial technology necessarily means returning to a Paleolithic
existence. They are knee-jerk anti-anti-primitivists with nearly no
capacity for independent critical thinking, nor do they seem capable of
threading their way through a coherent discussion about what it actually
means to reject technological society.
A self-conscious anarcho-primitivism needs to begin with a critical
examination of the gatherer-hunter cultures that are discussed in
various ethnographies. Anarcho-primitivists need to show that this type
of culture is a valuable theoretical and philosophical guide for living
without industrial technology, capitalism, and the state.
There are several questions that need to be answered when relying so
heavily on anthropological literature, however. How much of the
ethnography is based on the (possibly idealized) interpretations of the
anthropologist doing the fieldwork? How much is the supposed
egalitarianism of the actual culture recognizable to us as
antiauthoritarians? Is the supposed lack of violence recognizable to us?
Are the sexual division of labor and the separate spheres of activity
based on gender, age, and ability recognizable to us as positive
examples of a stateless, non-hierarchical culture?
What if gatherer-hunter cultures do not provide us with fully positive
models of anarchic cultures â those that an average anarchist would
recognize as a good place to live? Does it undercut the primitivist
critique if there is little or no reliance on ethnographies of
gatherer-hunters? Probably not; no serious anarcho-primitivist promotes
an uncritical emulation or adoption of foraging, pastoralist, and
small-scale agriculturalist culture. What is needed is a critical
examination of such cultures and the various ways the people in them
have managed to exclude and prevent the formation of institutionalized
structures of domination and exploitation. Combined with an equally
critical anarchist analysis of the banal system of technologized
industrial capitalism in the North and the regime of brutal accumulation
and extraction of wealth from the South, anarcho-primitivism could
become the most coherent analytical framework for understanding and
combating the current trend of âglobalization.â
Many primitivists adhere to ideas that are pulled from one or more of
the three tendencies Iâve identified for the purposes of this essay. It
is of crucial importance for anarcho-primitivists to promote
self-examination and a critique of the untenable positions that various
primitivists take. When primitivists talk about a visceral or spiritual
connection to the land and the plants and animals living there,
anarcho-primitivists need to caution them about the relationship of this
kind of mysticism to authoritarian ideologies. When primitivists talk
about overpopulation and âcarrying capacity,â anarcho-primitivists need
to point out the reactionary nature of Malthusianism.
Similarly, when anti-primitivists accuse primitivists of being in favor
of a racist âmass die-off,â anarcho-primitivists need to remind them
that it is the people in the un- or partially-industrialized South (whom
anti-primitivists patronizingly want to protect) who will survive any
temporary-or permanent-collapse of industrialized capitalism. They
possess the best resources to survive any such disintegration. In fact,
it is those fully integrated into and dependent on transnational
euro-american capitalism who would suffer most when the store shelves
are empty and the electricity stops.
An anarchist primitivism worthy of support would reject scientism,
biologism, and the selective and uncritical embrace of anthropological
research into gatherer-hunter cultures. It would also reject the
reactionary misanthropy of blaming all humans for the domination and
exploitation carried out by the rich and powerful. Further, it would
reject the instinctive humanism of liberalism and socialism in favor of
a balance between the actual needs of humans and the preservation and
integrity of the natural world.