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Primitivism
Primitivism, or anarcho-primitivism, is an anarchist
critique of the origins and progress of civilization.
Primitivists argue that the shift from hunter-gatherer
to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification,
coercion, and alienation. They advocate a return to
non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation,
abolition of division of labour or specialization, and
abandonment of technology. There are however numerous
other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all
primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source
of modern, civilized problems. Some, like Ted Kaczynski,
see only the Industrial Revolution as the problem, others
point to various developments in history such as monotheism,
writing, patriarchy, the use of metal tools, etc.
Many traditional anarchists reject such
critique of civilization while some endorse it but do
not consider themselves primitivists (eg. Wolfi Landstreicher).
Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their
focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state through
"rewilding". They may also promote a return
to full naturism, as in clothing optional.
Concepts
Primitivists argue that prior to the
advent of agriculture humans lived in small, nomadic bands
which were socially, politically, and economically egalitarian.
Being without hierarchy, these bands are sometimes viewed
as embodying a precursor to anarchism.
John Moore Writes That Anarcho-Primitivism
Seeks
"To expose, challenge and abolish all the multiple
forms of power that structure the individual, social relations,
and interrelations with the natural world."
Primitivists hold that as a result of agriculture, societies
became increasingly beholden to technological processes
and abstract power structures arising from the division
of labour and hierarchism. Primitivists disagree over
what degree of horticulture might be present in an anarchist
society, with some arguing that permaculture could have
a role but others advocating a strictly hunter-gatherer
subsistence.
Despite its rejection of scientism, primitivism
has drawn heavily on cultural anthropology and archaeology.
Within the last half-century, societies once viewed as
barbaric have been largely reevaluated by academics, many
of whom now hold that early humans lived in relative peace
and prosperity. For instance Frank Hole, an early-agriculture
specialist, and Kent Flannery, a specialist in Mesoamerican
civilization, have noted that, "No group on earth
has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers, who
spend it primarily on games, conversation and relaxing."(Kirkpatrick
Sale, "Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision")
Scholars such as Karl Polanyi and Marshall
Sahlins characterized primitive societies as gift economies
with "goods valued for their utility or beauty rather
than cost; commodities exchanged more on the basis of
need than of exchange value; distribution to the society
at large without regard to labor that members have invested;
labor performed without the idea of a wage in return or
individual benefit, indeed largely without the notion
of 'work' at all."
Civilization
Primitivists view civilization as the
logic, institutions, and physical apparatus of domestication,
control and domination. They focus primarily on the question
of origins. Civilization is seen as the underlying problem
or root of oppression, and it is believed that it needs
to be dismantled or destroyed.
Primitivists describe the rise of civilization
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. They
argue that 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. Primitivists state
that civilization inaugurated warfare, the subjugation
of women, population growth, drudge work, concepts of
property, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every
known disease. They claim that civilization begins with
and relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual
freedom and that it is impossible to reform away such
a renunciation.
A Critique Of Symbolic Culture
Primitivists view the shift towards
an almost exclusively symbolic culture as highly problematic,
in the sense that it separates us from a direct interaction.
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.
Primitivists argue that 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, say
primitivists, the symbolic mode of expression and understanding
is limited and its over-dependence leads to objectification,
alienation, and a tunnelvision of perception. Many primitivists
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.
The Domestication Of Life
Domestication, according to primitivists,
is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate
and control life according to its logic. The mechanisms
of domestication are said to include: taming, breeding,
genetically modifying, schooling, caging, intimidating,
coercing, extorting, promising, governing, enslaving,
terrorizing, murdering, etc. The list goes on to include
almost every civilized social interaction. Primitivists
say their movement and effects are examined and felt throughout
society, enforced through various institutions, rituals,
and customs.
Primitivists also describe it as the
process by which previously nomadic human populations
shift towards sedentary or settled existence through agriculture
and animal husbandry. They claim that this kind of domestication
demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land
and the plants and animals being domesticated. They say
that whereas in a state of wildness, all life shares and
competes for resources, domesticaton destroys this balance.
The domesticated landscape (e.g. pastoral lands/agricultural
fields, and to a lesser degree - horticulture and gardening)
is seen to necessitate the end of open sharing of the
resources that formerly existed; where once “this was
everyones’s,” it is now “mine.” Primitivists argue that
this notion of ownership laid the foundation for social
hierarchy as property and power emerged.
To primitivists domestication not only
changes the ecology from a free to a totalitarian order,
it enslaves the species that are domesticated.
The Origins And Dynamics Of Patriarchy
Primitivists hold that 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. Primitivists
say that 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. They see this as running parallel
to the domestication of plants for agriculture and animals
for herding, in general dynamics, and also in the specifics
like the control of reproduction. Primitivists say that
as in other realms of social stratification, roles are
assigned to women in order to establish a very rigid and
predictable order, beneficial to hierachy. They claim
that woman came to be seen as property, no different than
the crops in the field or the sheep in the pasture. Primitivists
argue that ownership and absolute control, whether of
land, plants, animals, slaves, children, or women, is
part of the established dynamic of civilization.
Patriarchy, to a primitivist, demands
the subjugation of the feminine and the usurpation of
nature, propelling us toward total annihilation. They
argue further that it defines power, control and dominion
over wildness, freedom and life. They say that patriarchal
conditioning dictates all of our interactions: with ourselves,
our sexuality, our relationships to each other, and our
relationship to nature. They claim it severely limits
the spectrum of possible experience.
Division Of Labor And Specialization
Primitivists tend to see division of
labor and specialization as fundamental and irreconcilable
problems, decisive to social relationship within civilization.
They see this disconnecting of the ability to care for
ourselves and provide for our own needs as a technique
of separation and disempowerment perpetuated by civilization.
Specialization is seen as leading to inevitable inequaities
of influence and undermining egalitarian relationships.
Rejection Of Science
Primitivists reject science as a method
of understanding the world. Science is not considered
neutral. It is seen as loaded with the motives and assumptions
that come out of, and reinforce, civilization.
Science is understood as attempting to
see the world as a collection of separate objects to be
observed and understood. In order to accomplish this task
the scientist must distance themselves 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.
Primitivists argue that this is a mechanistic
view tantamount to being the dominant religion of our
time. As science seeks to deal only with the quantitative,
primitivists suggest that it does not admit values or
emotions. While science claims that only things that are
reproducible, predictable and the same for all observers
are real and important, primitivists say that reality
itself is not reproducible, predictable or the same for
all observers.
Science is seen by primitivists as only partially considering
reality. Observability, objectifiability, quantifiability,
predictability, controllability and uniformity are said
to be the methods and goals of science. This, say primitivists,
leads to the world view that everything should be objectified,
quantified, controlled and in uniform with everything
and everyone else. Primitivists also see science as promoting
the idea that anomalous experience, anomalous ideas and
anomalous people should be cast off or destroyed like
imperfectly shaped machine components.
The Problem Of Technology
Primitivists reject technology completely.
They see it as a complex system involving division of
labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit
of those who implement its process. They argue that the
interface with and result of technology is always an alienated,
mediated, and distorted reality. Technology too, just
like science, is seen as not neutral. The values and goals
of those who produce and control technology are believed
to always be embedded within it.
Technology is held to be distinct from
simple tools in many regards. A simple tool is considered
a temporary usage of an element within our immediate surroundings
used for a specific task. Tools are not viewed to involved
complex systems which alienate the user from the act.
Primitivists claim that implicit in technology is this
separation, creating an unhealthy and mediated experience
which leads to various forms of authority. Domination
is said to increase every time a new “time-saving” technology
is created, as primitivists claim it necessitates the
construction of more technology to support, fuel, maintain
and repair the orginal technology. It is argued by primitivists
that this leads very rapidly to the establishment of a
complex technological system that seems to have an existence
independent of the humans who created it. Primitivists
believe that this system methodically destroys, eliminates,
or subordinates the natural world, constructing a world
fit only for machines.
Production And Industrialism
According to primitivists 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, they say, without genocide, ecocide, and
colonialism. They further say that to maintain it, coercion,
land evictions, forced labor, cultural destruction, assimilation,
ecological devastation and global trade are accepted as
necessary, even benign. Primitivists claim industrialism’s
standardization of life objectifies and commodifies it,
viewing all life as a potential resource. They see their
critique of industrialism as a natural extension of the
anarchist critique of the state because they see industrialism
as inherently authoritarian.
The primitivist argument against industrialism
is such: 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 rascism, 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.
Primitivists hold that Industrialism
cannot exist without massive centralization and specialization.
Futhermore, they hold that industrialism demands that
resources be shipped from all over the globe in order
to perpetuate its existence, and this globalism, they
say, undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency.
Finally primitivists contend that it
is a mechanistic worldview that is behind industrialism
and that this same world-view has justified slavery, exterminations
and the subjugation of women.
Beyond Leftism
Primitivists do not see themselves as
part of the Left (see also: post-left anarchy). Rather
they view the socialist and liberal orientations as bankrupt.
Primitivists argue that the Left has proven itself to
be a monumental failure in its objectives. The Left, according
to primitivists, 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 “progessive” agenda, often using
coercive and manipulative approaches in order to create
a false “unity” or the creation of political parties.
While primitivists understand that the methods or extremes
in implementation may differ, the overall push is seen
as the same: the institution of a collectivized and monolithic
world-view based on morality.
Against Mass Society
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. Primitivists
do not accept the premise of global (or even regional)
social, political, and economic coordination and interdependence,
or the organization needed for their administration. They
reject mass society for practical and philosophical reasons.
First, they reject the inherent representation necessary
for the functioning of situations outside the realm of
direct experience (completely decentralized modes of existence).
They do not wish to run society or organize a different
society.
They want a completely different frame
of reference. They 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. They
want a life which they live, not one which is run.
According to primitivists mass society
brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual,
but also with the earth. They see it as 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.
Liberation And Organization
Primitivists argue that organizational
models only provide us with more of the same. While it
is recognized by some primitivists that there might be
an occasional good intention, the organizational model
is seen as coming from an inherently paternalistic and
distrusting mindset which they hold is contradictory to
anarchy. Primitivists believe that 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. They say that 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, primitivists argue that as the scale of projects
increase, the meaning and relevance they have for one’s
own life decrease.
Rather than the familar organizational model primitivists
advocate for the use of informal, affinity-based associations
that they claim tend to minimize alienation from decisions
and processes, and reduce mediation between our desires
and our actions.
Revolution vs. Reform
As anarchists, primitivists 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. By revolution, primitivists 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 seen as 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, is seen as
entailing 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, it is
argued, 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 approaches, do not exist on a continuum.
For primitivists, revolutionary activity
questions, challenges, and works to dismantle the entire
set-up or paradigm of civilization. Revolution is not
seen as 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.
Influences
Anarchists contribute to an anti-authoritarian
push, which challenges all power on a fundamental level,
striving for truly egalitarian relationships and promoting
mutual aid communities. Primitivists, however, extend
ideas of non-domination to all of life, not just human
life, going beyond the traditional anarchist's analysis.
From anthropologists, primitivists are informed with a
look at the origins of civilization, so as to understand
what they are up against and how they got here, to help
inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites,
primitivists rekindle an anti-technological/industrial
direct action orientation. Insurrectionalists infuse a
perspective which waits not for the fine-tuning of critique,
but identify and spontaneously attack current institutions
of civilization.
Primitivists owe much to the Situationists,
and their critique of the alienating commodity society.
Deep ecology informs the primitivist 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. Primitivists see deep ecology’s appreciation
for the richness and diversity of life contribute to the
realization that the present human interference with the
non-human world is coercive and excessive.
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 separation of humans from the earth (civilization)
has probably been articulated most clearly and intensely
by eco-feminists.
Primitivists have been profoundly influenced
by the various indigenous cultures and earth-based peoples
throughout history and those who still currently exist.
While primitivists attempt to learn and incorporate sustainable
techniques for survival and healthier ways of interacting
with life, they see it as important not to flatten or
generalize native peoples and their cultures, and to repsect
and attempt to understand their diversity without co-opting
cultural identities and characteristics. Primitivists
also feel that it is important to understand that all
humans have come from earth-based peoples forcibly removed
from our connections with the earth, and therefore have
a place within anti-colonial struggles.
They 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 the Earth. It is important to remember that, while
many anarcho-primitivists draw influence from similar
sources, anarcho-primitivism is something very personal
to each who identify or connect with these ideas and actions.
Rewilding And Reconnection
For most primitivist anarchists, rewilding
and reconnecting with the earth is a life project. They
state that it should not be limited to intellectual comprehension
or the practice of primitive skills, but instead, that
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. Rewilding is understood
as having a physical component which involves reclaiming
skills and developing methods for a sustainable co-existance,
including how to feed, shelter and heal ourselves with
the plants, animals and materials occuring naturally in
our bioregions. It is also said to include the dismantling
of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and infrastructure
of civilization.
Rewilding is described as having an emotional
component, which involves healing ourselves and each other
from what are perceived as the 10,000 year-old wounds,
learning how to live together in non-heirarchical and
non-oppressive communities, and deconstructing the domesticating
mindset in our social patterns. To the primitivist “rewilding
includes prioritizing direct experience and passion over
mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and
aspect of 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.” (from the "What Is Green Anarchy"
primer)
Associations
In the United States primitivism has
been notably advocated by writer John Zerzan and to a
lesser extent author Derrick Jensen. The primitivist movement
has connections to radical environmentalism, gaining some
attention due to the ideas of Theodore Kaczynski (also
dubbed, "the Unabomber") following his luddite
bombing campaign. Recently primitivism has been enthusiastically
explored by Green Anarchy, Species Traitor, and occasionally
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Fifth Estate, and
even CrimethInc..
During the 1990s the UK magazine Green
Anarchist aligned itself with primitivism, although there
are many green anarchists who are not primitivists.
Anti-civilization anarchists also organize
groups in Spain, Israel, Turkey, and India.
Criticism
Critics note that recent research indicates
that certain hunter-gatherer societies actually had higher
incidences of violence than societies with a state.. However,
most of these primitive societies have some degree of
contact with civilization which may make them more prone
to violence. Regardless, this is an imposition of civilized
moral values onto primitive cultures and often leads away
from a discussion of the more pertinent points of primitivism,
such as physical and mental health and then destruction
of the natural environment.
Other research also indicates that primitive
societies like the !Kung were not as affluent as previously
thought. The !Kung instead had a life expectancy of thirty
years, high infant mortality, a workweek at least equal
to that of today, and periodic starvation with marked
decrease in body weight. Primitivists respond that the
figure of a higher number of hours of work is an extension
of the original definition used for "work" (such
as including household chores, which are not counted in
figures of civilized workdays) and will often respond
that most of the !Kung's and other primitive people's
"work" consists of what most civilized people
do for recreation such as hunting, fishing, gardening,
sewing, weaving, etc.
Other critics believe that solving social
problems, e.g. oppression, torture, war, or disease would
be more difficult without books, medical instruments (a
form of technology), and the social structures of civilization.
Of course, the primitivist response is that it is civilization
itself that causes these social problems.
Some posit that it would be implausible or even impossible
for a world population of over 6 billion to dapt to social
organizations limited to bands of 30-40 people. Even after
a massive Nuclear holocaust it is hard for many to imagine
that civilization would not quickly reorganise, though
this theory tends to ignore evidence that there is not
enough available resources left on the planet to fuel
another Industrial Revolution were this one to collapse.
This criticism against primitivism suggests that primitivism
could only be attained temporarily, and under scenarios
which most people would consider to be nightmarish dystopias.
Primitivists counter this objection by saying that of
course 6 billion people could not live in hunter and gatherer
bands. They argue that the human population of the Earth
will have to one day be much smaller than it is now because
the current population levels and growth pattern are not
sustainable.
Because some primitivists have extended their critique
of symbolic culture to language itself, GeorgetownUniversity
professor Mark Lance describes primitivism as "literally
insane, for proper communication is necessary to create
within the box a means to destroy the box." While
primitivists recognise the importance of communication
in order to destroy civilization, they see some forms
as inherently alienating. The critique of language is
often misconstrued however, as being a call for the abandonment
of it, rather than an examination of how the use of language
may engender domination and alienation.
Som notable critics of primitivism include Michael Albert
and Brian Sheppard, and especially Murray Bookchin as
seen in his polemic work "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle
Anarchism" as well as the conflict between his, more
traditionally socialist, "Social Ecology" and
more the radical "Deep Ecology" of many primitivists.
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