Anarcho-primitivism

Walden by Henry David Thoreau, an influential early green-anarchist work

In the United States, anarchism started to have an ecological view mainly in the writings of Henry David Thoreau. In his book Walden, he advocates simple living and self-sufficiency among natural surroundings in resistance to the advancement of industrial civilization.[6] "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism represented today by John Zerzan. For George Woodcock, this attitude can also be motivated by the idea of resistance to progress and the rejection of the increasing materialism that characterized North American society in the mid-19th century."[6] Zerzan himself included the text "Excursions" (1863) by Thoreau in his edited compilation of anti-civilization writings called Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections from 1999.[7]

In the late 19th century, anarchist naturism appeared as the union of anarchist and naturist philosophies.[8][9] It mainly was important within individualist anarchist circles[6] in Spain,[6][8][9] France[6] and Portugal.[10] Important influences in it were Henry David Thoreau,[6] Leo Tolstoy[8] and Élisée Reclus.[11] Anarcho-naturism advocated vegetarianism, free love, nudism and an ecological world view within anarchist groups and outside them.[8]

Anarcho-naturism promoted an ecological worldview, small ecovillages, and most prominently nudism as a way to avoid the artificiality of the industrial mass society of modernity.[8] Naturist individualist anarchists saw the individual in his biological, physical and psychological aspects and avoided and tried to eliminate social determinations.[12] Their ideas were important in individualist anarchist circles in France but also in Spain where Federico Urales (pseudonym of Joan Montseny), promotes the ideas of Gravelle and Zisly in La Revista Blanca (1898–1905).[13]

This tendency was strong enough as to call the attention of the CNT–FAI in Spain. Daniel Guérin, in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, reports how "Spanish anarcho-syndicalism had long been concerned to safeguard the autonomy of what it called "affinity groups". There were many adepts of naturism and vegetarianism among its members, especially among the poor peasants of the south. Both these ways of living were considered suitable for the transformation of the human being in preparation for a stateless society. At the Zaragoza congress, the members did not forget to consider the fate of groups of naturists and nudists, "unsuited to industrialization". As these groups would be unable to supply all their own needs, the Congress anticipated that their delegates to the meetings of the Confederation of communes would be able to negotiate special economic agreements with the other agricultural and industrial communes. On the eve of a vast, bloody, social transformation, the CNT did not think it foolish to try to meet the infinitely varied aspirations of individual human beings."[14]

Anarchists contribute to an anti-authoritarian push,[15] which challenges all abstract power on a fundamental level, striving for egalitarian relationships and promoting communities based upon mutual aid.[16] Primitivists, however, extend ideas of non-domination to all life, not just human life, going beyond the traditional anarchist's analysis. Using the work of anthropologists, primitivists look at the origins of civilization so as to understand what they are up against and how current society formed in order to inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, primitivists rekindle an anti-technological orientation.[17] Insurrectionalists do not believe in waiting for critiques to be fine-tuned, instead spontaneously attacking civilization's current institutions.

Primitivists may owe much to the Situationists and their critique of the ideas in The Society of the Spectacle and alienation from a commodity-based society. Deep ecology informs the primitivist perspective with an understanding that the well-being of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth and intrinsic value of the non-human world, independent of its economic value. Primitivists see deep ecology's appreciation for the richness and diversity of life as contributing to the realization that 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.[18]

Some primitivists have been influenced by the various indigenous cultures. Primitivists attempt to learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier ways of interacting with life. Some are also inspired by the feral subculture, where people abandon domestication and have re-integrate themselves with the wild.

Some theorists posit that the fact that anarcho-primitivism has existed as a political ideology consistently for so long points to a dissatisfaction with civilization and a desire to return to nature felt across cultures and generations. They argue that the width of the divide between civilization and nature, or the perception thereof, is a factor that feeds the desire to destroy civilization, and by extension, supports the continued relevance of anarcho-primitivist thought.[19]

Based on several anthropological references, they further state that hunter-gatherer societies are less susceptible to war, violence, and disease.[26][27][28]

However, some – such as Lawrence Keely – contest this, citing that many tribe-based people are more prone to violence than developed states.[29]

Anarcho-primitivists, such as John Zerzan, define domestication as "the will to dominate animals and plants", claiming that domestication is "civilization's defining basis".[30]

It also involved the destruction, enslavement, or assimilation of other groups of early people who did not make such a transition.

To primitivists, domestication enslaves both the domesticated species as well as the domesticators. Advances in the fields of psychology, anthropology, and sociology allow humans to quantify and objectify themselves, until they too become commodities.

Brian Sheppard asserts that anarcho-primitivism is not a form of anarchism at all. In Anarchism vs. Primitivism he says: "In recent decades, groups of quasi-religious mystics have begun equating the primitivism they advocate (rejection of science, rationality, and technology often lumped together under a blanket term "technology") with anarchism. In reality, the two have nothing to do with each other."[31]

Andrew Flood agrees with this assertion and points out that primitivism clashes with what he identifies as the fundamental goal of anarchism: "the creation of a free mass society".[32]

Primitivists do not believe that a "mass society" can be free. They believe industry and agriculture inevitably lead to hierarchy and alienation. They argue that the division of labor techno-industrial societies require to function forces people into reliance on factories and the labor of other specialists to produce their food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities and that this dependence forces them to remain a part of this society, whether they like it or not.[3]

[33]

Regarding those primitivists who have extended their critique of symbolic culture to language itself, Georgetown University professor Mark Lance describes this particular theory of primitivism as "literally insane, for proper communication is necessary to create within the box a means to destroy the box".[34]

Activist writer Derrick Jensen wrote in Walking on Water that he is often classified as a "Luddite" and "an anarcho-primitivist. Both of these labels fit well enough, I suppose."[37] Others, too, have designated his work with the latter term;[38][39] however, more recently, Jensen began to categorically reject the "primitivist" label, describing it as a "racist way to describe indigenous peoples". He prefers to be called "indigenist" or an "ally to the indigenous".[40]

A common criticism is of hypocrisy, i.e. that people rejecting civilization typically maintain a civilized lifestyle themselves, often while still using the very industrial technology that they oppose in order to spread their message. Jensen counters that this criticism merely resorts to an ad hominem argument, attacking individuals but not the actual validity of their beliefs.[41] He further responds that working to entirely avoid such hypocrisy is ineffective, self-serving, and a convenient misdirection of activist energies.[42] Primitivist John Zerzan admits that living with this hypocrisy is a necessary evil for continuing to contribute to the larger intellectual conversation.[43] Jason Godesky holds that the charge of hypocrisy is a generalization, affirming that "not all primitivists are against technology in and of itself; only some. Many primitivists hold a view that technology is ambiguous ... So, the charge of hypocrisy only holds up if we extend the beliefs of some primitivists to all primitivists, or to primitivism itself."[44]

Wolfi Landstreicher and Jason McQuinn, post-leftists, have both criticized the romanticized exaggerations of indigenous societies and the pseudoscientific (and even mystical) appeal to nature they perceive in anarcho-primitivist ideology and deep ecology.[35][45] Zerzan has countered that the anarcho-primitivist view is not idealizing the indigenous, but rather "has been the mainstream view presented in anthropology and archaeology textbooks for the past few decades. It sounds utopian, but it's now the generally accepted paradigm".[46]

Ted Kaczynski has also argued that certain anarcho-primitivists have exaggerated the short working week of primitive society, arguing that they only examine the process of food extraction and not the processing of food, creation of fire and childcare, which adds up to over 40 hours a week.[47]

Besides Murray Bookchin, many class struggle oriented and social anarchists criticize primitivism as offering "no way forwards in the struggle for a free society" and that "often its adherents end up undermining that struggle by attacking the very things, like mass organization, that are a requirement to win it".[48] Other social anarchists have also argued that abandoning technology will have dangerous consequences, pointing out that around 50% of the population of the United Kingdom requires glasses and would be left severely impaired. Radioactive waste would need to be monitored for tens of thousands of years with high-tech equipment to prevent it leaking into ecosystems, the millions of people who need regular treatment for illnesses would die and the removal of books, recorded music, medical equipment, central heating and sanitation would result in a rapid decline in the quality of life. Furthermore, social anarchists contend that without advanced agriculture the Earth's surface would not be able to support billions of people, meaning that building a primitivist society would require the death of billions.[49]

• AbdelRahim, Layla (2015). Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-66110-2.
• AbdelRahim, Layla (2013). Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education. Halifax: Fernwood. ISBN 978-1-552-66548-0.
• Booth, Stephen (2001). Primitivism an Illusion With No Future. Green Anarchist. ISBN 0-9521226-3-4.
• Diamond, Stanley (1974). In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-87855-582-6.
• Ellul, Jacques (1964). The Technological Society. New York: Knopf. ISBN 9780394703909.
• Gagliano, Giuseppe (2010). Il ritorno alla Madre Terra. L'utopia verde tra ecologia radicale e ecoterrorismo [The return to Mother Earth. The green utopia between radical ecology and eco-terrorism] (in Italian). Editrice Uniservice. p. 229. ISBN 978-88-6178-595-3.
• Glendinning, Chellis (1994). My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. Shambhala. ISBN 0-87773-996-X.
• Humphrey, Matthew (2007). "Anarcho-primitivism and direct action politics". Ecological Politics And Democratic Theory: The Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-31431-2.
• Jensen, Derrick (2000). A Language Older Than Words. New York: Context Books. ISBN 1-893956-03-2.
• Jensen, Derrick (2002). The Culture of Make Believe. New York: Context Books. ISBN 1-893956-28-8.
• Kaczynski, Theodore (1996) [1995]. The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future (3rd ed.). Berkeley: Jolly Roger Press. ISBN 0-9634205-2-6.
• Mander, Jerry (1992). In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. Sierra Club Books. ISBN 9780871565099.
• Perlman, Fredy (1983). Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!. Detroit: Black & Red Books. ISBN 9780934868259.
• Quinn, Daniel (1992). Ishmael. New York: Bantam. ISBN 0-553-07875-5.
• Taylor, Bron (2010). Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. University of California Press. pp. 91 onwards. ISBN 978-0-520-26100-6.
• Tucker, Kevin (2009). For Wildness and Anarchy. Greensburg, Pa.: Black and Green Press.
• Watson, David (1998). Against the Megamachine. Brooklyn: Autonomedia. ISBN 1-57027-087-2.
• Zerzan, John (1999). Elements of refusal. Columbia, Mo.: C.A.L. Press/Paleo Editions. ISBN 9781890532017.
• James Luchte (2012). Of the Feral Children. London: Createspace. ISBN 978-1479294886.

• Green Anarchy: An Anti-Civilization Journal of Theory and Action
• Species Traitor: An Insurrectionary Anarcho-Primitivist Journal
• Disorderly Conduct (journal)
• Fifth Estate: An Anti-Authoritarian Magazine of Ideas and Action

• Kaczynski, Ted (1999). "Ship of Fools". OFF! Magazine (student zine at SUNY Binghamton). Binghamton, N.Y. Archived from the original on 31 December 2005.
• Kosman, Mark. "Marx, Engels, Luxemburg and the Return to Primitive Communism". Archived from the original on 12 December 2013.
• Etherington, Ben (24 May 2018). "The New Primitives". Los Angeles Review of Books.