From Eugene Weekly by John Zerzan (6/23/2022)
A local anarchist calls for a return to primitive living to avoid catastrophe
We want to be seen as “civilized,” not looked down upon as “primitive.” But what if we have this the wrong way round?
For 99 percent of our time as a human species, from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, we were primitive, living in face-to-face band societies without war, patriarchy, the ruin of the natural world, hierarchy and domestication. We took the wrong path.
But of course, people argue, there’s no going back. In a talk to a University of Oregon audience a few months ago, Potawatomi elder and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer refuted the “can’t go back” mantra. We can and must go back, along ancestral paths, she declared.
Joseph Tainter’s invaluable The Collapse of Complex Societies shows why we can’t go forward. Most simply stated, civilizations outrun their carrying capacity, their sustenance. They are parasites that consume their hosts. This one last global civilization is doing just that. Built on technology and capital, it is failing on every level, in every area.
If the future isn’t somehow primitive there won’t be a future. Do we choose life or the onrushing death spiral of civilization?
One of Freud’s later works is Civilization and its Discontents, mainly focused on domestication, civilization’s core institution and orientation. Some species are tamed and domesticated and are more or less able to endure their servitude. For humans, Freud argued, it’s different. Domestication’s condition of unfreedom is for us a wound that does not heal. It is the source of neurosis, the basic cause of our unhappiness. The cure is as obvious as it is radical: Remove this cornerstone of immiseration. Freud shrank from the solution, while articulating its inescapable bottom line.
As civilization crumbles, everything within its force field is being affected, being brought down. Youth mental health is in tatters against the backdrop of rising suicide rates, increasing opioid deaths, mass shootings, widespread homelessness and overall hopelessness. Friendships, too, fray under the pressure.
The physical environment, as we all know, is a parallel catastrophe, e.g. warming, rising, full-of-plastic seas; global overheating; universal air pollution; unprecedented species extinction; severe and erratic weather, etc.
The domesticators and civilizers have extended destruction and control. The breadth and depth of control are ever greater, from nanotechnology to surveillance society. Genocidal invaders decimated the Native population, declaring “Civilization” and “Progress” while making a graveyard.
The Dead Zone of technological society extends the world’s destruction and our captivity. Place and presence are harder to come by, as the machine provides representation instead of life. Much has been replaced, refined — possibly society itself.
In 1950, mathematician Alan Turing predicted that in 50 years the question wouldn’t be how much more human that technology has become, but how technified humans have become.
Freud saw what damage domestication/civilization does to humankind, but couldn’t face the answer. Health in the face of cancer simply means an end to the cancer; the same goes for civilization.
As Kimmerer counseled, we must go back along the ancestral paths. Rewilding, decolonization, de-domestication lead us there. Anti-authoritarian means anti-civilization. A mammoth undertaking, but the alternative is to keep going down a clearly suicidal road.
John Zerzan is a local anarchist writer whose books include Elements of Refusal and Future Primitive. You can listen live to his “AnarchyRadio” at 7 pm Tuesdays on KWVA 88.1 FM or via audio streaming.
Comments
JZ is back at ANEWS?
H (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 11:36
Is ANEWS going to post Anarchy Radio again, or has the bad blood not have enough time to congeal?
apparently there's some
el condor pasa (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 12:00
In reply to JZ is back at ANEWS? by H (not verified)
apparently there's some softie in the collective who wants to remind us there's a broken record playing in a hut somewhere in the wilderness, i doubt the hostility has decreased from either side
Did you read the roller?
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 12:48
In reply to apparently there's some by el condor pasa (not verified)
ANews big softie here. As others have pointed out in the thread, John Zerzan is definitely repeating their same old talking points that they have already covered over the years. It's like a trip down memory lane and not new for anyone familiar with the writer, although I'm glad to see Zerzan writing in the MSM, even if not necessarily for anarchists and thought it important enough to post to ANews,
The question was asked if ANews is going to start posting Anarchy Radio again and I'm curious what ANews readers and participants think. Would you like to see this?
- ANews big softie, thecollective_1.8
I guess you're taking cues from that
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 13:15
In reply to apparently there's some by el condor pasa (not verified)
menacing black-and-white photograph above!
The wild has nothing but decay for that record player...
Dude, don't believe JZ's
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 15:26
In reply to apparently there's some by el condor pasa (not verified)
Dude, don't believe JZ's rhetoric, there's a laptop with the latest processor in that particular hut, mmkay?
I swear I've read this same
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 12:27
I swear I've read this same article about 8 times in the past.
Kudos to jz for getting me to
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 13:19
Kudos to jz for getting me to watch that RWK video.
Of course he gets it all wrong. RWK doesn't say we must go back, she says we must reject human exceptionalism and embrace reciprocity with all beings. In short, we must begin the process of becoming/ belonging to Earth & all beings again, starting from where we are now.
And RWK is only mimicking
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 15:30
In reply to Kudos to jz for getting me to by anon (not verified)
And RWK is only mimicking what indigenous cultures have practised for thousands of years. I get tired of having to remind people that attitudes and knowledge are also reciprocated.
mimic?
anonymous (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 18:50
In reply to And RWK is only mimicking by anon (not verified)
not sure mimic is the right word for an indigenous woman who is talking about (and doing) indigenous practices.
How stupid of me!, (I don't
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 19:01
In reply to mimic? by anonymous (not verified)
How stupid of me!, (I don't think stupid is the correct word) . She is completely correct and I thought that the RWK stood for Robert Wayne Kennedy. Sorry, I'm not a troll, just impetuous.
Maybe if Indigenois Culturrs
anon (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 20:36
In reply to And RWK is only mimicking by anon (not verified)
Maybe if Indigenois Culturrs had spend more time building elite militaries instead of being natural they would have put the settlers in their places? More war
Dude, time to read Germs,
Le Meh (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 22:12
In reply to Maybe if Indigenois Culturrs by anon (not verified)
Dude, time to read Germs, Guns and Steel, Jared Diamond
John is right about the anews
Feral (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 14:30
John is right about the anews project. Even while often sounding like a broken record, John has continues to make great contributions to anarchy. Anews contributes nothing being merely the equivalent of salty tabloid critics desperate for "content".
Yes anews should repost news about John and his projects.
nope
rocinante Sun, 07/03/2022 - 15:17
In reply to John is right about the anews by Feral (not verified)
Hi Feral,
If you'd like, we can change the topic off of John's text above to some of your thoughts on what John thinks about the ANews project. I'm curious to hear why you might think this. I have previously responded to stuff about John Zerzan in a comment linked here:
https://anarchistnews.org/comment/10856#comment-10856
-Rocinante
No I will not feed your drive
Feral (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 21:04
In reply to nope by rocinante
No I will not feed your drive for more content.
Everything John said in the
Feral2 (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 21:12
In reply to nope by rocinante
Everything John said in the quote in your linked comment is correct. Your retort it misplaced because it fails to see the critical word John used: acceptance. John was not calling anews associated with ITS or calling anews pedophiles, John was saying anews was accepting them. There is a difference and your tabloid spin curiously overlooked this so you could play victim and make more content.
"salty tabloid critics" as
lumpy (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 19:00
In reply to John is right about the anews by Feral (not verified)
"salty tabloid critics" as opposed to what? book writing academics? what a fine distinction!
nobody is throwing grenades at the king these days, in case you haven't noticed...
JZ is right in many of his
lizard3 (not verified) Sun, 07/03/2022 - 16:37
JZ is right in many of his insights and theories he is writing since many years. He just got it wrong during the pandemic. Is it possible to be anti-civ and pro-vax? so sad he failed to grasp biopolitics in the age if cibernetic civilization.
I don't think his stance was
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 04:08
In reply to JZ is right in many of his by lizard3 (not verified)
I don't think his stance was any different to the hordes of other mainstream Lefties who suddenly went on supporting the Covid restrictions, because "think of the Communityyy".
I still don't get the whole JZ hate, even tho I understand the guy's just a pro-primmie advocate, at best, and not to be seen as an authority (no pun intended) on the matter. I think some of it might have to do with EE types having an axe to grind against Leftie greenie figures like him.
But why waste so much energies and time on such a low-hanging fruit... there's people like the Elongod you could go against... or any prominent techie from the biotech, crypto, social media sectors would do. Oh and speaking of which, how 'bout that Michael Malice clown?
“Is it possible to be anti
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 14:06
In reply to JZ is right in many of his by lizard3 (not verified)
“Is it possible to be anti-civ and pro-vax?”
Yes. Please learn the meaning of the word civilization and also what anti-civ anarchy is before saying such ignorant things.
could tou please explain?
lizard3 (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 17:01
In reply to “Is it possible to be anti by anon (not verified)
could tou please explain? maybe there were some hunter-gatherers with top edge pharma tech to be studied... or maybe we can destroy civilization one day, but keep cybernetic capitalism. who's the ignorant?
Pkease don’t lecture us from
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 17:35
In reply to could tou please explain? by lizard3 (not verified)
Pkease don’t lecture us from your mud hut without electricity about what anti-civ does or does not entail.
Looks like zerzan believes in
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 11:17
Looks like zerzan believes in all that computer modelling! Who knows whether there's 4, 5, 6, 7 billion people on eatth? There's not even one photograph of earth, even the blue marble is a composite computer image. zerzan assumes so much about the human past. There's tons of stuff out there including Michael Cremo, but zerzan sticks to his same old same old. Sad.
This is great. Im happy John
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 15:28
This is great. Im happy John is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
yes, thanks to the eugene
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 16:09
In reply to This is great. Im happy John by anon (not verified)
yes, thanks to the eugene weekly, a local newspaper, for finally giving john zerzan, a published author who's appeared in the guardian among other places, the recognition he finally deserves
You think people recognize
anon (not verified) Mon, 07/04/2022 - 19:27
In reply to yes, thanks to the eugene by anon (not verified)
You think people recognize him at Safeway and go "Oh honey thats the man from the newspaper. The guy who wants us to all be cave men."?
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