Library.Anarhija.Net Primitivism: An Illusion with No Future Stephen Booth Stephen Booth Primitivism: An Illusion with No Future 2001 Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from www.greenanarchist.co.uk Published by: Green Anarchist 9 Ash Avenue, Galgate Lancaster LA2 0NP, UK lib.anarhija.net 2001 Contents 1. Why This Pamphlet is being Written 12 The Primitivist Alignment . 12 Unabomber Manifesto .................... 13 Under Pressure ........................ 13 Spiral of Alienation And Decline . 14 Move Forwards, or Die? ................... 14 Sour grapes? ......................... 15 2. What is Primitivism? 16 Progress ............................ 17 Doublemindedness ...................... 18 Marginalised Malcontents . 19 Picking the Scabs ....................... 20 Transcendence ........................ 21 Now You See It, Now You Don’t . 22 Be Like Ted .......................... 23 Icon of Sacrifice ....................... 24 Substitute Religion ...................... 24 Consequences ........................ 25 3. The Preliminary Orientation: Moderning, Postmod- ernism and Primitivism 27 The labyrinthine basement beneath the New Age Cybercafe 27 Alienation .......................... 28 Crisis ............................. 29 Herbert Marcuse ....................... 30 One Dimensional Man .................... 30 2 Machine, Technology, Problems . 31 Millennium Showdown ................... 31 Schadenfreude ........................ 33 Duty of Care ......................... 34 A Developed World Counsel of Despair . 34 No Social Dimension ..................... 35 Strategy of Obscurity .................... 36 The ‘So What’ Counter Move . 37 The Straw Man Returns ................... 38 Double Aspect ........................ 39 Ideology ........................... 40 No Air From An Alien Planet . 41 Paradox ............................ 41 Bi-polarity .......................... 42 Ideology or Egology? .................... 42 Ideological product placement . 43 Modernism .......................... 43 Postmodernism ........................ 44 Primitivism .......................... 45 Raiding the Rat Maze .................... 46 4. Zerzan, FC and Moore: Three Mandarin Primitivist Thinkers 49 Twilight of the Idols ..................... 49 John Zerzan ...................... 49 Defective Methodology . 50 Derivative ....................... 51 Marcuse ........................ 52 Destructive ....................... 52 One Dimensional Zerzan . 52 Hot Delicious — Cold Disgusting . 53 Who is the real Zerzan? ................... 53 On Technology ..................... 54 Against the Supposed Neutrality of Technology . 56 3 On Literature ...................... 57 Visibility On Art ......................... 58 Speculative ....................... 60 At this point, we don’t need new groups, new theories. We need Epimenides The Cretan Rides Again . 60 to make much better use of the ones we already have. Howcan On Language ...................... 60 we enhance the things already happening, build virtuous cycles? It Veil of Symbols .................... 61 starts with visibility. Some people hardly even know we exist. Have The Fifth Bulkhead . 62 the courage of your convictions. Stop hiding behind PO boxes, and The Eternal Return . 63 silly names for non-existent groups. Get out there. A politics of op- Unabomber .......................... 64 timism and openness. We need to link up with the wider public, The Road to Good Intentions Leads to the Dustbin of History 64 put our ideas across to them, try to find out their perspective on Despair ......................... 67 things. Primitivist bullshit just won’t be listened to, confirming as it Gloomy Despair .................... 68 does the worst, most negative anti-green stereotypes. We need pub- John Moore .......................... 69 lic involvement, dialogue, input. The political problem boils down Primitivist Spirituality . 69 to three things: (1) Numbers of people actively involved. (2) Money Defining Primitivism . 70 and facilities. If we can get the numbers of active people, we can Surrender To The Land . 71 get the website, the pamphlet, the bus to take us all to the protest, Blood and Soil? .................... 73 etc. (3) The quality of our activities together. This is what it is all Form or Content? ................... 73 about. If we can build up the critical mass, we can get the capac- The Four Hypotheses of the Apocalypse . 73 ity to convince people of our analysis, and this leads to further ac- Moore’s Postmodernism . 74 tion, more people, more activity, and changes of behaviour. Can- Disatisfaction ..................... 74 cel Third World Debt, create social justice, dismantle the multi- nationals, make that shift to public transport, stop polluting the 5. Ten Principal Themes or Features of Primitivism 76 environment. 1. The rejection of civilization, industrialization and progress ........................ 76 Stephen Booth The system as an Entity . 77 January 8th 2001 Implicit Totalitarianism . 77 Progress ........................ 78 An Ounce of Honest Practice is worth Ten Tons of Dishonest All or Nothing? .................... 78 Theories 2. Anthropology, the ‘Primitive Affluence’ thesis . 80 Stone Age Economics . 80 Three Primal Streams . 81 Against the Hobbesian Myth . 83 ’Profoundest night of non-being’ . 84 4 193 Multi-Dimensional, Parallel Processing Primitive Confusion . 84 3. Primitivist spirituality. Mythology, pan-psychism, and None of this is new or radically different from what many of the New Age beliefs .................... 85 excellent campaigns are already doing. We all need to work much Taoism ......................... 86 harder at it. What sort of activity would be effective? The broad- Feral Fault-Line .................... 87 est range of opposition to oppression and exploitation, wherever it Grandfather Rabbit . 88 appears, on whatever level — a straightforwards application of Kan- Mumbo Jumbo? .................... 89 tian ethics, (the Categorical Imperative, and treating people as ends Primal Religions .................... 89 in themselves, not means) the call on everybody to act against the Totem and Taboo ................... 90 problems, until they are overcome. Problem by problem, individual Nascent Cult ...................... 91 by individual, behaviour will change. Piece by piece, policy by pol- 4. The critique of mass society and ‘leftism’ . 91 icy, plant by plant, the world will change. The more people who Unabomber ....................... 92 get involved, the sooner progress will be made. We need a unity Bob Black ........................ 92 between the many groups — not of bureaucratic assimilation into a Shibboleths ....................... 93 single monolithic entity, but a recognition of each other, a common Patronage and Pastiche . 94 purpose, a practical working together, an end to sectarianism. We Rivalry ......................... 94 need a wider attitude of respect for the environment, for animals, 5. Zero Work ......................... 95 and for each other. To counter urban alienation, we need an em- Fully Unemployed ................... 96 phatic assertion of the value of the individual. Everyone is needed — Ludic .......................... 96 no one is expendable. Such an understanding feeds into the civil lib- Indolence ........................ 97 erties issues. The emphasis should be on practical action, on build- Return to Croatan ................... 97 ing up momentum, on building up critical mass all the time. There Workplace Stress ................... 98 are no quick fixes, no short cuts; just practical work. It ismuch Getting Stuck In… ................... 99 harder to build something positive than negatively to tear down, Work is a Four Letter Word . 99 but holders of a doctrine such as Primitivism feed off negativity. Sack the Lunch-Outs . 100 The real challenge is that we need to build up this active, vibrant, 6. Technology as an enmeshed system that enslaves . 100 diffuse movement, full of men and women with real vision, which A Dictatorship of Test Tubes . 101 acts on and attacks all aspects of the problems at the same time.A Within The Net . 101 multi-dimensional, parallel processing approach. Interconnected Whole . 102 Dystopia . 103 Four Legs Good — Two Bad … . 103 Selective Use of Evidence . 104 Meeting The Challenge . 104 192 5 7. Hostility to Ideology, the denial that Primitivism is an A Modest Proposal Ideology . 105 A Competitive Edge in the Market-Place of Ideas . 105 So what would work? What is wrong with appropriate technol- An Open Door? . 106 ogy? What is wrong with sustainability? What is wrong with social Ideological Conflict . 107 justice? Social justice at home and abroad, ethics, a radical change More Dreary Ideology . 107 of attitude towards each other, the planet and the Third World. Such Outflanking . 108 a vision looks rather like an updated version of Kropotkin’s Fields, Refusal of Ideology . 109 Factories and Workshops. We need to go back, not to the Palaeolithic, Archimedian Point . 110 but back to traditional anarchism, informed throughout with an Sign of Hope . 110 ecological understanding, and a positive vision — green anarchism. 8. Primitivist hostility to Postmodernism . 111 Such an approach would seek to dismantle globalised capitalism, Floating, Shimmering Goal-Posts . 112 resist the emerging world state. We need to radically decentralise Abolition of the Self . 113 power, keep control over resources at the local level, assert real Shipwrecked Hulk . 114 democracy. If there are to be taxes, let them be under local