The Primitivist Illusion
Why should we plant,
when there are so many mongomongo nuts in the world? [1 footnote]
by Green Anarchist's Steve Booth
What is Primitivism? [2 footnote]
It isn't a cleanly definable system of thought,
but it does have a range of distinct features. It is a family resemblance
concept. The most important feature of the Primitivists is their stated
hostility to, rejection of civilization and technology. In my Primitivism
- An Illusion With No Future I list the main themes [3 footnote]; among them, the
use of the 'Primitive Affluence' material provided by anthropologists Sahlins
and Lee, a Deep ecology type of New Age spirituality, their use of poetry
and myth, especially about origins, hostility to mass society and traditional
Leftism, the zero work theme, the idea of technology as an enmeshed system,
stated hostility to ideology, and the rejection or criticism of symbol.
Not all Primitivists share all of these, but these are the most important
features of their thinking.
|
HOSTILITY
A common misapprehension about Primitivism is to equate it with eco-Malthusianism.
Faced with the profound difficulty of interpreting the mass of Primitivist
theory, critics of it have latched on to this as an easy, knee jerk way
of dismissing it. It is true that there is a Deep Ecology, Earth First!
type of misanthropic strand, which pushes population reduction, but some
Primitivists also oppose this. A better approach, in my view, is to tackle
the assumptions of their rejection of technology head on.
PRIMITIVIST ALIENATION
It is true there are many problems with technology and civilization. Global
warming, famines, Globalization, MRSA and other hi-tech plagues brought
on by overuse of antibiotics, BSE... Of more immediate concern, because
Primitivist believers are essentially spoiled, western, educated college
kids lost in a sea of theoretical confusion, is the theme of urban alienation
and anxiety. Primitivism is "a developed world counsel of despair." Primitivism
is essentially ideological Prozac for the generation who cannot wean themselves
off this political equivalent of the SSRIs.
CRITICAL LEAP OF FAITH
Primitivists see the problems of civilization, and despair of ever making
any real inroad into this. They seek theoretical mastery over it, critical
domination, the hegemony of abstraction. They want to make a leap of faith
out of that whole framework.
"It would be better to dump the whole stinking
system, and take the consequences" [4 footnote].
TECHNOLOGY ENMESHED
"Technology is the sum of mediations between us and the natural world and
the sum of those separations mediating us from each other" [5 footnote].
Taking the analysis of Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford [6 footnote], which of themselves
have much that is positive to offer, the Primitivists see technology as
an enmeshed system, a web or a net, which necessarily enslaves.
"You don't
use tools, tools use you" is one of their slogans. Technology is a network,
we cannot pick and choose, if we want anaesthetics, we must also have Microsoft
and Menwith Hill. It is one of their fundamental assumptions that we cannot
separate out the good parts from the bad [7 footnote]. The view that technology is
neutral, ascribed to Karl Jaspers, is emphatically rejected by John Zerzan [8 footnote]. It does not follow from the opinion that all technology interconnects,
that technology necessarily enslaves. Both of these assertions and the leap
between them can be challenged, they are assumptions rather than proven
facts.
ILLEGITIMATE SOME TO ALL SHIFT
Some, indeed many aspects of technology are bad. Not all aspects of technology
are bad. Primitivists make an illegitimate shift from some to all. Primitivists
ignore the good effects of technology in favour of a dogmatic, blanket rejection.
The internet, pain killers, clean drinking water, Trevor Baylis's clockwork
radio all stand condemned. We could choose to use our creations differently,
for benevolent purposes. The Primitivists negative characterisation of technology
as bad is based on a circular argument.
SMUDGED
Within the Primitivists' account of technology, three types of problem are
being smudged together. First are the unintended bad effects of tech - big
stuff like global warming or the ozone hole. Second, are the deliberately
chosen, evil uses of technology - landmines or mass surveillance equipment.
Thirdly, are the 'Pandora's Box' fears - Chernobyl, Bhopal or endocrine
disruptors in the water. One by one, problem by problem, each of these three
can all be dealt with through our making different political choices. This
is very difficult because it is hard work, and it implies our taking political,
social, economic action, action which society as a whole seems unwilling
to take. The task is outwards, one of persuasion. Primitivism, as an ideology,
really stems from fear, alienation and despair. As such, it leads to political
paralysis. Primitivism brings about an internalised, schizophrenic and irrelevant
pseudo-politics, at core it is a counsel of laziness, a justification of
inaction.
MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM
"The beginning is the strongest and mightiest" [9 footnote].
I believe that Primitivism is an outgrowth of Postmodernism. This can be
seen in their retreat from a literal into a purely 'spiritual' call for
a 'Return to Croatan' [10 footnote] as such, the best understanding of Primitivism
is as a form of Postmodern cynical posturing. The eternal silence, sanctity
and stasis of the world of the Kalahara bushmen is the ultimate chill out
space, proclaimed throughout cyberspace from the Primitivist websites.
HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT
Modernism only really comes to life in the shimmering, yet to be formed
gap between possessing this week's latest trendy gadget (or social theory),
and knowing that you do not yet possess next week's. This sense of dramatic
tension lies at the heart of it. Modernism 'shimmers' like the Emerald City,
and people who buy into this are doomed to forever progress along the yellow
brick road, but never arrive. Postmodernism rises out of that dialectical
tension, by pretending to stand aside, and sneering at this process.
"This
chasing after the New thing is so tedious - but I just happened to nip
into Ikea this afternoon..." Windows 2000 supersedes Windows 98 which
replaced Windows 95...
Primitivism grows out of Po-Mo. Rather than just standing 'outside' the
endless pursuit of the New, Primitivists postulate another place beyond
- a return to the hunter gatherers of the Stone Age. If time is understood
(following Nietzsche and trendy Eastern Mysticism) as circular, not linear,
[11] what lies far behind is also what lies ahead. I believe this is a fundamental
insight into the character of Primitivist thinking.
|
POSTMODERNISM
|
|
PRIMITIVISM
|
|
1. Denigration of reality
|
vs.
|
1. Rejection of industrial technological society
|
|
2. Denigration of truth
|
vs.
|
2. Indifference to truth
|
|
3. Truth is a social construct
|
vs.
|
3. Truth is a social construct
|
|
4. Notion of individual rejected
|
vs.
|
4. Individual to be submerged into wilderness
|
|
5. Social atomization
|
vs.
|
5. Community rejected
|
|
6. Crisis of Representation
|
vs.
|
6. Critique of symbolization
|
|
7. Primacy of the Text
|
vs.
|
7. Standard pomo fayre about language
|
|
8. Shallow hedonism
|
vs.
|
8. Self sacrifice demanded
|
|
9. Refusal to make distinctions
|
vs.
|
9. Undifferentiated character of Primitivist world as wilderness
|
|
10. Obligation of capitalist consumption within the shopping mall
|
vs.
|
10. Demand for obeisance to Primitivist ideology within the market place of ideas
|
|
11. Hyperreality
|
vs.
|
11. Alienated industrial technological nightmare, dystopia
|
|
12. Irony, parody, pastiche, cynicism
|
vs.
|
12. Chimerical, hypocritical status of Primitivist utopia on a website
|
|
13. Eclecticism, plagiarism, recycling the image
|
vs.
|
13. Depressing ugliness of Primitivist artwork perfectly expressing the aesthetic of Primitivist ideology
|
SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
"Revolutionary theory is now the enemy of all revolutionary ideology, and knows it" [12 footnote].
Primitivist analysis is fundamentally false [13 footnote] and as a crippling factor
in radical politics, it has done, and is doing immense harm to us. As Jason
Jason McQuinn argued, it is incapable of attracting anybody but the
"marginalised
malcontents" [14 footnote]. Part of its danger lies with its character as an ideology,
yes, but beyond this as a nascent religious cult. Its more metaphysical
assumptions lead to shallow mysticism, in has a Deep Ecology style pan-psychism
as its theological underpinning. Primitivism evades the fact that we really
need a practical politics of engagement with each of our problems, in specific,
small-scale and realizable campaigns. We need to build real public involvement.
Because it is so unhealthy, and so negative a vision, Primitivism discourages
this. We must build a positive politics, based on practical action, not
windy and mystical theories.
– Stephen Booth - 17th August 2002
Green Anarchist
REFERENCES
- Richard Borshay Lee, Irven de Vore (ed) Man the Hunter, Aldine Chicago,
1968, page 33
- For a general basic introduction, see John Moore Primitivist Primer.
(1996)
- Available as a booklet $3 from MPG, POB 10384, Eugene, OR 97440, USA
or on the internet at: http://www.greenanarchist.org.uk/Prim.htm
- Unabomber Manifesto, section 179
- John Zerzan, "Technology" GA 42, Summer 1996, p 8
- Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, Paris 1954 tr Knopf NY 1964.
Lewis Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, NY, Secker & Warburg 1964, 1970
- Unabomber Manifesto, section 121
- Zerzan, see note 5
- Heidegger, "The Limitation of Being", Introduction to Metaphysics, tr
Mannheim, Yale U P, 1959, page 154
- As a response to criticism, Primitivists make this retreat. The literal
Croatan, they declare, is not an achievable goal. See, eg. the Portland IMC
website, item no 15613, 7th August 2002
- John Moore, 'Comin Home' GA 38, Summer 1995, pp7-8
- Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle section 124
- A good critique is Marielle and Alain C John Zerzan and the Primitive
Confusion tr published by Chronos, UK, 2000
- Jason McQuinn, "Why I am not a Primitivist?" in Anarchy: A Journal of
Desire Armed, Summer 2001
Green Anarchist:
Front Page
Current Articles
First 10 Issues
|
|
