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Anarchism
vs.
Primitivism
Brian
Oliver
Sheppard
 
Anarchism
vs.
Primitivism
Brian Oliver Sheppard
Originally published
by
See Sharp Press,2003. Republished by Active Distribution,2008.
 
1. THE DEMONOLOGY OF PRIMITIVISM
"Noone has
ever
been
so
witty
as
you are in trying to tum
us
intobrutes: to read
your
book makes ode long to
go
on all fours. Since,however,
it
is
now
some sixty years since I gave up the practice, Ifeel that it is unfortunately impossible for
me
to
resume it: I leavethis natural habit to
those
more fit for it than are you
and
I.
"
-
Voltaire,
letter
to
Rousseau,
August
30,
1755.
The Demonology
of
Primitivism: Electricity, Language, and otherModern Evils
Gar
Smith, editor
of
the Earth Island Institute journal, The Edge, and critic
of
modem technology, recently complained to journalists,
"I
have seen villages.in Africa that had vibrant culture and great communities that were disruptedand destroyed by the introduction
of
electricity." He added:
"I
don't think a lot
of
electricity is a good thing.It is the fuel that powers a lot
of
multi-nationalimagery." When asked why lack
of
electricity -a hallmark
of
poverty-oughtto be considered advantageous, Smith said,"Theidea that people are poordoesn't mean that they are not living good lives." He added, "there
is
a
16t
of
quality
to
be had in poverty."John Zerzan, a leading modem primitivist, writes
in
a similar vein, but claimsthose livinginsocieties before electricity enjoyed higher standards
of
mentalwell-being: "Being alive
in
nature, before our abstraction from it [throughmodern civilization], must have involved a perception and contact that
we
can scarcely comprehend from our levels
of
anguish and alienation. Thecommunication with all
of
existence must have been an exquisite play
of
allthe senses, reflecting the numberless, nameless varieties
of
pleasure andemotion once accessible within us." Zerzan, the Green Anarchy Collective,and other primitivists regularlyreminisce over an ideal past where"thewheatand corn, pigs and horses were once freely dancing
in
the chaos
of
nature."
In
fact, through their activism primitivists hope to deliver society into thisprimal chaos, so that the "wheat and corn, pigs and horses" -and the rest
of
us, presumably -may freely dance once more.On web sites like primitivism.com, primitivists tell us how the Internet shouldnot exist.
In
printed magazines like Green Anarchy, they condemn printingpresses and typesetting technology. And in events like the Green AnarchyTour
of
2001, they complain
of
the roads that enable them to travel, theelectricity that powers the instruments
of
their tour's musical acts, and
of
1
of 00

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Kallevi

Incredibly poor analysis and critique. Leftist anarchists are just nervous because anarcho-primitivism has revealed their workerist/industrialist ideology as the joke it always was. How on earth could they imagine people would return to the hateful factories after the whole revolution thing is over and done with? They wouldn't. They simply would not. Not without an oppressive authoritarian culture to compel them. Technological mass society is too complex to run on the principle of autonomous self-organisation. It must be abolished. And why would we want it in the first place?

reply10 / 19 / 2009
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