Anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism, also known as anti-civilization anarchism, is an anarchist critique of civilization that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, abandonment of large-scale organization and all technology other than prehistoric technology and the dissolution of agriculture. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and alleged progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society.[1] According to anarcho-primitivists, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation, and social stratification.[2]
Anarcho-primitivism argues that civilization is at the root of societal and environmental problems.[3] Primitivists also consider domestication, technology and language to cause social alienation from "authentic reality". As a result, they propose the abolition of civilization and a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.[4]
History[edit]
Roots[edit]
The roots of primitivism lay in Enlightenment philosophy and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School.[5] The early-modern philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau blamed agriculture and cooperation for the development of social inequality and causing habitat destruction.[5] In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau depicted the state of nature as a "primitivist utopia";[6] however, he stopped short of advocating a return to it.[7] Instead, he called for political institutions to be recreated anew, in harmony with nature and without the artificiality of modern civilization.[8] Later, critical theorist Max Horkheimer argued that Environmental degradation stemmed directly from social oppression, which had vested all value in labor and consequently caused widespread alienation.[5]
Criticisms[edit]
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. Activist writer Derrick Jensen counters that this criticism merely resorts to an ad hominem argument, attacking individuals but not the actual validity of their beliefs.[17] He further responds that working to entirely avoid such hypocrisy is ineffective, self-serving, and a convenient misdirection of activist energies.[18] Primitivist John Zerzan admits that living with this hypocrisy is a necessary evil for continuing to contribute to the larger intellectual conversation.[19]
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.[20][21]
Ted Kaczynski 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.[22]
