If asked if I’m a primitivist I’d answer that I am, although the term is not really satisfactory. I prefer anticivilizationist, though that has its problems too. Labels are quite the pain in the ass. At one point I stopped calling myself an anarchist because I didn’t agree with most anarchists but I did start calling myself an anarchist again eventually—the name belongs to me as much as anyone else.
Primitivism is an extreme response to an extreme situation of industrialism out of control. For me, simply critiquing the present techno-structure is not enough: I want to begin to dismantle it. How far do I want to go? How far can we go? I don’t know. That remains to be seen.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties, the last era of unvarnished techno-optimism. Not that there isn’t a strong, even omnipresent, pro-tech sentiment today. But it has been tempered by a widespread realization of the extent to which industrialism has degraded the planet’s ecology.
I began to move toward a primitivist position in the early eighties under the influence of the Fifth Estate and writers such as Perlman, Ellul, Camatte, and Zerzan. However, these writings only gave me a theoretical basis for what I already intuitively knew: civilization is an integral part of alienation. In other words, my instinctive dislike of techno music is completely normal.
In the anarcho-primitivist milieu no theoretical orthodoxy reigns. Influences are wide-ranging, from post-situationist to Stirnerist to taoist, deep ecologist, classical class struggle libertarian-communist, to the approach of John Zerzan. There is no lack of room for anyone who wants to carve out a space!
In recent years the Fifth Estate, which in the seventies and eighties did much to set the basis of a primitivist approach, has moved to a less radical, or in a term employed by FE editor Peter Werbe, a more "modest" outlook. In the letters column of the previous Anarchy, a correspondent of Werbe’s quotes him as saying: "At present, I feel a little foolish advocating the end of civilization when what that looks like is Congo or Afghanistan." Congo or Afghanistan? In the Congo a regional war is taking place involving half a dozen states. Acting as a perk for Zimbabwe’s participation, for example, is access to diamond mines. In Afghanistan various radical Islamic outfits formerly fighting the Soviets subsequently began fighting among themselves. The last I heard the Taliban were clutching copies of the Koran, not old Fifth Estate reprints from the eighties.
My outlook is not premised on the lifeways of specific primitive groups or a belief in the existence of a past golden age of humanity in harmony with nature (although this may have occurred). It is based on trying to achieve the kind of world I desire along with others. But I also believe it valuable to examine groups which have lived in less encumbered ways, and in coming years I hope to do more anthropological reading.
Although a critique of technique/technology is clearly fundamental, a danger exists of emphasizing technology to the detriment of other aspects of domination. Such is the case in the works of Jacques Ellul and Ellul-influenced Ted Kaczynski. On the other hand Ellul does show convincingly that power in modern society is predominantly in the hands of technocrats rather than economic or political movers and shakers.
Agriculture remains a controversial question. Whether one prefers an agricultural or a hunter-gatherer approach, agriculture will continue to play a role for a considerable time to come, as a transitional phase if not always an end in itself. In Quebec much traditional land lies fallow because market forces make it too expensive to grow crops. Subsistence farming has a long history in Quebec and people could renew this tradition as a way of achieving local autonomy. Some cultivated land could also be simply abandoned to the wild.
Primitivism is a more radical, more negative approach than mainstream anarchism which continues to confine its goal to self-managing the current structure, or one that is slightly modified. If the goals of primitivists appear even less likely to be achieved than those of more conventional radicals, the fact is that today revolutionaries of all stripes are far from achieving their goals. I see no need to moderate my approach just because we live in non-revolutionary times.
Living in the city, it is impossible to avoid the corrosive effects of urban alienation. I attempt to attenuate them by avoiding computers, by walking when possible, and by staying in contact with city green spaces. At last year’s local anarchist book fair I participated in a panel on the subject of the Internet. I argued that it would be preferable to foster face-to-face communication instead. I also do book tables at which I sell selected books and magazines.
Well, the scope of this hastily written article has been modest. Hopefully this special issue on such an important topic will lead to a fruitful debate.
Taken from issue 51 of Anarchy AJDA