Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, alienation, and population growth. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies.
Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state of being through "rewilding".
Origins
Anarchism started to have an ecological view mainly in the writings of American individualist anarchist and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. In his book Walden, he advocates simple living and self-sufficiency among natural surroundings in resistance to the advancement of industrial civilization. "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism represented today by John Zerzan. For George Woodcock, this attitude can also be motivated by the idea of resistance to progress and the rejection of the increasing materialism that characterized North American society in the mid-19th century." Zerzan himself included the text "Excursions" (1863) by Thoreau in his edited compilation of anti-civilization writings called Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections from 1999.
In the late 19th century, anarchist naturism appeared as the union of anarchist and naturist philosophies. It mainly was important within individualist anarchist circles in
Anarcho-naturism promoted an ecological worldview, small ecovillages, and most prominently nudism as a way to avoid the artificiality of the industrial mass society of modernity. Naturist individualist anarchists saw the individual in his biological, physical and psychological aspects and avoided and tried to eliminate social determinations. Important promoters of this were Henri Zisly and Emile Gravelle who collaborated in La Nouvelle Humanité followed by Le Naturien, Le Sauvage, L'Ordre Naturel, and La Vie Naturelle. Their ideas were important in individualist anarchist circles in
Recent Themes
Anarchists contribute to an anti-authoritarian push, which challenges all abstract power on a fundamental level, striving for egalitarian relationships and promoting communities based upon mutual aid. Primitivists, however, extend ideas of non-domination to all life, not just human life, going beyond the traditional anarchist's analysis. From by anthropologists, primitivists look at the origins of civilization so as to understand what they are up against and how they got here in order to inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, primitivists rekindle an anti-technological orientation. Insurrectionalists do not believe in waiting for critiques to be fine-tuned, instead spontaneously attacking civilization's current institutions.
Primitivists may owe much to the Situationists and their critique of the ideas in The Society of the Spectacle and alienation from a commodity-based society. Deep ecology informs the primitivist perspective with an understanding that the well-being of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth and intrinsic value of the non-human world, independent of its economic value. Primitivists see deep ecology's appreciation for the richness and diversity of life as contributing to the realization that present human interference with the non-human world is coercive and excessive.
Bioregionalists bring the perspective of living within one's bioregion, and being intimately connected to the land, water, climate, plants, animals, and general patterns of their bioregion.
Some primitivists have been influenced by the various indigenous cultures. Primitivists attempt to learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier ways of interacting with life. Some are also inspired by the ferak subculture, where people abandon domestication and have re-integrate themselves with the wild.
Science and Technology
Some primitivists reject modern science as a method of understanding the world with a view to change it. Science is not considered to be neutral by many primitivists, but rather loaded with the motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, civilization.
Modern scientific thought, according to primitivists, attempts to see the world as a collection of separate objects to be observed and understood. In order to accomplish this task, primitivists believe that scientists must distance themselves emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel of information moving from the observed thing to the observer's self, which is defined as not a part of that thing.
Primitivists argue that this mechanistic worldview is tantamount to being the dominant religion of current times. Believing that science seeks to deal only with the quantitative, primitivists suggest that it does not admit subjective values or emotions. While primitivists perceive science as claiming that only those things that are reproducible, predictable, and the same for all observers are real and important, primitivists believe that reality itself is not reproducible, predictable, or the same for all observers. Primitivists also see science as promoting the idea that anomalous experience, ideas, and people should be cast off or destroyed like imperfectly shaped machine components.
Primitivists also see modern science as another form of mediation between humans and the natural world, resulting in further alienation from their environment. Instead, primitivists believe that individual knowledge should be based on individual experience, rather than accepting another's dogma as fact. For example, primitivists do not deny the theory of gravitation, as it is easy to observe everything in the world adhering to gravity in our day-to-day lives. However, when the theory of gravitation becomes dogmatic and handed down from generation to generation as a social dogma, rather than relying on individuals to grow and realize the facts about their environment in their own terms, it alienates people from coming to conclusions about their environment by themselves, and stunts the natural ability of humans to investigate and adapt to their own environment.
Primitivists denounce modern technology, but some use modern technology on the basis that civilization has destroyed other means of communication, leaving them with no other option. Primitivists see technology as a system involving division of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation by those who implement its process.
Modern technology is held by primitivists to be distinct from simple tools: a simple tool is considered a temporary usage of an element within our immediate surroundings for a specific task. Tools are not viewed as involving complex systems which alienate the user from the act. Primitivists claim that this separation is implicit in technology, which creates an unhealthy and mediated experience which leads to various forms of authority. Domination is said to increase every time a modern "time-saving" technology is created, as primitivists claim it necessitates the construction of more technology to support, fuel, maintain, and repair the original technology. Primitivists believe that this system methodically destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural world, constructing a world fit only for machines.
Rewilding and Reconnection
Some primitivists reject modern science as a method of understanding the world with a view to change it. Science is not considered to be neutral by many primitivists, but rather loaded with the motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, civilization.
Modern scientific thought, according to primitivists, attempts to see the world as a collection of separate objects to be observed and understood. In order to accomplish this task, primitivists believe that scientists must distance themselves emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel of information moving from the observed thing to the observer's self, which is defined as not a part of that thing.
Primitivists argue that this mechanistic worldview is tantamount to being the dominant religion of current times. Believing that science seeks to deal only with the quantitative, primitivists suggest that it does not admit subjective values or emotions. While primitivists perceive science as claiming that only those things that are reproducible, predictable, and the same for all observers are real and important, primitivists believe that reality itself is not reproducible, predictable, or the same for all observers. Primitivists also see science as promoting the idea that anomalous experience, ideas, and people should be cast off or destroyed like imperfectly shaped machine components.
Criticism
Notable critics of primitivism include Wolfi Landstreicher, Jason McQuinn, Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), and, especially, Murray Bookchin, as seen in his polemical work entitled Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism.
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