Excursion on Anarcho-Primitivism
As I have been struggling to get these ideas out through this vehicle, I have been listening to past episodes of my (co-hosted) podcast, The Partially Examined Life. It is not uncommon for conversations I cannot recall about texts I don’t remember reading to trigger a connection to the synthetic thinking I am doing in this project. Such an experience happened this past week, and in a violently disruptive way.
I was listening to our follow up to episode 170 on Guy Debord, where Mark and I went deeper with three leftist guests: Douglas Lain, Brett O’Shea and C. Derick Varn. While we were discussing the influence on Debord on contemporary leftist theory and practice, Brett mentioned Anarcho-Primitivism. Specifically, he talked about their critique not only of capitalism and liberalism, but of the emergence of civilization through the symbolic mind.
In short, the anarcho-primitivist critique is that the symbolic mind, which I characterized in this post as absent, is described as alienated. This is a deliberate connection to Marx’s concept of alienated labor and Debord’s concept of alienated consumerism. For Debord, it is not just our activities as laborers which alienate us, but also our non-labor, consumer, social activities as well. Rather than having ‘authentic’, direct experiences with each other, the environment and ourselves, our experiences are mediated by images, symbols, tropes and appearances. We are told what to consume, how it should make us feel, how we should dress, what is newsworthy, etc. This is the Spectacle.
As you can imagine, this latent connection to what I am doing here shocked me. Initially I thought that this ‘novel’ critique I was working on was in fact derivative of something about which I was unaware (or rather had forgotten). A bit of an ego crush. But then as I researched anarcho-primitivism, I realized two things: this critique was not mainstream to anarcho-primitivism and the proposed solution, a return to hunter-gather society, is not something I think is either desirable or possible.
My internet delving into this critique led me to a figure named John Zerzan. His own website characterizes him as a utopian, idealist anarchist out of sync with the mainstream Left. He characterizes agriculture as the “original sin of History”, the fall from which resulted in a “descent into Symbolic forms which created a psychological removal”. Clearly, he and I have something intellectually in common.
I intend to dig deeper into his writings to see if he makes the explicit connection of agriculture to property and carries it through into the Marxist conception of the perpetuation of class division. I suspect that while he attributes the ills of civilization to agriculture, he will not provide the type of analysis that Kiernan does, showing how agriculture is essentially a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for genocide and colonialism.
I’m excited to discover a complimentary critique that can inform my understanding of the role of symbolic thinking in the context of property. I’m curious to see whether Zerzan references the work of Langer, Cassier and Whitehead. The positive horizon for my project is to see whether there is anything in the recognition of the difference between mythological and symbolic thinking and alternative forms of symbolism can provide a prescription for the ills of the modern world. I suspect Zerzan will not contribute anything along these lines, but perhaps understanding his approach will spur thought towards my desired solution.
Anarcho-primitivism was an important strain in US anarchist thought for a while, but I think its star has faded somewhat. Contemporary anarchist thinking about ecological matters draws on a number of other strains of thought. See the chapter on Ecocentrism by Sean Parson in Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach—a book I co-edited.
Zerzan is certainly the most representative figure among the primitivists. He is thought has roots and inspiration in critical theory, anthropology, media studies, and other sources. I wrote a paper once on his thinking about language and symbolism, topics you mentioned. (URL https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leonard-williams-language-ideology-and-anarchism). By the way, you will find many other pieces on primitivism (pro and con) online at The Anarchist Library.
PS: I second Ryan Coacher’s recommendation of The Dawn of Everything. It is a remarkable book, one that challenges Zerzan’s assumptions as well as calling into question our own.
Seth, first I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan of both you and your work. I’m not exaggerating when I say that PEL literally changed my life. I think this line of inquiry you are currently on is fascinating. I can’t wait to see where it goes. I wanted to make a quick source recommendation. The Dawn of Everything by the late David Graeber and David Wengrow is a very interesting book that deals with some of the topics you are looking into. They argue the the enlightenment conception of social evolution popularized by Rousseau doesn’t hold up to modern anthropological and archeological examination. Very interesting read. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with the world!