[D66] If the Future Isn't Somehow Primitive, There Won't Be a Future

[R.O.]

https://www.johnzerzan.net/articles/disinfo.html

If the Future Isn't Somehow Primitive, There Won't Be a Future

Interview with Brian Whitney for Disinfo, January 22, 2016

John Zerzan isn’t on a list. John Zerzan is the list. He is perhaps the 
most preeminent philosopher and author out there who is not only against 
modern technology, but isn’t a fan of the whole civilization thing you 
are so into either. If this is not enough to freak out the government 
watchdogs, he is an anarchist. Oh, and then there was his friendship 
with the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynkski.

But those aren’t the main reasons Zerzan would be on a government watch 
list. He would be on one mostly because he makes a lot of sense. He 
answered some questions for me concerning what he believes about how we 
are all living our lives, and about his new book Why Hope published by 
the consistently awesome Feral House.
You have been called an anarcho-primitivist, and a eco-anarchist. For 
the uninitiated, can you give us an idea of your world view?

In sum, anarcho-primitivism is the conclusion that if the future isn’t 
somehow primitive, there won’t be a future. Every past civilization has 
failed and this one, the only one left, is rapidly on the road to 
self-destruction. The key force or ethos of civilization is 
domestication, starting with animals and plants and always going 
forward. It is control, ever deepening and extending, including 
nanotechnology and total surveillance. Free life disappears along with 
the health of the biosphere itself. This or that reform which does not 
tackle the nature of civ, which is domestication, is superficial and futile.
In 1994 you wrote in your book Future Primitive and Other Essays you 
said “Never before have people been so infantalized, made so dependent 
on the machine for everything; as the earth rapidly approaches its 
extinction due to technology, our souls are shrunk and flattened by its 
pervasive rule.” How do you feel things have gone in the 20 years since 
then?

That quote is even more obviously valid now than it was in 1994. In fact 
the pace of the thing has increased. Extinction of species, empty lives, 
the whole pathological totality worsens. Now we have rampage shootings 
as an everyday phenomenon, rising chronic illnesses and suicide rates 
and a more and more poisoned physical environment, to mention just a bit 
of it. Hollow lives staring at screens, the sense of no future, the 
direction could not be more stark. Avoidance, denial are understandable 
given how bad it’s getting but facing up to reality must happen.
What do you consider the most positive aspects of a hunter-gatherer 
society as opposed to a modern one.

I think the main plus is that hunter-gatherer life was face-to-face. In 
band society people were accountable, had to take responsibility. 
Whereas in mass society we have the opposite. Today, because of not 
despite technology.we are more and more isolated. Community, the 
fundamental aspect of non-domesticated and non-industrial life, is gone. 
Full stop. Hence the shootings, by unmoored individuals, belonging to 
nothing. Less work, too. Civilization means always more work, not to 
mention chronic war and the objectification of women.
I know you are probably a bit tired, or really tired, of talking about 
it, but can you touch on your relationship with Ted Kacynski?

Kevin Tucker and I found Kacynski making dishonest use of sources in his 
critique of anarcho-primitivism. That cannot be tolerated. One may think 
that anarcho-primitivism bases itself on faulty grounding but we try 
very hard to be scrupulous about the evidence, e.g. anthropological 
evidence. Bad faith blocks discourse about disagreements. Dialog is 
essential but some things prevent it.
You said in an recent interview your book Why Hope that your book was 
addressing the “nihilism and retreat within the anarchist movement”. Why 
should we care what happens to us, or the world at this point?

For those who don’t care about themselves or the world, all ideas are 
irrelevant, eh? Our work is not for cynics or others who prefer surrender.