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

[R.O.]

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

Anarcho-primitivists consider technology to be evil, but at the same 
time they use technology to spread their ideas. Are they hypocrites?

The way I look at it is: Where's the free choice? Sometimes I'm told: 
"Well, if you were really a primitivist you'd live in a cave. You 
wouldn't be doing a radio show that streams all over the world." That's 
sort of true, but how can you make a contribution if everybody's online. 
If you don't have email, you're not in communication with people. I 
don't like it, but I'm not just going to sit in my room and sulk, or go 
off to a cave and ignore everything. I try to point out that 
contradiction. Actually, I know people - you know, green anarchist types 
who I totally respect - who don't do email. They refuse. But as every 
day or week or month goes along I realise that they - and I'm in contact 
with them - don't know what's going on. They just don't. I couldn't do 
my weekly radio show without all these sources that depend on 
technology. We wouldn't even know about the crisis of the environment. 
It's a sad situation that we're so removed, that we can't have the 
direct contact, but at the moment that's the way it is. So it seems a 
little privileged to just say: "I refuse". It doesn't get you anywhere.

But it's a continuing discussion. In fact, I have friends that 
completely refuse to have anything to do with media - pretty much any 
media. But we're trying to start a dialogue, we're trying to have more 
communication, and if you are too pure to talk to people, what's the 
point? That goes under the heading of 'practical needs of the 
anarcho-primitivist movement'. We have a chance to discuss things and 
spread different perspectives that maybe people haven't heard of, 
haven't thought about. How do you do that?

I remember, well, writing letters. Obviously, now, people don't write 
letters. When I first started doing public speaking I wrote to a friend 
who'd done a lot of University speaking, and I said: "Can you share with 
me some addresses so that I could write to them?" There was this pause 
and he said: "Write to them?" And he knew I meant 'write a letter'. He 
said: "You're an idiot. You can write them a letter, but you won't get 
an answer. They won't have the time to write you a letter." And I was 
really depressed - I didn't realise that it had already gotten to that 
place. So then I said: "Well, I'm going to have to surrender my 
virginity - I'm going to have to get an email account like everybody 
else, and that's the way it is."As soon as we get rid of that, I'll be 
happy. But here we are. People don't even have face-to-face 
communication anymore. It's pathetic, it's awful.

On 01-07-2020 14:52, R.O. wrote:
> 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.
> _______________________________________________
> D66 mailing list
> D66 at tuxtown.net
> http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66