Contributor: Jakub Burkowicz
Bob
Black
Derrick Jensen
Fredy Pearlman
John Filiss
John Moore
Kevin Tucker
Kirkpatrick Sale
Stanley Diamond
Anarcho-primitivism
Anti-Globalization
Earth Centered
Green Anarchism
Green/Primitivism
Coalition Against Civilization
Situationist International
Direct
Action
Property Destruction
Earth Liberation Front
Guerrilla gardening
John Zerzan first received mass media attention
when a New York Times article entitled
“Prominent Anarchist Finds Ally in Serial
Bomber” (May 8, 1995) drew on his friendship
with Ted Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber), while
simultaneously casting him as
something of an anarchist guru in anti- tech,
radical circles. The piece, Zerzan writes,
“provoked angry reactions” from
other media, while also opening the door to
TV
appearances (which he rejected) and talk radio
programs. [2]
More recently, the Seattle anti-WTO protests
(N30) highlighted Zerzan in the alternative
media as a ‘leader’ of the Black
Bloc activists. The connection was denied
by the bloc
participants who claimed: “While some
of us may appreciate his [Zerzan’s]
writings and
analyses, he is in no sense our leader, directly,
indirectly, philosophically or otherwize.”
[3]
Technology/ Division of Labor
Technology and division of labor are by no
means Zerzan’s own, but they are
reformulated by Zerzan and form a crucial
backbone to his analyses. According to him,
technology cannot be neutral or non-ideological
because it contains the imprint of the
social order from which it originates. Technology
is thus inseparable from the conditions
which enable it as “[i]t always partakes
of and expresses the basic values of the social
system in which it is embedded.” [4]
Accordingly, Zerzan elevates technology to
the
same level as the system which must be opposed
and dismantled if we are to escape the
holds of the global empire.
What may perhaps allow us to distinguish between
desirable and undesirable
technological use is the existence of a division
of labor. [5] Division of labor, according
to Zerzan, draws a sharp, dividing line between,
we are left to guess, acceptable and
unacceptable levels of technological use (after
all, even the band societies he celebrates
rely on various implements to gather and occasionally
hunt). This line discloses “dire
consequences that unfold in an accelerating
or cumulative way” leading to a
“[s]pecialization [that] narrows the
individual, brings in hierarchy, creates dependency
and works against autonomy.” [6] It
is, therefore, according to Zerzan, unacceptable
to
connect prehistoric societies and their simple
tool- use with historic societies and their
complex technologies along a smooth evolutionary
continuum.
Symbolic culture
According to Zerzan, symbolic culture contains
the straps of our domestication. In order
to “bring free dimensions under control
for self-serving purposes”, [7] symbolic
culture
generated language, time, number, writing
and art as techniques of domination. These,
accordingly, should be rejected if we are
to reestablish non-alienating human
relationships. Throwing out technology/ division
of labor by themselves will not suffice
as symbolic culture also works to separate
us from immediate, or non-mediated,
relationships with ourselves, each other,
and nature. Furthermore, as Zerzan points
out,
throwing out technology/division of labor
on its own is impossible, as it is symbolic
culture that “rapidly led to agriculture”
[8] with its ensuing technology/ division
of labor.
Symbolic culture, it stands to Zerzan’s
reason, must be dismantled since it alone
is the
prime founder of civilization.
Zerzan cites heavily from anthropologists
who provide evidence for a correlation
between the advent of writing and math and
the rise of systems of control and
domination. He notes that without number the
domestication of animals and crops could
not take place, and that, along the same lines,
without writing business and political
transactio ns would be at a stand still. [9]
As in his depictions of technology as imprinted/embedded
with the values of the social
system from which it originates, Zerzan also
maintains that “[m]usic… like
all art, owes
its existence to the division of labor in
society” from which it obtains its ‘encoded
values.’ [10] Thus, as co- founder of
civilization, music takes its place next to
writing and
number by functioning as ritual “idealization
of hierarchized social harmony.” [11]
Anarcho-primitivism
Zerzan defines anarchism within a consistently
classical anarchist framework, as “not
only a rejection of government but of all
other forms of domination and power as well…
grounded in autonomy for the individual.”
[12] To this orientation, however, he also
adds the notion that an anti-technological
or primitivist vision is necessary to recapture
a
“wholeness for ourselves” [13]
which is undermined by symbolic culture and
its division
of labor. Thus, Zerzan retains classical anti-authoritarian
sentiments while attempting to
provide a space for “a new paradigm”
that attempts “a dismantling of the
devouring,
estranging productionist, high-tech trajectory
that is so impoverishing.” [14] Because
of
its suspicion of industrial society, Zerzan’s
anarcho-primitivism signals a significant
break with traditional leftist formulations
of revolution, with workers as typical agents
of
social change. His departure, however, is
only partial as he still aims for a ‘liberation’
which would ostensibly deliver us to a primitivist
Eden, free of the play of power and all
dominations.
Responses:
To a large extent, as critics have pointed
out, Zerzan’s primitivism arises from
“the
romantic premodernist vision of a society
without culture.” [15] He relies heavily
on
anthropological accounts that celebrate hunter-gather
(or, as he argues, gather- hunter)
societies while not providing us with any
means as to how we could ‘go wild,’
or even go
about unlearning language, time, number, writing
and art.
Furthermore, as Michael Albert points out,
Zerzan’s notion of imprinted/embedded
artifacts fails to take into account that
“technologies not only reflect…
societies’
attributes, including their worst, but also
often meet real needs and expand real potentials.
So you get electric chairs… but you
also get warm clothes.” [16] In short,
Zerzan seems
to only credit capitalists with embedding
technology with its alienating and destructive
attributes, while completely ignoring the
possibility that technology could reflect
the
needs and aspirations of communities outside
of capitalist interests and control.
Zerzan,
J. (2002). Running on Emptiness: the Pathology
of Civilization. Los Angeles:
Feral House.
Zerzan, J. (1999). Elements of Refusal. Columbia:
Columbia Alternative Library.
Zerzan, J. (1994). Future Primitive and Other
Essays. New York: Autonomedia &
Anarchy.
Zerzan, J. (1975). Trade Unionism or Socialism:
the Revolt Against Work. London:
Solidarity.
Organizations:
The Primitivist Network (PO Box 252, Ampthill,
Beds MK45 2QZ)
Journals:
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (Zerzan
is a contributing editor)
Green Anarchist
Fifth Estate
Killing King Abacus
Websites:
http://www.anarchymag.org/
http://www.greenanarchy.org/
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/
http://www.primitivism.com/
http://www.sindominio.net/ecotopia/
(in Spanish)
Notes:
[1] Zerzan, J. “Biography.” Black
and Green Network. Available at:
http://www.blackandgreen.org/jz/bio.html
[2] Zerzan, J. “Zerzan and Media: An Ignominious Tale.” The Online
Green Anarchy
Archive. Available at: http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/media.htm
[3] N30 Black Bloc Communiqué. Available at: http://www.zmag.org/acme.htm
[4] “Interview – John Zerzan.” Primitivism. Available at:
http://www.primitivism.com/zerzan.htm
[5] It should be noted that, as one interviewer observed, Zerzan has “so
far refrained from
a critique of tool use” (ibid.). Here, the interviewer is hinting at the
possibility that
Zerzan, while rejecting all technology, may perhaps be supportive of something
qualitatively different (i.e. tool-use) which does not necessarily imply a division
of labor.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jensen, D. “Enemy of the State: Derrick Jensen Interviews John Zerzan,”
Alternative
Press Review, 2000, 5 (2), available at: http://www.altpr.org/apr12/zerzan.html
[8] Zerzan, J. (1994). Future Primitive and Other Essays. New York: Autonomedia
&
Anarchy, 36.
[9] Ibid., 28-29.
[10] Ibid., 77.
[11] Ibid., 84.
[12] Zerzan, J. “What is Anarchism?” The Online Green Anarchy Archive.
Available at:
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/whatisanarchism.htm
[13] Zerzan, J. (1994). Future Primitive and Other Essays. New York: Autonomedia
&
Anarchy, 150.
[14] Zerzan, J. “What is Anarchism?”
[15] Day, R. J. F. (forthcoming). Affinities.
[16] Albert, M. “Anarchism = Zerzan?” Z Net. Available at:
http://www.zmag.org/zerzan.htm