Truly a great episode. This strikes to the core of it all for me. Like many in the primitivist sphere, I came out of the left disillusioned with the ideas of revolution and yearning to look deeper beyond workerism and the present-day state of affairs. For so long I was (and to some degree still am) caught up in fixations on all the misery in the world of all kinds. I read incessantly about species extinction, climate disaster, the genocide of indigenous populations, the horrors of technology - the list goes on. I accumulated eclectic knowledge about events and processes that in some ways deepened my primitivist-leanings, but also cemented a monstrous inner turmoil. In recent times I decided it is well past time to stop philosophizing so much and 'formulate' a way of being in the world in the present. Anti-civilizational thinking, 'primitivism', whatever you want to call it for yourself is about finding that presentness, connectedness and clarity that lays in a freeing surrender to limitations. The realization that a relative wholeness and health is something civilized humans have been running away from for 10,000 plus years. All this is to say I have discarded my Zerzan, Camatte, and miscellaneous anti-civ and anti-technology books. They helped to orient me, but to live in a world of seemingly unending misery as a spectator is something I am done with doing. Now I am trying to have a more holistic approach to being in the world and conducting my life. I am mostly helpless as to what happens in this world. What is largely within my control is myself. That's it. I will live and die with the matter that composes my body creating new life. All those who have lived and died are still here in this regard, regardless if they were a bacteria, tree, or an indigenous person gunned down by a colonizer. With that in mind, how can I live joyously, with tranquility and with an erasure of disconnection? We do not know what the future holds, everyone is held by that immense vulnerability. I have found myself finding 'medicine for the soul' in learning more about local history, basic reskilling such as identification of plants and animals, the seasonality of wild foods. Also a couple of philosophies, namely Epicureanism and Taoism, which are great tools for helping one to live in a relative tranquility.
This has been an excellent episode. My personal project at home besides learning the basics of foraging with my friends is trying to get people to think differently. I was reading "Capital Abandon: Some Words On and Oft Inspired by Jacques Camatte" by Howard Slater for an anthropology assignment, and it got me wanting to do something about the forgetting of alternatives to capital/civilization. The idea of standard of living is a fucked up idea, because what does someone's access to an x-box, or an iphone really say about how well someone is doing? It is disingenuous, and I think that it is victim blaming. If someone who has industrial luxuries but is still miserable, they are seen as defective or ungrateful. These goods are a distraction for the emptiness and misery that civilized life forces onto people. We need to have a remembering of the ways of life that had less but were whole. Less but not from a lack, but as in I am already full with what I already have. This summer a friend and I will work to write anti-civ zines with the first one being about primitivism from two queer autistic people's perspectives. Starting on June I should be available for the disaster anthropology mobility talk if that is still on the table. If not I completely understand. Peace and Long Life.
One frustrated worker ended up burning a billion dollar submarine. One luxury boat captain sunk a giant cruise ship. A single idiot can do more economic damage to civilization than all the actions of the ELF combined. So I agree on some of the futility of revolution. At least against civilization itself
On the assertion that there is no response, I think that the reason is that everything is too big and too messed up for any proper response. The proper response to the disasters that plague our world now would have been decades, centuries, or even millennia ago. Every disaster that we face in the future has already been produced today and yesterday. Also on the note of student orgs protesting the genocide in Gaza, I think there is an impact. Locke Martin uses my university to get students to be interns and workers. Student protests got them to cancel recruitment events for now. This is of course a small thing, I understand. But I see this as one of many potential raptures if helped along. I am not saying that it will be successful but I am not going to write it off.
Most of the anarcho primitivists that have gone out to live as "hunter gatherers" have lived realities more similar to pioneers. Which makes them the bridgehead for civilization. Some live totally primitive but not most. Most of the remaining wild land is not in temperate or subtropical areas. You can go north. But the further from the equator, the more lifestyle adaptations that facilitate hierarchy.
@@squatch545 an emphasis on the accumulation and storage of surplus creates haves and have not. The story of the ants and the grasshopper is a northern tale. Besides the Eskimos there are few to no examples of immediate return hunter gatherers exist outside tropical and subtropical areas.
Truly a great episode. This strikes to the core of it all for me. Like many in the primitivist sphere, I came out of the left disillusioned with the ideas of revolution and yearning to look deeper beyond workerism and the present-day state of affairs.
For so long I was (and to some degree still am) caught up in fixations on all the misery in the world of all kinds. I read incessantly about species extinction, climate disaster, the genocide of indigenous populations, the horrors of technology - the list goes on. I accumulated eclectic knowledge about events and processes that in some ways deepened my primitivist-leanings, but also cemented a monstrous inner turmoil.
In recent times I decided it is well past time to stop philosophizing so much and 'formulate' a way of being in the world in the present. Anti-civilizational thinking, 'primitivism', whatever you want to call it for yourself is about finding that presentness, connectedness and clarity that lays in a freeing surrender to limitations. The realization that a relative wholeness and health is something civilized humans have been running away from for 10,000 plus years.
All this is to say I have discarded my Zerzan, Camatte, and miscellaneous anti-civ and anti-technology books. They helped to orient me, but to live in a world of seemingly unending misery as a spectator is something I am done with doing. Now I am trying to have a more holistic approach to being in the world and conducting my life. I am mostly helpless as to what happens in this world. What is largely within my control is myself. That's it. I will live and die with the matter that composes my body creating new life. All those who have lived and died are still here in this regard, regardless if they were a bacteria, tree, or an indigenous person gunned down by a colonizer.
With that in mind, how can I live joyously, with tranquility and with an erasure of disconnection? We do not know what the future holds, everyone is held by that immense vulnerability. I have found myself finding 'medicine for the soul' in learning more about local history, basic reskilling such as identification of plants and animals, the seasonality of wild foods. Also a couple of philosophies, namely Epicureanism and Taoism, which are great tools for helping one to live in a relative tranquility.
I think a lot of people "in our circles" so to speak are approaching (or have already) this perspective. Thanks for the meaningful reply! :)
Artxmis
This has been an excellent episode.
My personal project at home besides learning the basics of foraging with my friends is trying to get people to think differently.
I was reading "Capital Abandon: Some Words On and Oft Inspired by Jacques Camatte" by Howard Slater for an anthropology assignment, and it got me wanting to do something about the forgetting of alternatives to capital/civilization. The idea of standard of living is a fucked up idea, because what does someone's access to an x-box, or an iphone really say about how well someone is doing? It is disingenuous, and I think that it is victim blaming. If someone who has industrial luxuries but is still miserable, they are seen as defective or ungrateful. These goods are a distraction for the emptiness and misery that civilized life forces onto people. We need to have a remembering of the ways of life that had less but were whole. Less but not from a lack, but as in I am already full with what I already have.
This summer a friend and I will work to write anti-civ zines with the first one being about primitivism from two queer autistic people's perspectives. Starting on June I should be available for the disaster anthropology mobility talk if that is still on the table. If not I completely understand.
Peace and Long Life.
One frustrated worker ended up burning a billion dollar submarine. One luxury boat captain sunk a giant cruise ship.
A single idiot can do more economic damage to civilization than all the actions of the ELF combined.
So I agree on some of the futility of revolution. At least against civilization itself
On the assertion that there is no response, I think that the reason is that everything is too big and too messed up for any proper response. The proper response to the disasters that plague our world now would have been decades, centuries, or even millennia ago. Every disaster that we face in the future has already been produced today and yesterday.
Also on the note of student orgs protesting the genocide in Gaza, I think there is an impact. Locke Martin uses my university to get students to be interns and workers. Student protests got them to cancel recruitment events for now. This is of course a small thing, I understand. But I see this as one of many potential raptures if helped along. I am not saying that it will be successful but I am not going to write it off.
Most of the anarcho primitivists that have gone out to live as "hunter gatherers" have lived realities more similar to pioneers. Which makes them the bridgehead for civilization.
Some live totally primitive but not most.
Most of the remaining wild land is not in temperate or subtropical areas. You can go north. But the further from the equator, the more lifestyle adaptations that facilitate hierarchy.
How does latitude cause hierarchy?
@@squatch545 storage of surplus is a hallmark of most northern peoples.
@@matthewvanboven4349 False. And you just moved the goalposts from latitude to storage.
@@squatch545 an emphasis on the accumulation and storage of surplus creates haves and have not. The story of the ants and the grasshopper is a northern tale. Besides the Eskimos there are few to no examples of immediate return hunter gatherers exist outside tropical and subtropical areas.
@@squatch545 in my bioregion ,winter necessitated sedentary existence and permanent dwellings. This also creates haves and have nots