Anarcho-Primitivism Beyond Anthropology and Archeology

Kevin Tucker

Appeared in Species Traitor

“Modern graverobbers have been digging up these gods’ bones and displaying the bones in glass cases of Positive Evidence. The graverobbers use these bone cases to bully all stories other than their own out of human memory. But the graverobbers’ stories are duller than the myriad other stories, and their cases of bones shed light only on the graverobbers themselves.”
-Fredy Perlman, Against His-story, Against Leviathan

It’s easy to see the inconsistency of a line of critique of civilization that holds onto anthropology and archeology. In many cases, Anarcho-primitivists have been rightfully criticized for doing such, but are AP views depended on these two schools of sciences? While this may be argued extensively between constituents of AP theory, we feel that the AP critique of civilization stands strong without anthropological or archeological support.

In order to carry this, we must first make a few clarifications. Beginning with, what we feel, pretty accurately portrays AP theory:
-Society as we know it now in the industrialized world is pathological and the civilizing impulses of certain dominant groups and individuals are effectively to blame.

-Trends in communication towards acts of symbolic representation have obstructed human being’s ability to directly experience one another socially, and alienated us from the rest of the natural world.
-Humanity basically took a wrong turn with the advent of animal domestication and sedentary agriculture, which laid the foundation for the exploitation of the earth, facilitated the growth of hierarchical social structures and subsequently the ideological control of the many by the few.
-All technology besides the stone-age techniques of hunter-gatherers is inherently detrimental to social relations and set the stage for the ecological catastrophe now being brought on by the techno industrial system.

Our goal here is not to extensively argue each of these points, but to draw upon such conclusions from the point of view that anthropology and archeology, like all sciences, are products of the civilization which spawns them. The scientific method, and more specifically, the scientists that use them, are by no means neutral, but a method and product of perceived reality.

It seems important that we clarify the certain avenues by which AP-ists have come about their critique of civilization. Of the more common methods is observation of existing foraging peoples. While this tends to have certain difficulties considering the impending intervention and destruction of civilization, there is an undeniably strong link between the way these dwindling peoples exist and the ways in which they had previously. There is a strong tradition of oral mythology (which the sciences have been generally been squeamish in relying on, but have also consistently overlooked their own ‘reality’ being a comprehensive myth) that has been common amongst much of these populations and provides a more comprehensive look at just what the changes made could be and their significance.

Along this line of observation-data, there are the accounts of ‘civilized’ encounters with the ‘primitive’. As with the case of European colonization of the Americas, there are vast amounts of texts dedicated to the lifestyles of the natives of the area. One of the more characteristic qualities of more recent ‘civilized’ people has been an incredible importance placed on written record. The encounters during this period have been rather well documented, although slanted with zealous righteousness that only a genocidal culture could nurture. Regardless of this, there is some information available here that can act as a buffer for information received via other methods.
There is the traditional archeological record of human history that has given a contextual basis to the path of civilization. This is the tenet that has been most highly criticized, and passively referred to. The archeological record has given a sort of timeline to the development of civilization, and placed place and time together. This is the most scientifically based aspect of the critique of civilization. The degree of importance this aspect is given varies on who is speaking, but we feel that this aspect is hardly the most pressing.

In essence, archeology has offered a timeline for civilization. Placing the origins of the massed civilized existence roughly 10,000-12,000 years ago in the area referred to as the Fertile Crescent. Contending views place human existence on this planet from 3-7 million years ago, and generally 40,000-100,000 years as Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Arguments stem from these anchor points for the incremental encroachment of alienating, symbolic thought (and its concrete counterparts), as well as technological growth (as dependence and functionary).

However, as we see it, these dates aren’t as important as the events themselves, which are undeniable. At some point, there has been a movement from horticultural and foraging into sedentary agriculture, at exactly what point this occurred hardly sheds light on the outcomes of agri-culture. From another possibility, the majority of archeological data is based upon the process of carbon dating. We may find out at any point that the entire process of carbon dating is off. In such an instance, it is very likely that if that were the case, it would be off relatively consistently. So to say that humans existed in a foraging state for 99% of human history would still be correct, and so on. Not that this makes arguments much less valid, just another possibility, should the religion of science find another inevitable loophole in its dogma.
Our own critique of civilization is very highly defined by a direct observation relationship with the remaining wildness of the world. While this definitely includes foraging peoples, wildness can be found anywhere in the world, and despite popular belief, cannot be entirely tamed. This has been widely characterized by the example of Pavlov’s dogs, whom were the subjects of domesticating experiments of the highest degree, but were able to break free of their programming when placed in a life threatening situation.

Contrary to popular myth, what is referred to as ‘primitive’ isn’t just some phenomenon of human history, but the condition of primal living. It is alive in all of us, in some way or form, and primitivist isn’t merely referring to a time or place, but a condition. Granted, it is most often characterized by life prior to civilization, the civilized hordes have not succeeded in destroying its opponent. In this sense, it doesn’t take a science or a degree to get some kind of understanding of the primal world, only interactive observation.

Role of the Anarcho-Primitivist Critique of Civilization

The relevance of archeological and anthropological evidence in AP theory is generally scaled by the sociopolitical implications that the various writers take from them. For us, any critique of civilization or the state is useless unless it exists to offer up sociopolitical implications.

There is somewhat of a split in primitivist thinking. The greater percentage of Anarcho-Primitivists seek an understanding of ‘our enemy, civilization’, but there are some who merely wish to document or uphold a time and place prior to civilization, and a portion of those who would like to try to recreate that existence. We feel that the latter is not only an impossible pipedream, but doomed to failure. It is at this point that all the nitty gritty of scientific methodology and practice will cause problems. All absurdity aside, if we saw pre-civilized existence as a puzzle, and archeology and anthropology as a way to put that back together, it is highly doubtful that we could put anything back together again in a way that mirrors the original. Our ‘great’ scientific achievements are generally groundless, in that all progression is seen as positive, and there isn’t much of a backdrop to hold it all up to. If we are moving, is it necessarily in the right direction? The civilized mentality that spawns and aggressively feeds science would like to think so. A realistic look at our own path towards extinction would knock that notion out. We feel this position is the only one that is dependent upon the sciences.

While anthropological findings can provide a good amount of insights to living beyond the techno-industrial nightmare, it hardly requires any scientific method to come to these conclusions. But what is important to going beyond civilization is an understanding of just what it is we are moving beyond. This is where the AP critique of civilization fits in, and upon further investigation, it seems the details provided by sciences become less important than an understanding of our own history and listening to the voices that have been suppressed, if not wiped out. We see this cumulative understanding of the nature of the beast as the beginning of a process of going wild.

The main points of AP theory as laid out earlier in this essay become crucial at this point. It becomes vital to ask, how do we overcome these things, and what is realistic. The AP critique finds a sociopolitical basis upon these findings, and it is this point that the anarchists influence really separates AP from the bulk of primitivists.

A contextual AP understanding of the rise of civilization and the current mess we’re in has given a clear indication that industrialism has only aided our destruction. This point is possibly the most commonly recognized trait of AP influence. Any move towards a society in which mutual aid and autonomy have any real meaning must rid itself of the techno-industrial menace. The effects of industrialism are very clear to us right now, but the AP critique has extended this to the larger issue of sedentary agriculture.

As has been proven elsewhere, a continued way of life dependent upon agriculture will most likely require the technological infrastructure that exists to continue feeding the worlds’ ludicrous population. Even if that infrastructure was abandoned for some kind of small scale, manor-esque lifestyle, the devastation that the earth would face to carry so many townships could push the limit. Not to mention the possibility of a Mad Max style nomadic warrior phenomenon. Having drawn upon the constant growth of agricultural societies, and the consequential encroachment upon new land or others’ land, a whole field of oppression has been realized. Where many have simply suggested a downscaling of the technological infrastructure, a steadfast AP critique has shown the downsides of such, opening up exploration into more viable ways to revitalize wildness and return to harmonious existence in a post-civilized world (regardless of how civilization will inevitably end).

So we must ask, how reliant upon scientific data is this theory? There are many points that have been highlighted by scientific findings, but they only serve to answer some basic questions. We know for sure that people have not always lived this way. Exactly how long is another question, but more of an intellectual game than a pertinent question. Much data has been countered with civilized reaffirming data, how do we know truly what is right? We may never, but we know one thing is for sure: humans have existed on this planet for an extremely long time (in human terms). If we have always been this destructive, how have we made it this far? AP would respond that there must be something that went wrong, since we are now headed for a certain collision with extinction. Have AP constituents and anthropologists romanticized our history? It is possible, but the only thing we can be sure of is that primal existence is the only way of living that we know of that has made it possible to live truly autonomously and fulfill self-determination. Our current order makes no allocations for such occurrences, and we are finding more immediate problems with this daily.

So it is possible that AP theory could be wrong, but we are running out of time and options. There has been an increasing amount of research and seriousness spent on an intrinsically different way of life. The AP critique of civilization is an attempt to get us out of this mess, and quite frankly, what have we got to loose? All we can do is take from it as much as we can, and forge that into our own sociopolitical vision and praxis, with the possibility of scientific flaws, or without.