John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticise (agricultural) civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some of his criticism has extended as far as challenging domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time. His four major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Against Civilization: A Reader (1998) and Running on Emptiness (2002). Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) (none)[1] Capital Salem Largest city Portland Area  Ranked 9th  - Total 98,466 sq mi (255,026 km²)  - Width 260 miles (420 km)  - Length 360 miles (580 km)  - % water 2. ... Authorship redirects here. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anarchism is a political philosophy or group of philosophies and attitudes which reject any form of compulsory government[1] and support its elimination,[2] often because of a wider rejection of involuntary authority. ... Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Central New York City. ... Oppress is the negative outcome experienced by people targeted by the cruel exercise of power in a society or social group. ... This article is about the pre-agricultural practice of harvest from the wild. ... Dogs and sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated. ... Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... The Bath, a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). ... A pocket watch, a device used to tell time Look up time in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Early life and education

Zerzan was born in 1943 in Oregon to immigrants of Bohemian heritage. He studied as an undergraduate at Stanford University and later received a Master's degree in History from San Francisco State University. He completed his coursework towards a Ph.D. at the University of Southern California but dropped out before completing his dissertation. Official language(s) (none)[1] Capital Salem Largest city Portland Area  Ranked 9th  - Total 98,466 sq mi (255,026 km²)  - Width 260 miles (420 km)  - Length 360 miles (580 km)  - % water 2. ... Flag of Bohemia Bohemia (Czech: ; German: ) is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. ... Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles northwest of San José in Stanford, California. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The title page to The Historians History of the World. ... San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State, and SFSU) is a public university located in the southwestern San Francisco, California, bordering Lake Merced and Lowell High School, near Fort Funston and Daly City. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... The Trojan Shrine, better known as Tommy Trojan located in the center of University of Southern California campus. ...

Zerzan's work

Zerzan's theories draw on Theodor Adorno's concept of negative dialectics to construct a theory of civilization as the cumulative construction of alienation. Zerzan claims that original human societies in paleolithic times, and similar societies today such as the !Kung, Bushmen and Mbuti, live a non-alienated and non-oppressive form of life based on primitive abundance and closeness to nature. Constructing such societies as a kind of political ideal, or at least an instructive comparison against which to denounce contemporary (especially industrial) societies, Zerzan uses anthropological studies from such societies as the basis for a wide-ranging critique of aspects of modern life. He portrays contemporary society as a world of misery built on the psychological production of a sense of scarcity and lack.^[1] The history of civilisation is the history of renunciation; what stands against this is not progress but rather the Utopia which arises from its negation.^[2] Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Central New York City. ... Look up alienation, alienate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... // The Paleolithic is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. ... The !Xũ, or !Kung as it is also spelled in English, are a people living in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. ... The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, !Kung or Khwe are indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert, which spans areas of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. ... The Mbuti people, or Bambuti as they are collectively called, are one of several indigenous hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo region of Africa. ... The theory that the original affluent society was that of hunter-gatherers was articulated by Marshall Sahlins at the symposium on Man the Hunter held in Chicago in 1966. ...

Zerzan is an anarchist, and is broadly associated with the tendencies known as anarcho-primitivism, green anarchy, anti-civ, post-left anarchy and embodiment. He rejects not only the state, but all forms of hierarchical and authoritarian relations. "Most simply, anarchy means 'without rule.' This implies not only a rejection of government but of all other forms of domination and power as well."^[3] Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. ... Green Anarchy is a magazine published three times a year out of Eugene, Oregon by a collective. ... Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchisms relationship to traditional leftism. ... Embodiment is the way in which human (or any other animals) psychology arises from the brains and bodys physiology. ...

Zerzan's work relies heavily on a strong dualism between the "primitive" — viewed as non-alienated, wild (hence free), non-hierarchical, ludic, and socially egalitarian — and the "civilised" — viewed as alienated, domesticated (hence enslaved or subordinated), hierarchically organised, work-obsessed and socially discriminatory. Hence, "life before domestication/agriculture was in fact largely one of leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, sexual equality, and health."^[4]

Zerzan's claims about the status of primitive societies are based on a reading of the works of anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard B. Lee. Crucially, the category of primitives is restricted to those societies which are pure hunter-gatherers with no domesticated plants or animals. For instance, hierarchy among Northwest Coast Native Americans whose main activities were fishing and foraging is attributed to their having domesticated dogs and tobacco.^[4] His claims are thus insulated from the criticisms made by critics such as Murray Bookchin, based on ecocidal, hierarchical or oppressive practices by other peoples labelled as "primitive". However, this comes at the cost of narrowing his empirical reference to an extremely small number of existing societies and a controversial reading of archaeological records. Marshall Sahlins (born 1930) is a prominent American anthropologist. ... Richard Borshay Lee is an anthropologist who has studied at the University of Toronto and Berkeleys University of California, where he received a Ph. ... In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ... Murray Bookchin[1] (born January 14, 1921) is an American libertarian socialist speaker and writer, and founder of the Social Ecology school of anarchist and ecological thought. ...

The call for a "Future Primitive", for a radical reconstruction of society based on a rejection of alienation and an embracing of the wild. " It may be that our only real hope is the recovery of a face-to-face social existence, a radical decentralization, a dismantling of the devouring, estranging productionist, high-tech trajectory that is so impoverishing."^[3] The usual use of anthropological evidence is comparative and demonstrative - the necessity or naturality of aspects of modern western societies is challenged by pointing to counter-examples in hunter-gatherer societies. "Ever-growing documentation of human prehistory as a very long period of largely non-alienated life stands in sharp contrast to the increasingly stark failures of untenable modernity."^[2] It is unclear, however, whether this implies a re-establishment of the literal forms of hunter-gatherer societies or a broader kind of learning from their ways of life in order to construct non-alienated relations.

Zerzan's political project calls for the destruction of technology. He draws the same distinction as Ivan Illich, between tools that stay under the control of the user, and technological systems that draw the user into their control. One difference is the division of labour, which Zerzan opposes. While tools can be used by everyone in a community (albeit with varying levels of skill), hence leading to an equal distribution of power and a situation of individual autonomy, technology requires specialised knowledge which is possessed by an elite, which automatically has power over other users. This power is one of the sources of alienation, along with domestication and symbolic thought. Ivan Illich Ivan Illich (Vienna, September 4, 1926 - Bremen, December 2, 2002) was a Croatian development critic. ... Dogs and sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated. ...

Zerzan's typical method is to take a particular construct of civilisation (a technology, belief, practice or institution) and construct an account of its historical origins, its alleged destructive and alienating effects and its contrasts with hunter-gatherer experiences. In his essay on number for example, Zerzan starts by contrasting the "civilized" emphasis on counting and measuring with a "primitive" emphasis on sharing, citing Dorothy Lee's work on the Trobriand Islanders in support, before constructing a narrative of the rise of number through cumulative stages of state domination, starting with the desire of Egyptian kings to measure what they ruled.^[5] This approach is repeated in relation to time,^[6] gender inequality,^[7] work,^[8] technology,^[9] art and ritual,^[10] agriculture^[11] and globalization.^[12] Zerzan also writes more general texts on anarchist^[3] and primitivist theory,^[4][2] and Noam Chomsky,^[13] and cultural commentaries on shows such as Star Trek.^[14] Dorothy Demetracopolou Lee (1905-1975) is an author and philosopher of cultural anthropology. ... The Trobriand Islands are a 170 mi² archipelago of coral atolls off the eastern coast of New Guinea. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) , Ph. ... The current Star Trek franchise logo Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. ...

Political development

In 1966 Zerzan was arrested while performing civil disobedience at a Berkeley anti-Vietnam War march and spent two weeks in the Contra Costa County Jail. He vowed after his release never again to be willingly arrested. He attended events organized by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and was involved with the psychedelic drug and music scene in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ... Anti-war activist Midge Potts is arrested for civil disobedience on the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States on February 9, 2005. ... Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern California, in the United States. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Contra Costa County is a suburban county in Californias San Francisco Bay Area. ... Kenneth Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American author, best known for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and as a counter-cultural figure who, some consider, was a link between the beat generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For psychedelics, see psychedelic drug. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Categories: US geography stubs | San Francisco neighborhoods ... A neighbourhood or neighborhood (see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community located within a larger city or suburb. ...

In the late 1960s he worked as a social worker for the city of San Francisco welfare department. Becoming frustrated with the mundane life of a low-wage government worker, he helped organize a social worker's union, the SSEU^[15], and was elected vice president in 1968, and president in 1969. The local Situationist group Contradiction denounced him as a leftist bureaucrat^[16]. He became progressively more radical as he was exposed to what he considered to be the counter-revolutionary role of his and other unions. He was also a voracious reader of the Situationists, being particularly influenced by Guy Debord. A social worker is a person employed in the administration of charity, social service, welfare, and poverty agencies, advocacy, or religious outreach programs. ... A trade union or labor union is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ... The Situationist International (SI), an international political and artistic movement, originated in the Italian village of Cosio dArroscia on 28 July 1957 with the fusion of several extremely small artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International, the International movement for an imaginist Bauhaus, and the London Psychogeographical Association. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ...

In 1974 Black and Red Press published Unions Against Revolution by Spanish ultra-left theorist Grandizo Munis that included an essay by Zerzan which previously appeared in the journal Telos. Over the next twenty years, Zerzan became intimately involved with the Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Demolition Derby and other anarchist periodicals. After reading the works of Fredy Perlman, David Watson and others, he slowly came to the conclusion that civilization itself was at the root of the problems of the world and that a hunter-gatherer form of society presented the most egalitarian model for human relations with themselves and the natural world. Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Grandizo Munis (1912-1989) was a Spanish politician. ... Telos was founded in May 1968 to provide the New Left with a coherent theoretical perspective. ... Fifth Estate (FE) is a periodical published in Liberty, Tennessee and in Detroit, Michigan. ... Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed is a North American anarchist magazine. ... Fredy Perlman (August 20, 1934 -- July 26, 1985) was an author, publisher and activist. ... David Watson is an American anarchist author and a primary contributor to the anti-authoritarian magazine Fifth Estate, published in Liberty, Tennessee and in Detroit, Michigan. ... In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ...

Zerzan and the "Unabomber"

In the mid-1990s Zerzan became a confidant to Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber", after he read Industrial Society and Its Future, the so-called Unabomber Manifesto. Zerzan sat through the Unabomber trial and often conversed with Kaczynski during the proceedings. It was after becoming known as a friend of the Unabomber that the mainstream media became interested in Zerzan and his ideas. For the band, see 1990s (band). ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ...

In Zerzan's essay "Whose Unabomber?" (1995), he signaled his support for the Unabomber's doctrine, but criticised the bombings:

...the mailing of explosive devices intended for the agents who are engineering the present catastrophe is too random. Children, mail carriers, and others could easily be killed. Even if one granted the legitimacy of striking at the high-tech horror show by terrorizing its indispensable architects, collateral harm is not justifiable...^[17]

however:

The concept of justice should not be overlooked in considering the Unabomber phenomenon. In fact, except for his targets, when have the many little Eichmanns who are preparing the Brave New World ever been called to account?.... Is it unethical to try to stop those whose contributions are bringing an unprecedented assault on life?^[17]

Two years later though, in the 1997 essay "He Means It - Do You?," Zerzan altered his position: Pejorative; a comparison to Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann. ... Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1932. ...

Enter the Unabomber and a new line is being drawn. This time the bohemian schiz-fluxers, Green yuppies, hobbyist anarcho-journalists, condescending organizers of the poor, hip nihilo-aesthetes and all the other "anarchists" who thought their pretentious pastimes would go on unchallenged indefinitely - well, it's time to pick which side you're on. It may be that here also is a Rubicon from which there will be no turning back.

Gilles Deleuze (IPA: ), (January 18, 1925 – November 4, 1995) was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. ... “Greens” redirects here. ... Yuppies (or young urban professionals and young upwardly-mobile professionals[1]) is a market segment whose consumers are characterized as self-reliant, financially secure individualists who do not exhibit or aspire to traditional American values. ... Crossing the Rubicon is a phrase connoting the passage of a point of no return. ...

Zerzan and Pacific Northwest anarcho-primitivism

In 1995 a full-page interview with Zerzan was featured in the New York Times. Another significant event that shot Zerzan to celebrity philosopher status was his association with members of the Eugene, Oregon anarchist scene that later were the driving force behind the use of black bloc tactics at the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington. Anarchists using black bloc tactics were thought to be chiefly responsible for the property destruction committed at numerous corporate storefronts and banks.^[18] Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... It has been suggested that Track Town, USA be merged into this article or section. ... A black bloc is an affinity group that comes together during some sort of protest, demonstration, or other event involving class struggle, anti-capitalism, or anti-globalization. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... The World Trade Organization (WTO), (OMC - Spanish: , French: ), is an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade. ... City nickname Emerald City City bird Great Blue Heron City flower Dahlia City mottos The City of Flowers The City of Goodwill City song Seattle, the Peerless City Mayor Greg Nickels County King County Area   - Total   - Land   - Water   - % water 369. ... Official language(s) English Capital Olympia Largest city Seattle Area  Ranked 18th  - Total 71,342 sq mi (184,827 km²)  - Width 240 miles (385 km)  - Length 360 miles (580 km)  - % water 6. ...

News media coverage started a firestorm of controversy after the riots and Zerzan was one of those that they turned to to explain the actions that some had taken at the demonstrations. After gaining this public notoriety, John Zerzan began accepting speaking engagements and giving interviews around the world explaining anarcho-primitivism and the more general Global Justice Movement. Recently Zerzan has been involved, however tempestuously, with the Post-left anarchist trend, which argues that anarchists should break with the Left, which they believe is mired in ideology and mostly concerned with seizing state power and crushing individual freedom. The term Global Justice Movement is an alternative term to describe the loose collection of individuals and groups who advocate fair international trading rules and are critical of current institutions of global economic governance - like the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. ... Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchisms relationship to traditional leftism. ...

Zerzan is currently one of the editors of Green Anarchy, a journal of anarcho-primitivist and insurrectionary anarchist thought. He is also the host of Anarchy Radio in Eugene on the University of Oregon's radio station KWVA 88.1FM. The program airs on Tuesday nights from nine to ten Pacific time, and hosts take calls at 541-346-0645. In the past he was a contributing editor at Anarchy Magazine and has been published in magazines such as AdBusters. He does extensive speaking tours around the world, and is married to an independent consultant to museums and other nonprofits. Green Anarchy is a magazine published three times a year out of Eugene, Oregon by a collective. ... Anarchy Magazine was an anarchist magazine published in London from the sixties. ... Adbusters is a political magazine, founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz that is published in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by the Media Foundation. ...

Criticism

Zerzan acknowledges that primitivist ideals are difficult even for the convinced to put into practice, for which he has been criticized as lacking a concrete model of realization and hence making his primitivism a purely theoretical exercise. As he told one reporter: “It’s a huge challenge. You've got these great grandiose ideas, but the rubber has to hit the road somewhere, and we know that. I don’t know how that's going to work.… [W]e are a long way from connecting with that reality and we have to face that. You start off with questioning things and trying to enlarge the space where people can have dialogue and raise the questions that are not being raised anywhere else. But we don’t have blueprints as to what people should do.”^[19]

Zerzan has also on occasion quoted others to claim that, for example, “the Bushmen… can see four moons of Jupiter with the unaided eye” and that there exists “telepathic communication among the !Kung in Africa”.^[10], which is indicative of the type of statements for which the likes of Murray Bookchin and Ted Kaczynski have criticised Zerzan's reading of anthropological evidence as romanticised, ignoring for instance the existence of animal cruelty among the Ituri. Academic debates about claims by authors cited by Zerzan, such as debates about how many hours foragers spend in socially-necessary activities and whether they suffer from famine, have been refracted into the debates about Zerzan's work.^[20][21] The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, !Kung or Khwe are indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert, which spans areas of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. ... The !XÅ©, or !Kung as it is also spelled in English, are a people living in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. ... Theodore Kaczynski Theodore John Kaczynski, Ph. ... Ituri is a region located in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ...

See also

• Anarcho-primitivism
• Green anarchism
• Neo-Tribalism
• Surplus, a Swedish movie (atmo, 2003) which gives a good amount of time to John Zerzan

Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Neo-Tribalism is the ideology that human beings have evolved to live in a tribal, as opposed to a modern, society, and thus cannot achieve genuine happiness until some semblance of tribal lifestyles has been re-created or re-embraced. ... Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers is a 2003 Swedish documentary about consumerism and anti-consumerism, directed by Erik Gandini and Johan Söderberg. ...

References

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John Zerzan

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External links

• John Zerzan's website
• Green Anarchy web site
• Insurgent Desire – John Zerzan writings and interviews can be read online
• Primitivism.com – Writings by Zerzan and other primitivist authors and essayists
• Creel Commission – June 2006 conversation with John Zerzan and the UK band
• ZNet's Primitivism Debate, Michael Albert vs John Zerzan, Eric Blair and the Green Anarchy Collective
• Guide to John Zerzan's papers at the University of Oregon