Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

kin wrote

Ok, but if we are gonna try to debate each other (not us in particular but "your" anarchism and "my anarchism") let's start with hood faith and honesty.

It's not about glorifying neolithic tribes is about a how the entire work ethos is derived on producing a surplus for accumulation and evolved from a series of Empires colonizing different people. It's is a process that come back from at least the modern age.

(how can we know what was happening 20000 years ago??

This is an obvious rhetorical question. But if you are really interested there are great academic sources (you probably value more an academic sources than my personal belief). Check Pierre Clastres for example.

You say that in your opinion primitivism and Anticiv is not far from each other, maybe you are right. But imo you are not far from platformists and they are not far from Tankies, so are you a Tankie disguised as social Anarchist? I hardly think so.. we need to avoid prejudice because of this weird equivalences.

And don't get me wrong I probably have more social Anarchist friends in my real life than anticiv ones, the the anticivs usually don't make a good image for the movement bc they espouse some questionable talking points and beliefs. But this doesn't change that social Anarchists many times don't want to tackle whiteness, decolonization, and other dear themes to anticiv theory.

Not sure my point, but I don't want you starting a fight here just bc ziq posted your convo here, it was another user that said it was you Void network. And we still indicates the Void Network site in our sidebar bc we still have all kinds of anarchists and non-anarchists here

3

Alphazero wrote (edited )

since this discussion is about another discussion that i had with Ziq, but still around the topic of anti-work and anti-civ, i will just copy here some points that i made in my discussion with ziq on his essay, hoping to help you understand my viewpoint (i hope ziq will not mind, seeing that he started the thread on this same discussion with the group)

ziq, feel free to come in the discussion with your points, will only copy here my comments from our past discussion

happy reading


We are not sure if we agree to provide any sort of scientific anthropological narrative of the sort that would make a point that 'anarchy and play VS leftist workerist, because that is how it used to be in the decent past'? The point here being, what if in some pre-historical places / times / instances hunter-gatherers were actually and unfortunately living as authoritarian slave-keeping hard working idiots? Would this fact then be removing any 'validity' from your argument, that work must be abolished? We think not, because we want all societies to be free to experiment freely through play and choose their own way of organising and living, regardless if (and not just because) this was the way it used to be in the 'origins' or in the 'true nature' of the human race (we don't know much about prehistory anyway and who cares about our 'true nature'?). Note that if we removed all reference to hunters-gatherers then your essay would still read just fine to our opinion, making a concise and clear political case against work, with references to Bob Black, Alfredo M. Bonanno, Wolfi Landstreicher, Henry Miller etc.

You write the following: 'The point of anti-work, stripped of all the garbage leftist and Marxist ideology that’s been rapidly consuming it (I blame Graeber for kickstarting this process), is to treasure your fleeting existence and spend it doing things you want to do.' Can you please clarify if you blame Graeber for kick starting the process of consuming the anti-work point with garbage leftist and marxist ideology? Again, we are not sure if this point is well supported anywhere else in the essay and, as with the previous comment, we think that if we removed this parenthesis then your essay would still read just fine.


Thank you for the links, personally I find your perspective interesting and I respect it. I have just a couple of disagreements with the way you put your arguments forward as i feel that we, the anarchists, are losing ground sometimes by sticking to what to my opinion are ill informed ideas - here is an example of what i mean from your essay:

'For millennia, play was all humans knew' - this is not a correct statement, how can we know what was all that we knew? recent evidence suggest that we also new work and slavery back then, even money. Work and oppression did not arrive with agriculture and / or civilization, those came much much later actually...

'Gatherer-hunters had no need of work because everything they needed to prosper was free for the taking' - modern people also do not need work but we still do it. We are trying to understand why.

'It wasn’t until we started burning down our ancient food forests to form permanent settlements, cultivate crops and extract non-renewable resources from the land that work displaced play as the driving force in human society.' - Yes but why did we start doing that in the first place? it seems that you are using the fact to justify it by itself, instead of looking for a reason.

'If other cultures embraced the constructive play that gatherer-hunters use, the protestant work ethic would soon lose its death-grip on public consciousness.' - this suggests that all gatherer-hunters have this strategy of play, like this is inherent characteristic of their means of production

Your 'friend' Graeber had recently revealed the wrong conceptions that we have about the egalitarian foragers in his last book, he preempted the main points here:

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/


(responding to ziq if there is evidence that money predated the alleged agricultural revolution...)

Evidence is plenty and has been for decades, Graeber merely collected it and presents it in the book with plenty of references, to make the point that, the story of the allegedly agricultural Revolution that kick started civilisation is a lie, it was made up in the enlightenment period in the religious image of a Fall from Grace, to suppress the sensation that was spread in western society, when the native Americans made publically lots of critique to our way of life and the civilisation that we all anarchists want to dismantle, more or less like you want


In any case, we do not need any evidence or Graeber or our ancestors or any enlightened forager of the present or the past, to prove to us what we know already: that anarchy and the revolution is the only way to overthrow this world and to build a new one

However civilisation started and regardless of how and when,

in the present we want to change everything, and we do not need this backed up by any anthropology or history science!

The book is interesting read that will shock you and you do not need it, it’s just really really interesting stuff to read about what was really going on in prehistory (believe me, we don’t have a clue!)

2

Alphazero wrote

btw if someone can send me something to read to understand the difference between anarcho-primitivism and anti-civ, please do as i fail to see the differences

2

subrosa wrote (edited )

Might as well ask about the ways they interconnect and resemble.

Critiques of and opposition to civilization go back to figures like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Fourier. Neither of which we can claim for anarchism, but these are perhaps the main influences for the conversations and social environments in which socialism and anarchism first appear. Long before anti-capitalism and anti-statism got on stage. Imagery and dreams of abandoning civilization (e.g. in the header image of French individualist periodical l'en-dehors, in the transcendentalist movement with Henry David Thoreau's Walden, anarchist naturism, etc.) appear in all corners of the anarchist tradition — if untainted by a Marxist class-struggle influence.

According to Ellul:

As late as 1848, one of the demands of the workers was the suppression of machinery. This is easily understood. The standard of living had not risen, men still suffered from the loss of equilibrium in their lives brought about by a too rapid injection of technique, and they had not yet felt the intoxication of the results. The peasants and the workers bore all the hardships of technical advance without sharing in the triumphs. For this reason, there was a reaction against technique, and society was split. The power of the state, the money of the bourgeoisie were for it; the masses were against.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the situation changed. Karl Marx rehabilitated technique in the eyes of the workers. He preached that technique can be liberating. Those who exploited it enslaved the workers, but that was the fault of the masters and not of technique itself. Marx was perhaps not the first to have said this, but he was the first to convince the masses of it. The working class would not be liberated by a struggle against technique but, on the contrary, by technical progress itself, which would automatically bring about the collapse of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism.

(I'd hope by now we're done waiting for technological progress to bring about a post-capitalist utopia!)

Primitivism — influenced by anthropological studies and reconsiderations (Marshall Sahlins kickstarting a debate with his 1972' Stone Age Economics) and radicals like Fredy Perlman — emerged in the late 1980s, picking up where other anti-civilizational critiques and tendencies left off.

Anti-civ today is again and still a broad critique and opposition to civilization, in which primitivism among many other tendencies offer tools for analysis and study.

It's worth mentioning that figures like Bob Black, Layla AbdelRahim, Hakim Bey, found uses for the study of the "original affluent society" without proposing "going back 20,000 years". Bob Black — arguably the main popularizer of anti-work critiques — draws from Fourier, Morris, Sahlins, and others critical of civilization, while denouncing syndicalists and communists, old and new. Ziq's essay is surprisingly 'traditional' in that regard. Your inquiry is an attempt to clean it up for communist purposes.

4

Alphazero wrote

thanks for your guidance - as for my the reason of my inquiry you could not be further from the truth

i can still see no reason to stick to the myth of the noble savage to justify anti-work, the latter is in the core of anarchism (at least of the non-lefty one?) while the myth of the noble savage is... well... a myth! do we need to believe in the myth? are we supernatural religious people after all?

btw the communists are among the firsts to support the spectre of our noble past, amongst others such as... the supporters of capitalism and the state

2

OdiousOutlaw wrote

do we need to believe in the myth? are we supernatural religious people after all?

You believe antiwork is somehow compatible with some utopian vision of vastly populated cities with a well-fed population that is completely absent of law (thus policing and social stratification) while somehow also being able to "protect nature" and avert climate disaster.

Unprecedented societal structures that only exist in the minds of optimists are in of themselves mythical.

btw the communists are among the firsts to support the spectre of our noble past, amongst others such as... the supporters of capitalism and the state

Wouldn't be the first time these groups agreed about something; was this supposed to strengthen your argument?

5

Alphazero wrote

I do believe all that because I’m an anarchist, my point in this thread being that large egalitarian social structures are far from unprecedented, this being a scientific fact. And, that I do not care if they weren’t. Being an anarchist is truly believing in the principle that we can and we will leave all together in peace with nature. Regardless of what you or the other side believes.

About communists agreeing with the rest is a point against someone claiming that what i say here is clearing the ground for communism, see previous comments.

2

OdiousOutlaw wrote (edited )

large egalitarian social structures are far from unprecedented, this being a scientific fact

And yet...they aren't around anymore; the anti-civ critique of large-scale industrial society is more comparable to present societies than what you believe will come.

And, that I do not care if they weren’t.

That's called "faith", and it's the realm of the "supernatural religious" people that you're attempting to disassociate with and tack on to primitivists.

I do believe all that because I’m an anarchist, my point in this thread being that large egalitarian social structures are far from unprecedented, this being a scientific fact. And, that I do not care if they weren’t.

Being an anarchist is truly believing in the principle that we can and we will leave all together in peace with nature. Regardless of what you or the other side believes.

Blind faith and wishful thinking don't sway me, nor do I define anarchists as having these qualities.

You don't have to prove that " large egalitarian social structures" existed, nor do you have to disprove that civilization and surplus resources lead to hierarchy; but if you're going to try to convince anyone here that civilization can be used for the benefit of anarchism, you should make a better case for it than "facts be damned, this is what I believe in". If you can't do that, then you're wasting everyone's time; if you can, then do it; you made the claim, prove it.

Tell me how industrial civilization can produce unlimited resources for several billion people without impeding on their autonomy while avoiding mass extinction of multiple species and environmental devastation while also making sure no one has to work while also making sure that the means of inventing, manufacturing, using, and distributing technology doesn't rely on the coercion and exploitation of the global south and its people while also uniting several billion individuals to unite under this shared banner.

Don't send me some text someone else wrote either, you were sure enough of yourself to come here and argue, use your own words.

4

ziq OP wrote

Tell me how industrial civilization can produce unlimited resources for several billion people without impeding on their autonomy while avoiding mass extinction of multiple species and environmental devastation while also making sure no one has to work while also making sure that the means of inventing, manufacturing, using, and distributing technology doesn't rely on the coercion and exploitation of the global south and its people while also uniting several billion individuals to unite under this shared banner.

making this my email signature

4

Alphazero wrote

Dodging your challenges on personal level, let’s go straight to the point.

The fact that they aren’t around today, does it mean that they cannot come again? Really?

Believing as in viewing not as in religiously anticipating (really??)

I cannot see where we are disagreeing, I am merely pointing that we do not need to believe that we once fell from grace, nor we need any facts from science, like the essay in question used,, to promote the idea (anarchism) that favours our selves as individuals and as class subjects.

Why should I spend hours trying to describe something that comrades have so beautifully painted the picture of? I just posted an article from Peter which I really like. I don’t see any shame in using other peoples beautiful images.

Just to remind you what my point is here. The essay is excellent, if only we remove those paragraphs about primitivism. We don’t have to. It’s just my view. You know, as in, discussing stuff

3

OdiousOutlaw wrote

Dodging your challenges on personal level, let’s go straight to the point.

"Dodging" is an apt term for what you're doing.

The fact that they aren’t around today, does it mean that they cannot come again? Really?

Burden of proof is on you to prove that it can, with all of the problems of the here and now; I'm not really willing to base my worldview on what "could" happen, especially when there are practical, reality-based factors that you're willfully ignoring, such as "how exactly do we get from the here to anarchotopia?"; you know, the action-based part that we actually care about.

Believing as in viewing not as in religiously anticipating (really??)

I've yet to see you prove your beliefs; which would be exceedingly easy to do if they had basis in reality.

I cannot see where we are disagreeing, I am merely pointing that we do not need to believe that we once fell from grace, nor we need any facts from science, like the essay in question used,, to promote the idea (anarchism) that favours our selves as individuals and as class subjects.

Anarchists don't because they're already anarchist; anarchists also don't make up a majority of any group. If your goal as an anarchocommunist is to bring about anarchocommunism, then you need numbers; which you don't exactly get without convincing arguments. I'm no anarchocommunist, what exactly can you do to sway me, or anyone else on this forum, to a neutral or even positive position on civilization?

Why should I spend hours trying to describe something that comrades have so beautifully painted the picture of?

I don't care if you do or don't. I already knew you couldn't.

The essay is excellent, if only we remove those paragraphs about primitivism. We don’t have to.

That's a blatant lie, considering the fact they wouldn't publish the essay without them.

4

Alphazero wrote

The essay can be published, it is ready, in both English and Greek. We just cockfighting over the distant past of humanity. It’s all about the writer’s ego, well respected ofcourse.

2

ziq OP wrote (edited )

I'm a little confused, the changes I made to the essay remove the reference to human cultures of the past, so what exactly is the problem? Just publish the new version I wrote for you rather than stripping away paragraphs that provide vital narrative continuity -

https://raddle.me/wiki/anti-work

Anthropologists who study some of the few remaining gatherer-hunter bands of people in various parts of the world today have frequently noted how, unlike authority-based tribes in neighboring lands, the anarchistic, non-hierarchical bands of people such as the Hadza in Eastern Africa emphasize acts of play rather than work. (Read my "Eradicate Left Unity: Make Bands, Not Communities. Anarchy, Not Leftism" essay for more about this.)

is this in any way advocacy for what you consider primitivism? am I saying we should return to the stone age? I'm simply making reference to specific indigenous people in a region of Eastern Africa

if you've replied to my email since my last response, I haven't seen it because that whole conversation was giving me anxiety (so i stopped checking my email). last I heard, you wouldn't publish it unless I removed all reference to gatherer hunters, including modern ones

edit: and like i said, you can remove the parenthesis referencing graeber that you objected to, it's not important to the essay

4

OdiousOutlaw wrote

I stand corrected on that point, at least.

3

Alphazero wrote

i am not trying to convince you to change how you feel about civilisation, i am just saying that in order to pursue anarchy we do not need to believe that in the past we were great and that civilisation just came and screwed things up, this belief does not offer much, if it doesn't cause confusion

2

ziq OP wrote (edited )

The argument isn't that we were great, it's that we had no ability to rule or destroy the world because everything we did was isolated and thus had a minimal impact. Furthermore, we actively preserved the ecosystem and helped spread beneficial-plant food forests because we weren't insulated from the effects of the natural world's destruction as we are currently (due to the work system), and depended on its continued balance for survival. Instead of working to exchange our labor for food as we do now, we just took food directly from the land without needing to work. There's an immediate cause and effect - so when your survival depends on the health of a forest vs the success of the paper mill you work at, you're going to preserve the forest at all costs otherwise you'll starve, while the paper mill worker will sacrifice the forest for a short term meal ticket, not caring that the next generation will starve when the paper mill runs out of trees to process (due to their alienation from the ecosystem and perceiving themselves as seperate from it; civilized).

Civilization gives us the authority to casually impact the world in ways that will be felt by every lifeform on the planet for millennia. Every bottle of water coming off the assembly line is contributing to global ecocide, mass extinction, desertification, and forcing mass migration. Civilization is able to cause all this disaster because it's completely pervasive and alienating. There's no way to get away from it or its effects.

The anti-civ argument is that replacing capitalism with communism won't do enough to change this. The root of all authority is civilization, not simply who controls the means of production.

Without civilization, the harm any individual or group can do, the authority they can wield, is limited to their immediate surroundings. With civilization, the harm is amplified across the entire planet, and nearly everyone becomes guilty of doing harm because there's simply no way for them to opt out of civilization. Every meal a city or farm dweller eats is participating in destroying the ecosystem rather than renewing it.

So arguments that posit "there were some bad people around before civilization so anticiv = bad" completely misunderstand the nature of civilizational hierarchy. It isn't isolated, it's expansive and forces everything everywhere to wither up and die.

3

lettuceLeafer wrote

Being an anarchist is truly believing in the principle that we can and we will leave all together in peace with nature.

I disagree. I'm an anarchist bc I can't stand people and I like to struggle n fight against people.

3

subrosa wrote

Throw "noble savage" around and be done with it.

4

Alphazero wrote

yeah why not? myth buster

1

ziq OP wrote

it's a little like throwing 'somalia' around every time someone mentions anarchy

3

lettuceLeafer wrote

Which is funny for many reasons bc both somalia and Somaliland have governments. It's just typical people from developed countries acting like an authority on African countries they know nothing about.

3

ziq OP wrote

And like 'noble savage', it's a shallow and empty attack rooted in colonialist racism and the myth that life without authority is something to be feared and derided.

3