Concept
Anarcho-primitivism
Overview
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization and a branch of green anarchism that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, abandonment of large-scale organization and all technology other than prehistoric technology, and the dissolution of agriculture. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and alleged progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. Most anarcho-primitivists advocate for a tribal-like way of life while some see an even simpler lifestyle as beneficial. According to anarcho-primitivists, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation, and social stratification.
Anarcho-primitivism argues that civilization is at the root of societal and environmental problems. Primitivists also consider domestication, technology and language to cause social alienation from "authentic reality". As a result, they propose the abolition of civilization and a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Societies once formed in this manner, soon multiplied or spread to such a degree, as to cover the face of the earth; and not to leave a corner in the whole universe, where a man could throw off the yoke, and withdraw his head from under the often ill-conducted sword which he saw perpetually hanging over it. The civil law being thus become the common rule of citizens, the law of nature no longer obtained but among…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind
The author is tied to Anarcho-primitivism in the knowledge graph.
But when once their nature is understood, they can, in the hands of the producers working together, be transformed from master demons into willing servants. The difference is as that between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning of the storm, and electricity under command in the telegraph and the voltaic arc; the difference between a conflagration, and fire…
Friedrich Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
States what Anarcho-primitivism is.
But let us suppose that men had so multiplied that the natural produce of the earth was no longer sufficient for their support; a supposition, by the way, which would prove such a life to be very advantageous for the human race; let us suppose that, without forges or workshops, the instruments of husbandry had dropped from the sky into the hands of savages; that they had overcome their natural aversion to continual…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
The author is tied to Anarcho-primitivism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Anarcho-primitivism
Related ideas
- Anarchism
- Private property
- Industrial Revolution
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Language
- Marx's theory of alienation
- Mathematics
- Autonomy
- Max Horkheimer
- Deep ecology
- Frankfurt School
- State of nature
- Social alienation
- Technology
- Age of Enlightenment
- Social equality
- Critical theory
- Cooperation
- Capitalism
- Civilization
- Agriculture
- Coercion
- Art
- Environmental degradation
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.