Future Primitive and Other Essays

Future Primitive and Other Essays

Infobox Book
name = Future Primitive and Other Essays
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = John Zerzan
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language =
series =
subject = Anarcho-primitivism
genre = Anthropology, political economy
publisher = Autonomedia,
""
pub_date = December 1, 1994
english_pub_date =
media_type = Paperback
pages = 192 pages
isbn = ISBN 1570270007
oclc = 30630861
preceded_by = Elements of Refusal
followed_by = Running on Emptiness

"Future Primitive and Other Essays" is a collection of essays by anarcho-primitivist philosopher John Zerzan published by Autonomedia in 1994. The book became the subject of increasing interest after Zerzan and his beliefs rose to fame in the aftermath of the trial of fellow thinker Theodore Kaczynski and the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle. [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/apr/18/mayday.features11 |work=The Guardian |title=Anarchy in the USA |date=April 18, 2001 |first=Duncan |last=Campbell |accessdate=2008-10-06 |publisher=Guardian Media Group] It was republished in 1996 by Semiotext(e), and has since been translated into French (1998), Spanish (2001), and Catalan (2002). [worldcat|name=Works by or about John Zerzan |id=lccn-n87-141887] As is the case with Zarzan's previous collection of essays, "Elements of Refusal", "Future Primitive" is regarded by anarchists and technophobes as an underground classic. [cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3DD113FF934A35756C0A963958260 |title=Prominent Anarchist Finds Unsought Ally in Serial Bomber |first=Kenneth B. |last=Noble |date=May 7, 1995 |work=The New York Times |publisher=The New York Times Company |accessdate=2008-10-06]

Thesis

"Future Primitive" is an unequivocal assertion of the superiority of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. [cite book | last = Gowdy | first = John | title = Limited Wants, Unlimited Means | publisher = Island Press | location = Washington | year = 1998 | isbn = 155963555X |pages=p.220] Zerzan rejects the thesis that time and technology are neutral scientific realities, arguing instead that they are carefully constructed means of enslaving people.cite book | last = Veseth | first = Michael | title = The New York Times Twentieth Century in Review: the Rise of the Global Economy | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 1579583695 |pages=p.515] He cites as examples the computer and the Internet, which he maintains have an atomizing effect on society, creating novel divisions of labour, demanding ever increasing efficiency and portions of leisure time. Life prior to domestication and agriculture, Zerzan argues, was predominantly one of "leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, sexual equality and health". [cite book |authorlink=Murray Bookchin | last = Bookchin | first = Murray | title = Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism | publisher = AK Press | location = Stirling | year = 1995 | isbn = 187317683X |pages=p.39] In the Paleolithic era, as "The Wall Street Journal" summarized Zerzan's thesis, "people roamed free, lived off the land and knew little or nothing of private property, government, money, war, even sexism. In the wild, the shackles of civilization weren't necessary, as people were instinctively munificent and kind, the primitivist argument goes." [cite news|url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB944436891605794366.html |title=An Anarchist Looks to Provide Logic To Coterie Leading WTO Vandalism |work=The Wall Street Journal |archiveurl=http://www.infoshop.org/octo/wto_zerzan2.html |archivedate=December 29, 2004 |last=Waldman |first=Peter |date=Dec 6, 1999 |publisher=Dow Jones & Company]

Related topics

*Green anarchism
*Marshall Sahlins

References

External links

* [http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/zerzan/ PAGENAME] at the Spunk Library


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