John Zerzan

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 (1994), A Reader (1998) and Running on Emptiness (2002).

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 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 [http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/whyprim.htm.

Zerzan is an anarchist, and is broadly associated with the tendencies known as green anarchy, anti-civ, anarcho-primitivism and post-left anarchy. 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." ^*.

Zerzan's work relies heavily on a strong binary 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." ^*

Zerzan's claims about the status of primitive societies are based on a reading of the works of anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Robert 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 ^*. 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.

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." 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." [http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/whyprim.htm. 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. This is differentiated from tools, in that while a tool is under the control of the user, technology tends to dominate its users. 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.

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 This approach is repeated in relation to time ^*," target="_blank" >work ^*," target="_blank" >art and ritual ^*" target="_blank" >and globalization ^*" target="_blank" >and primitivist theory ^*," target="_blank" >critiques of "postmodernism" and of perceived opponents such as Hakim Bey Noam Chomsky ^*," target="_blank" >and cultural commentaries on shows such as Star Trek [http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/startrek.htm.

Origins 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 briefly worked towards a Ph.D. at the University of Southern California but dropped out before completing his dissertation.

Political development

In 1966 Zerzan was arrested while performing civil disobedience at a Berkeley anti-Vietnam War march and spent two weeks in the Alameda 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.

As a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist 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, and was elected vice president in 1968, and president in 1969. Local Situationist group Contradiction denounced him as a leftist bureaucrat. 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.

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. During this time he was also drifting into alcohol abuse, something that would afflict him for most of the decade. At one point, while living in San Francisco, he pulled all of his furniture out of his apartment in the Mission District and burned it in the middle of Valencia St. Over the next twenty years, Zerzan became intimately involved with the Fifth Estate, 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.

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.

In Zerzan's essay "Whose Unabomber?" (1995), he signaled his support for the Unabomber's doctrine, but condemned 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....^*

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?^*

Two years later though, in the 1997 essay "He Means It - Do You?," Zerzan altered his position:

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.

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. (see Black Bloc communique from N30)

News media coverage started a firestorm of controversy after the riots and Zerzan was one of the those that they turned 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 tempestously, 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.

Zerzan is currently one of the editors of Green Anarchy, the leading 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. He is still 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.

Criticism

Use of technology and language to condemn the same

Although Zerzan propagates the abolishment of technology and language, he still utilizes these tools in order to spread his ideas, including the operation of a website, modern printing facilities, radio and television interviews, as well as the use of automobiles and airplanes for travelling to various speeches and events. He owns a television, and has a radio show.

Of Zerzan's use of language to criticize language, one reviewer wrote: "is something downright cynically hypocritical about someone writing a book and inviting an audience to read it, only to denounce and negate language, books, and culture as all symptoms of alienation!... The contradiction is unsustainable and can only lead itself to indifference to truth, contempt for integrity, and utter nihilism if left unresolved."[http://www.darkage.ca/blog/_archives/2005/3/13/429859.html

Zerzan acknowledges that primitivist ideals are difficult even for the convinced to put into practice. 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.… 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.”[http://www.guardian.co.uk/mayday/story/0,7369,475181,00.html

He defends the use of technology to disseminate his ideas in this way: "technologies have different characteristics which make some more estranging than others. Some are more mediated, artificial, and remote. Radio is less colonizing than TV, I would say. Non-commercial cable-access TV does not have all the negatives that network television does. There are some obvious distinctions, even if one could argue that at times other factors might override them. Perhaps, for example, an urgent need to communicate with a lot of people in a given situation.… If we conclude that we need to use certain technologies so as not to be at a severe disadvantage, we should remember what they consist of and not forget to make such analysis clear."[http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/dialog.htm

Choosing not to live a primitive life himself

Others have criticized the fact that Zerzan chooses not to live in a primitive society himself, and instead resides in the West Eugene neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon. Among the speculations for the reason of this, it is said by some that industrialized, agricultural civilization has desecrated the wilderness to such an extent that no suitable wilderness areas can be found to reside in, and that what little remains has become valuable habitat for endangered species.

Use of abstract, academic language

Zerzan is fond of academic-styled language, full of abstractions, such as: “The constant urge or quest for the transcendent testifies that the hegemony of absence is a cultural constant.” He also enjoys archaicisms, for instance using the verb “obtain” in its less common sense of “to prevail” instead of its non-academic general usage of “to gain possession of.”

Writing like this is accessible mainly to a well-educated and literate minority of humanity. It seems hypocritical in the context of Zerzan’s argument that the more abstract the language, the more inherently alienating and oppressive it becomes. Thus, Zerzan could be considered engaging in (if not fostering) alienation, not only by writing itself but by doing so in a considerably abstruse manner. As one reviewer wrote:

Analytical speech is only one of four styles of speech that includes also epics, lyrics, and dramatics. Zerzan commits the same error as the modernity he deplores, therefore, but more radically so. He makes analytics, that is, the purely rational, objectifying, and instrumental — which is indeed truly linear, successive (syllogistic) and substitutive — the normative mode of speech simply because modernity prescribed it as the norm. This style of speech is truly reductive, imperious, and manipulative. But it is thus only when it presumes itself to be all of speech. Zerzan commits the same blunder as reductive modernity.^*

In a similar vein, Pendleton Vandiver criticises Zerzan for his reliance on western academic writing conventions and sources, such as his frequent and extensive use of footnote references ^*.

Excessive reliance on quoting the opinions of others to make his points

In one 71-paragraph essay (The Failure of Symbolic Thought), the reader is introduced to Sloan, Morris, Freud, Debord, Shreeve, Goethe, Kant, Levinas, Sagan, Durkheim, White, Frye, Geertz, Cohen, Malinowski, Wynn, Perry, Rorty, Werner, Carpenter, Farb, Aristotle, Blake, Coan, Drummond, Thomas, Marcuse, Howes, Lévi-Strauss, Eliade, Leroi-Gourhan, Foster, Peterson, Goodall, Mead, Hegel, Vendler, Morgan, Chomsky, Lieberman, van der Post, von Glasersfeld, Hirn, Miller, Adorno, Kristeva, Staal, Knight, Cohen, Parkin, Reinach, Cassirer, Gamble, Douglas, Goodman, Ingold, Waters, Tudge, Horkheimer, McFarland, Lomas, Turnbull, Santayana, Ponting, and Tommy, among others. Most of these authorities show up just to make a single observation, for example:

In 1976, von Glasersfeld wondered "whether, at some future time, it will still seem so obvious that language has enhanced the survival of life on this planet."^*

The reader is given no context that might explain who von Glasersfeld is, what is the nature of his expertise, or why his observation is relevant to the particular discussion.

One reviewer wrote in response to this relentless litany of authorities: "Zerzan never draws a single conclusion, since a conclusion is the fruit of reasoning and that he seems to be allergic to all reasoning. He contents himself with quoting the conclusions of others, or at least the conclusions that please him most."^*

What is striking, when one glances through his books, is the mass of quotes he uses. Thus, in "Elements of Refusal," there are about 300 of them, which make it roughly three quotes per page.… We have all come across this kind of character, who puts up a kind of wall of culture between himself and the person he is talking to, who retreats behind this wall, to avoid disclosing who he is, and to dominate the other person with the help of the instrument of culture used as a bludgeon.

Zerzan makes use of quotes in order to give to his otherwise disjointed discourse, an appearance of scientific character. Moreover, he makes use of the authors he quotes as the ventriloquist does his puppets: one moment they appear, say what one makes them say, and disappear. The authors thus quoted present equally the advantage of credibility: since so and so said it, it is useless to discuss it. Never does he prove what the authors put forward, the quotes are always outside the context, and above all outside of all reasoning.^*

Murray Bookchin, in Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, remarked in frustration that Zerzan sometimes cites sources without including enough information for a reader to find out which sources he is citing:

The reader who has faith in Zerzan's research may try looking for important sources like "Cohen (1974)" and "Clark (1979)" (cited on pages 24 and 29 Future Primitive and Other Essays, respectively) in his bibliography - they and others are entirely absent ^*.

Some of Zerzan's sources make controversial claims

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”. Such claims undermine Zerzan's general credibility. While Zerzan gives the impression to a casual reader of an extensive factual knowledge of hunter-gatherer societies, his interpretations are often contentious within anthropology and rest on a one-sided reading of a particular school of anthropological thought.

External links

Insurgent Desire, where around 40 of his writings and three interviews can be read online
Primitivism.com, another source of writings by Zerzan and other primitivist authors and essayists
Green Anarchy web site
Creel Commission June 2006 conversation with John Zerzan and the UK band

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