Anti-Civilization

[ZoopPoop]

Civilization is collapsing in on itself. We hire all these different politicians of different beliefs, but the root of the problem is civilization itself.

Aside from anything environmentally, it's just plain bad for our health. Obviously civilization made our life spans a lot longer, but on a spiritual level we are struggling. There are more mental health issues than ever. And although I have no scientific backing, I feel as if civilization is the reason why. What happened to being creatures on Earth just like everything else in existence? Since when did we become above the rest of creation?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

What is this metaphysical rubbish? Spiritual? Are you some kind of religious nutter? And what is wrong with being above "creation", or rather, above nature? Fuck nature. Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.

[Sinister Intents]

Civilization is collapsing in on itself. We hire all these different politicians of different beliefs, but the root of the problem is civilization itself.

Aside from anything environmentally, it's just plain bad for our health. Obviously civilization made our life spans a lot longer, but on a spiritual level we are struggling. There are more mental health issues than ever. And although I have no scientific backing, I feel as if civilization is the reason why. What happened to being creatures on Earth just like everything else in existence? Since when did we become above the rest of creation?

What? Seriously? do you even know what you're fucking talking about?

[Taters]

And although I have no scientific backing
Problem identified.

What is civilization in your view? What is an adequate replacement?

[G4b3n]

What is this metaphysical rubbish? Spiritual? Are you some kind of religious nutter? And what is wrong with being above "creation", or rather, above nature? Fuck nature. Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.

You should teach me how to be militant. :wub:

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The OP aside, anti-civ stuff is kin of cool guys.

[Taters]

The OP aside, anti-civ stuff is kin of cool guys.

Links, plz. I shall judge for myself.

[Sinister Intents]

The OP aside, anti-civ stuff is kin of cool guys.

I can agree with that, just hoping its not a troll post and this user posts more, which considering s/he logged off immediately I don't know...

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.
I don't trust this dichotomy between nature/non-nature in the first place. It's just as idealist to see nature as "evil" as it is to worship it. Our very desire to conquer sickness, suffering, pain etc is as "natural" as that sickness, suffering, pain etc.

Really, the best response to the OP is to show how civilization itself is a consequence of the very natural desire to not only survive but thrive.

[Sabot Cat]

Civilization may be the origin of class conflict, hierarchical stratification, anthropogenic climate change and mass murder, but it is the state of affairs that enabled modern medicine and all sciences developed for the betterment of people worldwide, drastically increasing average living conditions and life expectancy. There is even relatively well-found hope to be had in technological progress that may provide an end to senescence and some globally endemic ailments known to us. Whether or not civilization is, overall, a positive phenomena is something we can't appraise because its greatest triumphs or failures may lie in the future; however, I can just say that fighting civilization itself is an extremely tall order that probably won't benefit anyone, and that we should focus our energies and revolutionary spirit on the liberation of the proletariat.

[A Psychological Symphony]

What is this metaphysical rubbish? Spiritual? Are you some kind of religious nutter? And what is wrong with being above "creation", or rather, above nature? Fuck nature. Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.

You are easily the most hostile person I've seen on this forum...

How can you say fuck nature? Nature is not, despite your post, the cause of pain, terror, abuse, rape, or despair. It does cause some death and even some sickness, but it also brings us a wide array of joys. If you actually believe that "All horrible things are natural" then you need to reevaluate quite a bit.

Rape is caused by people
terror is a state of mind
abuse is in no way a product of the natural earth
despair is also a mindset

I'm not a primitivist anti-society like the OP, but I think we could stand to learn to love nature and tone down the "civilizing" a bit.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Links, plz. I shall judge for myself.

Youre being pretty aggro tonight buster. Nonetheless.

article (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wolfi-landstreicher-a-critique-not-a-program-for-a-non-primitivist-anti-civilization-critique)

articles in plural (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/topics/anti-civ)

[Remus Bleys]

You are easily the most hostile person I've seen on this forum...
What a silly criticism.

How can you say fuck nature? Nature is not, despite your post, the cause of pain, terror, abuse, rape, or despair.
If we mean nature to include animals, weather, earthquakes etc then it is.

It does cause some death and even some sickness, but it also brings us a wide array of joys.
what are joys

If you actually believe that "All horrible things are natural" then you need to reevaluate quite a bit.isnt everything natural? therefore horrible things are natural


Rape is caused by peopleso like animals don't rape eachother. thank you for clearing that up.

terror is a state of mindso if like a shark is attacking you you feel no terror. state of mind is also "natural" feelings. Why do you think you have that?

abuse is in no way a product of the natural earthare you serious?

despair is also a mindsetsee above


I'm not a primitivist anti-society like the OP, but I think we could stand to learn to love nature and tone down the "civilizing" a bit.
humanization of nature naturalization of man.

to the op the terrible diseases are caused by the fact people have more time to ponder this stuff, better diagnoses, and overdiagnosed. IF you are in a hunter gatherer society i highly doubt anyone would take your depression seriously (and thats not to act as if depression is nothing - it is, and the fact civilziation can acknowledge that shows its beneficial aspects)

[Sabot Cat]

I suppose the definition of nature needs to be addressed; I define it as the totality of all material things and physical processes, synonymous with 'the universe'. As a materialist, physicalist, and substance monist who doubts the truth of the many-world interpretation of quantum physics, I also find it evident that the universe is functionally equivalent to all of parsimoniously inferred existence.

Furthermore, to qualify if nature or the universe is good or bad overall, we have to ask ourselves if its processes are more detrimental or beneficial for all people. On one hand, all happiness derives from things within nature, but so do all of the things that make us suffer. On the other hand, if we are to evaluate the universe as a moral actor "who chose" to do the things that it does and will do (as predicted by physicists), then we can find that it is the greatest evil known if the various ultimate fates which will not only wipe out all life, but make any life impossible to exist, come to pass. This is only if it does not provide us the tools to prevent such a scenario; if we can sustain ourselves in perpetuity, or if even greater heights of happiness are somehow attained through a cyclic model of cosmology being bore out by the facts, then the universe would be the greatest good to exist. However, if we canvass either of these possible futures, or simply the present against the fact that most of the universe is inhabitable, and that most of the Earth is as well for humans, it can at least be afforded that an anthropomorphic nature does not have our happiness 'in mind', while the presently insurmountable obstacle of death suggests that the universe through its processes are fundamentally omnicidal, and hence, evil.

To use an analogy: if we consider parents who murder their children evil despite originally making their happiness possible in the first place, we should view nature (if we are looking at it through the lense of human ethics) as evil as well.

[Queen Mab]

Meh. When I read about hunter-gatherer societies in Tanzania today I kinda wish I was rather with them instead of living my relatively privileged European life. Their existence seems more humane.

I'm far from a primitivist, but let's at least realise that 'civilisation' was a disaster for many people, women especially. And societies that were 'civilised' by force.

[Rafiq]

You are easily the most hostile person I've seen on this forum...

How can you say fuck nature? Nature is not, despite your post, the cause of pain, terror, abuse, rape, or despair. It does cause some death and even some sickness, but it also brings us a wide array of joys. If you actually believe that "All horrible things are natural" then you need to reevaluate quite a bit.

Rape is caused by people
terror is a state of mind
abuse is in no way a product of the natural earth
despair is also a mindset

I'm not a primitivist anti-society like the OP, but I think we could stand to learn to love nature and tone down the "civilizing" a bit.

Everything we strive for is in correlation with moving farther away from nature. We as a species defied nature and for that, we are the only primates who are not damned to the infinite cycle of the alpha male. As we violate the laws of nature, we will bring forth Communism, and should nature so much as obstruct our view of a new world, as it will, we will annihilate it until the very word is unrecognizable. We will impose Communism like a religion upon every corner of the Earth, and all soldiers of our cause will lose their roots and no matter where they reside they will be indistinguishable. To hell with those who rule by the laws of nature, to hell with that which reigns supreme by natural providence. By divine providence, the divinity of the revolution, we will raze from the Earth the 'laws of nature' until the enemy has nothing to cower behind. Better the destruction of the entire human species than to sit passively, accepting our fates.

[A Psychological Symphony]

What a silly criticism.


It wasn't a criticism it was an observation, but don't get too upset you're a close second



If we mean nature to include animals, weather, earthquakes etc then it is.


animals, weather, and earthquakes are the causes of pain, terror, abuse, rape and despair? thank you for clearing that up.



what are joys


It's indescribable, but I'm not that surprised that you don't know



isnt everything natural? therefore horrible things are natural


no, everything is not natural. If it was then this thread wouldn't exist



so like animals don't rape each other. thank you for clearing that up.


Getting consent for sex is a social construct. I am not advocating getting rid of the social construct of consent, but I am saying that the idea of rape is in itself unnatural.



so if like a shark is attacking you you feel no terror. state of mind is also "natural" feelings. Why do you think you have that?
are you serious?
see above


Because shark attacks are so common? :laugh:

other animals sometimes come into conflict with humans, and it can be upsetting. yes you are very right, congrats. If you want to play "Biology is nature and therefor nature is suffering" then yes you are right once again. Nature is literally the cause of pain, and fright, and hunger, and thirst, and being tired, and having to itch, and needing to use the restroom, and even being alive.

[A Psychological Symphony]

Everything we strive for is in correlation with moving farther away from nature. We as a species defied nature and for that, we are the only primates who are not damned to the infinite cycle of the alpha male. As we violate the laws of nature, we will bring forth Communism, and should nature so much as obstruct our view of a new world, as it will, we will annihilate it until the very word is unrecognizable. We will impose Communism like a religion upon every corner of the Earth, and all soldiers of our cause will lose their roots and no matter where they reside they will be indistinguishable. To hell with those who rule by the laws of nature, to hell with that which reigns supreme by natural providence. By divine providence, the divinity of the revolution, we will raze from the Earth the 'laws of nature' until the enemy has nothing to cower behind. Better the destruction of the entire human species than to sit passively, accepting our fates.

This is absurd. There is a balance between nature and humanization that needs to be found. Destroying the natural world to make way for your newfound idea of society is beyond unfair to the natural world itself.

[Remus Bleys]

It wasn't a criticism it was an observation, but don't get too upset you're a close second thanks for the rate:wub:


animals, weather, and earthquakes are the causes of pain, terror, abuse, rape and despair? thank you for clearing that up.
so you don't think that animals rape each other? you don't htink that earthquakes, snowstorms, tornadoes cause pain or suffering, or instill terror?



It's indescribable, but I'm not that surprised that you don't know:wub:
no seriously how can you say that joy is only the result of nature and then say suffering isnt. You see the divide right?


no, everything is not natural. If it was then this thread wouldn't exist
so i see we are on a supernatural device fueled by magic


Getting consent for sex is a social construct. I am not advocating getting rid of the social construct of consent, but I am saying that the idea of rape is in itself unnatural.
then we are talkingabout to different things



Because shark attacks are so common? :laugh:hey man it was an example i thought off at the top of my head. don't be a dick, huh? wouldnt this instill terror within you?


other animals sometimes come into conflict with humans, and it can be upsetting. yes you are very right, congrats. If you want to play "Biology is nature and therefor nature is suffering" then yes you are right once again. Nature is literally the cause of pain, and fright, and hunger, and thirst, and being tired, and having to itch, and needing to use the restroom, and even being alive.
im talking more a bout animals and other animals, humans and animals. I don't know how you can say that nature isn't the cause of these ills even if you (sarcastically, but what can one expect?) admit it now?
edit bear mauling would've been a better example.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

This is absurd. There is a balance between nature and humanization that needs to be found. Destroying the natural world to make way for your newfound idea of society is beyond unfair to the natural world itself.

It's not necessarily "unfair," moreso stupid and unsustainable. I also think this nature vs unnature is a silly thing.

[A Psychological Symphony]

so you don't think that animals rape each other? you don't htink that earthquakes, snowstorms, tornadoes cause pain or suffering, or instill terror?


They do, I never said that nature doesn't cause distress. The post I initially replied to said that Nature IS suffering, pain, etc. I disagreed; it has its downsides as does anything.



:wub:
no seriously how can you say that joy is only the result of nature and then say suffering isnt. You see the divide right?


Now I'm starting to think you just misunderstood me. I didn't mean that all joy comes from nature or that no suffering is caused by nature. I'm aware it does both, but I was responding to someone who said "Fuck nature" and went on to seemingly blame it for all of life's problems.



so i see we are on a supernatural device fueled by magic


This device was made with components that somewhere way back in the line were natural, but it itself is not a natural creation.



then we are talkingabout to different things


Then I guess we are



hey man it was an example i thought off at the top of my head. don't be a dick, huh? wouldnt this instill terror within you?


It would instill terror I suppose, and natural things can be terrifying, but nature is not terror, it is so much more than that.



im talking more a bout animals and other animals, humans and animals. I don't know how you can say that nature isn't the cause of these ills even if you (sarcastically, but what can one expect?) admit it now?

Nature does not cause the suffering, that's like blaming the sun for dehydration. That was my point.



Is there an easier way to quote someone in this way without having to retype the [QUOTE ] thing every time?

[BIXX]

Civilization is collapsing in on itself. We hire all these different politicians of different beliefs, but the root of the problem is civilization itself.

Aside from anything environmentally, it's just plain bad for our health. Obviously civilization made our life spans a lot longer, but on a spiritual level we are struggling. There are more mental health issues than ever. And although I have no scientific backing, I feel as if civilization is the reason why. What happened to being creatures on Earth just like everything else in existence? Since when did we become above the rest of creation?

I myself am anti-civ, but this post hurt to read.

More later. If I remember.

[Rafiq]

This is absurd. There is a balance between nature and humanization that needs to be found. Destroying the natural world to make way for your newfound idea of society is beyond unfair to the natural world itself.

The paradigm of "fairness" is not owed to the natural world, so to hell with it. What is the natural world? It is the void that the ruling classes legitimize themselves with. We must desolate its very foundations.

[Einkarl]

"Natural" is a word with no substance. Everything is natural. Including all the chemicals, and harmful gases released into the atmosphere. Hell even modes of production are natural. I don't see why humans are automatically separate from nature. There isn't a single thing in the universe that is unnatural; that would be absurd.




Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit. so much edge :laugh:

[Rafiq]

Humans are separate from nature, it is where the very word is derived from, that which has been untouched by the endeavors of man.

To claim that it is stupid and unsustainable, what exactly are we trying to sustain? A world of slavery and misery? If it cannot be replaced, it must be destroyed.

[Rafiq]

Our very existence was born from disorder in the balance of nature, we are nature's bastards. Nature does not possess this inherent justice, it is a blank and empty void waiting to be defiled by the will of man. While many suffer and toil in slavery and misery, idly does nature watch. Women, deprived of their essence because to their masters the laws of nature have made it so. The laws of nature, what cack! There are no laws of nature, there is only the tongue of the class enemy. When the ruling classes of all nations tremble before a victorious proletariat, idly will nature watch. When nature itself is consumed by the revolution, it will meet our flames with docility and indifference. Nature is nothing, it is only what humans attribute it.

[A Psychological Symphony]

The paradigm of "fairness" is not owed to the natural world, so to hell with it. What is the natural world? It is the void that the ruling classes legitimize themselves with. We must desolate its very foundations.

please explain this more so I can have a more clear reason to facepalm


Humans are separate from nature, it is where the very word is derived from, that which has been untouched by the endeavors of man.

To claim that it is stupid and unsustainable, what exactly are we trying to sustain? A world of slavery and misery? If it cannot be replaced, it must be destroyed.

How is nature equal to a world of slavery and misery?

the bold part is arguably the worst possible life outlook I have ever seen


Our very existence was born from disorder in the balance of nature, we are nature's bastards. Nature does not possess this inherent justice, it is a blank and empty void waiting to be defiled by the will of man. While many suffer and toil in slavery and misery, idly does nature watch. Women, deprived of their essence because to their masters the laws of nature have made it so. The laws of nature, what cack! There are no laws of nature, there is only the tongue of the class enemy. When the ruling classes of all nations tremble before a victorious proletariat, idly will nature watch. When nature itself is consumed by the revolution, it will meet our flames with docility and indifference. Nature is nothing, it is only what humans attribute it.

What a glorious revolution that sounds like! burn the whole planet down! It is nothing; humans are gods! DESTROY BURN DESTROY BURN!

[Sabot Cat]

Rafiq, I don't think the the rise of black holes in almost every part of the universe or cosmic heat death will be stayed by the hand of the proletariat unless we make (presently inconceivable) breakthroughs in physics.

[bill]

I agree with the anti-"nature" posters. It is a highly equivocal term.

I think "biosphere" is a word we she should be throw around a little more often.

[Illegalitarian]

Either a lot of your are so steeped in verbose Marxist-Leninist theory that it's made you pedant beyond belief or you're being thick. You know what people mean when they say "nature", come off of it.


Nature, as most people use the term, refers to the natural environment, all living (and non-living) things that exist on earth in a setting relatively untouched by humans, contrasted with the built environment which encompasses the rest of the planet, which is populated heavily by and strongly influenced by humans and human activity.


Nature is obviously important, I think, as without it humanity would sicken (as it already is) and die off in a way that our species may never recover from, not to mention that we're talking about actual living things that we're condemning to despair and death when we ignore the importance of nature. Let's not get so caught up in the almighty god-king species of us that we forget that.


We are socialists. Why? Well, I think most of us are because we highly value life, and the quality of life, and can't bare the thought of most people on earth being exploited and oppressed for the benefit of a tiny portion of humanity. It's important that we extend this same appreciation of life to all living things lest we get caught up in the sociopathic capitalistic mindset that all things mean nothing if they stand in the way of "progress".

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Humans are separate from nature, it is where the very word is derived from, that which has been untouched by the endeavors of man.


This is an idealistic conception of "nature" that separates the "rational soul" from everything else in material existence. One of the remarkable innovations of modernity is in seeking a naturalistic conception of man, which allows us to address human concerns in a more systematic and self-aware manner. You are right that nature is commonly defined in part as that which is "opposed" to man but this is a problematic definition for a number of reasons.



To claim that it is stupid and unsustainable, what exactly are we trying to sustain? A world of slavery and misery? If it cannot be replaced, it must be destroyed.We're should try to sustain something that helps sustain us. Last I checked, it's more efficient to let trees turn CO2 into Oxygen than try to use machines to do it for us - and the upshot is that people can use forests for industry, personal pleasure, recreation etc in the process. Not everything which comes from the "wild" (again I disagree with this whole man/nature dichotomy) is trying desperately to kill us.

Of course, if there's an asteroid flying towards the earth, blow it up. If there's a tiger terrorizing a village, shoot it. If there's a disease killing thousands of people, cure it. What makes "human nature" (if you will) amazing is its intelligence and its capacity for reason. It can use this to judge what is and is not harmful, and respond appropriately. Nature doesn't need to be "destroyed", it needs to be intelligently managed.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Capitalism, surely that's the problem?

The capitalist mode of production prioritises profit above all else, which means that if it is profitable to attack workers' rights, devastate the environment, and short-change the least powerful (who also tend to be the least wealthy, not coincidentally), then it will happen. Even if causing havoc isn't attractive in its own right, there are so many ways of socialising the social, environmental and political costs of business as usual while privatising the gains.


Civilization is collapsing in on itself. We hire all these different politicians of different beliefs, but the root of the problem is civilization itself.

Actually, contemporary politicians are pretty much all in agreement about capitalism. And that's part of the problem actually!


Aside from anything environmentally, it's just plain bad for our health. Obviously civilization made our life spans a lot longer, but on a spiritual level we are struggling. There are more mental health issues than ever.

Even if we are experiencing an increase in mental illness, what makes you so certain it's civilisation that's to blame and not say, stress as a result of economic insecurity?


And although I have no scientific backing, I feel as if civilization is the reason why.

So why do you feel this way?


What happened to being creatures on Earth just like everything else in existence? Since when did we become above the rest of creation?

Ever since we developed egos.

[1789]

What is this metaphysical rubbish? Spiritual? Are you some kind of religious nutter? And what is wrong with being above "creation", or rather, above nature? Fuck nature. Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.

He sounds like Ted Kaczynski.

[Sabot Cat]

This is an idealistic conception of "nature" that separates the "rational soul" from everything else in material existence. One of the remarkable innovations of modernity is in seeking a naturalistic conception of man, which allows us to address human concerns in a more systematic and self-aware manner. You are right that nature is commonly defined in part as that which is "opposed" to man but this is a problematic definition for a number of reasons. We're should try to sustain something that helps sustain us.

You hit upon a lot of the points that I wanted to address really eloquently~


Last I checked, it's more efficient to let trees turn CO2 into Oxygen than try to use machines to do it for us - and the upshot is that people can use forests for industry, personal pleasure, recreation etc in the process.


Mm, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it works differently than that: http://www.howplantswork.com/2009/02/16/plants-dont-convert-co2-into-o2/

I'm having trouble finding any good sources about this though.


Not everything which comes from the "wild" (again I disagree with this whole man/nature dichotomy) is trying desperately to kill us..

Pretty much everything but a bit of the crust of the Earth in all of the known galaxy is habitable.

[bcbm]

He sounds like Ted Kaczynski.

nah tk had a much more rational view of the issue

[tallguy]

Civilization is collapsing in on itself. We hire all these different politicians of different beliefs, but the root of the problem is civilization itself.

Aside from anything environmentally, it's just plain bad for our health. Obviously civilization made our life spans a lot longer, but on a spiritual level we are struggling. There are more mental health issues than ever. And although I have no scientific backing, I feel as if civilization is the reason why. What happened to being creatures on Earth just like everything else in existence? Since when did we become above the rest of creation?Completely agree with all of this (except the bit about "creation", I'm a Darwinist).

Civilisation is unsustainable. Wherever humans have formed civilisations, they have destroyed their environment. Time after time after time. We have overcome successive civilisational collapses by moving on and expanding into new areas. However, we have now filled very nearly every scrap of usable land on the planet. We have even managed to make otherwise unsuitable environments possible to inhabit via the one time draw-down of the stored solar energy of millennia. We humans, a single species, now appropriate the single biggest proportion of the annual bio-mass production of this planet for our own exclusive consumption, to the detriment of all of the rest of life on Earth. So much so, in fact, that we are, right now, living through the biggest and most rapid mass extinction event since the end of the Permian. Our global population has exploded in the last few hundred years from around five hundred million to seven billion and rising and we are now painted into a corner. Either we find a replacement for hydrocarbons, in which case we burn, or we don’t find an alternative to hydrocarbons, in which case we crash.

Global human industrial civilisation of the 21st century is Easter-Island written at the planetary level.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

As far as I see it, there are two types of primitivist.

There's real deal - that is, people who actually still practice hunter-gatherer/subsistence-style lifestyles throughout the world, from Moldavia, parts of Albania, the Eurasian Steppe and Siberia to the Congo, Kalahari and the Sahel.

And then there's extremely rich hippies in urban environments who obsess over the 'rewild' as if it's some kind of religious doctrine.

[tallguy]

As far as I see it, there are two types of primitivist.

There's real deal - that is, people who actually still practice hunter-gatherer/subsistence-style lifestyles throughout the world, from Moldavia, parts of Albania, the Eurasian Steppe and Siberia to the Congo, Kalahari and the Sahel.

And then there's extremely rich hippies in urban environments who obsess over the 'rewild' as if it's some kind of religious doctrine.
Utter, cock-walloping, disingenuous drivel.

What you have just posted is directly analogous to stating that a slave is a hypocrite for conceiving of freedom because he is doing so while not free. Or, more pertinently to this site, that a proletarian worker, who is compelled to economically operate inside a capitalist system, is a hypocrite for simultaneously conceiving of a communist one.

And, as a matter of anecdotal fact, I am an extremely skint working-class man who is as far from being a hippy, of the kind you allude to, as it is possible to be.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

You are easily the most hostile person I've seen on this forum...


:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:



How can you say fuck nature? Nature is not, despite your post, the cause of pain, terror, abuse, rape, or despair. It does cause some death and even some sickness, but it also brings us a wide array of joys. If you actually believe that "All horrible things are natural" then you need to reevaluate quite a bit.Everything terrible has its precursors in nature. Nature is blind, uncaring and violent, murderous and deadly. A child dying of disease is natural. Starvation is natural. Injustice is natural. Of course all things are natural that exist in the natural world, but this desire to remove the natural is a desire to improve objective life.


Rape is caused by peopleOh? Animals do not violate each other? What of the male ducks that violate their female kin, and the certainly less than consenting mating rituals observed in dolphins? And those are far from the only ones. Although obviously most animal mating rituals are of dubious consent (the male white shark will attach itself to the female by biting her pectoral fins during mating), there is no shortage of violation and blind abuse of this sort. But the point is that it is stupid as fuck to think something is good or acceptable because it is "natural", and it is based on this flawed view of noble wilderness, noble savages (just look at a certain post below yours for a good example of this mentality that permeate the left, 'I was watching these hunter-gatherers... they are so much closer to mother earth and the spiritzzz...' for a good example of this daftness).



no, everything is not natural. If it was then this thread wouldn't existThis thread is natural. It is made from electric currents in the machinations of our brains, typed out through the electronic signals of computers made from mined resources of the earth. It's all natural.


despair is also a mindsetDespair is the rational reaction to the injustice and suffering of the world.


This device was made with components that somewhere way back in the line were natural, but it itself is not a natural creation.Of course it is, it was made by humans, and we're natural. Every-thing's natural.


This is absurd. There is a balance between nature and humanization that needs to be found. Destroying the natural world to make way for your newfound idea of society is beyond unfair to the natural world itself. That isn't what it entails, you imbecile. The divorce of humanity from the machinations does not entail the destruction of nature as-such; it concerns the destruction of nature as-it-affects humanity; age, disease, so on. To destroy nature would be counter-productive; we benefit from nature, and we must be the responsible caretakers of it; but we do not want to live in it, as it; our cities shan't be little huts in the wilderness; shall instead be physically divorced from nature, as much for human development as for nature's preservation and management.

Nature is blind and uncaring; and blind and uncaring is always more sinister than evil intent. By divorcing ourselves from it, we transcend its limitations. The planet turns on its axle in the dark, another species perish. A rock left-over in orbit is disturbed, hurled to the centre of the universe, slams into the earth, casts debris into the sky, a permanent night for weeks, months, years, maybe hundreds of years. The fragments reflect the solar radiation, lighting fires across continents. Nature is indifference, nature is anti-human; the response is anti-nature.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Utter, cock-walloping, disingenuous drivel.

What you have just posted is directly analogous to stating that a slave is a hypocrite for conceiving of freedom because he is doing so while not free. Or, more pertinently to this site, that a proletarian worker, who is compelled to economically operate inside a capitalist system, is a hypocrite for simultaneously conceiving of a communist one.

The analogy is rather poor. Communism is necessarily a global system - "communism in one community" is nonsense. This is not the case for the hunter-gatherer mode of production. It would be quite possible for primitivist groups to pool their funds, buy a somewhat large tract of land, and live as they imagine "primitive" humans did. Yet no one seems to be interested. Why is that, I wonder?


I'm far from a primitivist, but let's at least realise that 'civilisation' was a disaster for many people, women especially. And societies that were 'civilised' by force.

Now that you mention women, how do primitivists propose to provide safe, effective abortion to the women in their "rewilded" societies? With sharpened sticks? Literally poisonous herbs? What about contraception? What about housework, what about pregnancy and birth? What about sex reassignment surgery (of course, many primitivists are outright transphobes - being trans* is, after all, not "natural")? These are just some of the things the primitivists and "anti-civ" people ought to address - but as far as I know, they haven't, which is understandable given that most of the "movement" is composed of bored dudebros like Feral Faun.

[Illegalitarian]

As far as I see it, there are two types of primitivist.

There's real deal - that is, people who actually still practice hunter-gatherer/subsistence-style lifestyles throughout the world, from Moldavia, parts of Albania, the Eurasian Steppe and Siberia to the Congo, Kalahari and the Sahel.

And then there's extremely rich hippies in urban environments who obsess over the 'rewild' as if it's some kind of religious doctrine.

Eh, I disagree with the latter entirely. This is the same sort of logic used by capital sympathizers who say "oooh you care SO much about the exploited working class as you type on your laptop made by their labor!" It's inherently flawed logic to think that, because we participate in a near-inescapable global system, that we're hypocrites for criticizing it. Not that I'm a primitivist.



I think Primitivists are Green Anarchists who have identified the problem but fell flat with the solution.


The way civilization operates is a big, unsustainable problem for a variety of reasons. OK, so the solution is to destroy it and go back to living like indigenous peoples? There are certainly admirable and desirable traits in the hunter-gatherer life style, but why do we have to keep the bathwater to keep the baby? Why can't we live in small, regional communities that work very close in cooperation to provide and take care of one another without having to do away with technology, something that, in the right hands, could be used to make sure all other life on earth lives undisturbed and unexploited while making sure humanity does well on the whole too?

The cooperative nature and relatively stressless, sustainable, easy lifestyle of most hunter-gatherer societies is what's desired. I don't think we literally have to go back to the grass hut and loin cloth for that.



Oh? Animals do not violate each other? What of the male ducks that violate their female kin, and the certainly less than consenting mating rituals observed in dolphins? And those are far from the only ones. Although obviously most animal mating rituals are of dubious consent (the male white shark will attach itself to the female by biting her pectoral fins during mating), there is no shortage of violation and blind abuse of this sort. But the point is that it is stupid as fuck to think something is good or acceptable because it is "natural", and it is based on this flawed view of noble wilderness, noble savages (just look at a certain post below yours for a good example of this mentality that permeate the left, 'I was watching these hunter-gatherers... they are so much closer to mother earth and the spiritzzz...' for a good example of this daftness).

Anthropomorphizing animals is kind of a shitty thing to do, you know. Certainly hunter-gatherer life isn't all sunshine and happiness but the notion that "noble savage is bad because there is nothing noble about savages!" is kind of awful.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Eh, I disagree with the latter entirely. This is the same sort of logic used by capital sympathizers who say "oooh you care SO much about the exploited working class as you type on your laptop made by their labor!" It's inherently flawed logic to think that, because we participate in a near-inescapable global system, that we're hypocrites for criticizing it. Not that I'm a primitivist.

Once again, "primitive" economies are not global in nature. A hunter-gatherer band need not be concerned, literally, with what goes on over the next hill. This is obviously not the case with capitalism, which operates on the level of a global market.


The way civilization operates is a big, unsustainable problem for a variety of reasons. OK, so the solution is to destroy it and go back to living like indigenous peoples? There are certainly admirable and desirable traits in the hunter-gatherer life style, but why do we have to keep the bathwater to keep the baby? Why can't we live in small, regional communities that work very close in cooperation to provide and take care of one another without having to do away with technology, something that, in the right hands, could be used to make sure all other life on earth lives undisturbed and unexploited while making sure humanity does well on the whole too?

How would "small, regional communities" (many people who make a fetish out of "small communities" have never lived in one - it tends to be irritating) organize the large-scale production necessary for a technological civilization?

[Slavic]

Mm, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it works differently than that: http://www.howplantswork.com/2009/02/16/plants-dont-convert-co2-into-o2/


Arg science.

Specifically you are correct, plants do not turn CO2 into O2. The O2 is produced from H2O, and the carbon from CO2 is used to form the carbon chains of sugars. So yes, plants don't turn CO2 into O2, but if they don't intake CO2 they will die so no O2 will be produced. Either way his example still works.

[Queen Mab]

Who knew that the bitterest thread I've seen on Revleft would be about nature?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Perhaps a more interesting question would be why certain indigenous communities chose to remain in "nature" or the "wild" (if they have the power) as opposed to taking modern medicine and technology. Bushmen for instance have resisted being moved by the government to cities, though the government forces them to do it to build mines and tourist reserves. The same has happened in Indian indigenous communities where bauxite development is occurring. Some Amazonian tribes have sought to avoid contact with the rest of man altogether, as have the people on Sentinel Island (who go so far as to kill any outsider who tries to come).

Interestingly, being on the bottom of the system of wage labor leads to shorter life spans, less happiness, less personal freedom and more economic exploitation. Unfortunately for those people however, their traditional hunting/gathering/farming grounds have become economically desirable for major businesses and therefore those Bushmen "need" to be relocated. In "civilization" they just run into wage slavery, AIDS and poverty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24821867


Botswana Bushmen: Modern life is destroying us

By Pumza Fihlani BBC News, New Xade, Botswana http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70929000/jpg/_70929241_dsc_0567.jpg When the Bushmen were relocated they were given cattle or goats to encourage them to become herders
Continue reading the main story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24821867#story_continues_1) Related Stories



Botswana Bushmen win court battle (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12300285)
Botswana anger at diamond boycott (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11685932)
Can Botswana cash in on diamonds? Watch (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23627979)


The Kalahari sun is merciless: Two young women and two children little more than a year old are huddled under the only tree in the yard to escape the baking heat.
We are in New Xade, a resettlement camp an hour's drive from the nearest town, Ghanzi, in western Botswana.
It is the new home of the Basarwa - Kalahari Bushmen, southern Africa's first inhabitants and yet they do not take much pleasure in this honour.
Sisters Boitumelo Lobelo, 25, and Goiotseone Lobelo, 21, are kneeling in front of a basin of dirty water, washing their children's clothes.
Their eyes fill with anger when they speak of their life here, a desolate village half a day's drive from their original home, which is now part of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70929000/png/_70929727_picture1.png Boitumelo (L) and Goiotseone Lobelo (R) do not enjoy their new lives
"I miss my home and the way we lived. Life was easy, there were lots of fruits, animals and there were no bars and no beer. Now we are lost," says Goiotseone.
They have been to visit a number of times since they were evicted but are not allowed to stay there any more.
When they were aged nine and five respectively, Boitumelo and Goiotseone were moved to New Xade with their parents.
They speak fondly of life in the reserve, where they would wake up every morning and join the women in the village in collecting berries, nuts and roots to eat.
But Goiotseone also remembers the day they were forced to leave.
Continue reading the main story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24821867#story_continues_2) Who are the Bushmen?



Original inhabitants of southern Africa - pushed out by both Bantu groups coming from further north and European colonisers
Now, just 100,000 left - mostly in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia
Traditionally lived by hunting wild animals and gathering fruits and nuts
Divided into several linguistic groups
Some find the term Bushmen offensive but this group say that is what they prefer to be called
Also called San, Basarwa and Khoisan - some of these terms are also seen as derogatory


"The police came, destroyed our homes and dumped us in the back of trucks with our belongings and brought us here. They dumped us here like we are nothing," she tells the BBC.
These two are the new generation of Basarwa: they go to school and have learned English and the Tswana language, the most widely spoken in the country.
But they say this new life has come at too high a price.
"We are getting Aids and other diseases we didn't know about; young people are drinking alcohol; young girls are having babies. Everything is wrong here," Boitumelo says.
Thousands of Bushmen lived in the vast expanse of the Kalahari Desert for many millennia.
But today most have been moved, many argue forcibly, to government-built resettlement camps far from the reserve.
There are an estimated 100,000 Bushmen across southern Africa, mainly in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia.
While some people find the term Bushmen offensive, this is what this group of people prefer to be called.
Battle lines The Botswana Bushmen have been at odds with the country's government for more than 15 years, embroiled in several legal battles over their right to live inside the game park - and to continue their traditional lifestyle as hunter-gatherers.
At some point they were denied access to water in the reserve. Their boreholes were capped and they were banned from drilling more.
The Botswana Appeals Court, in a 2011 judgment on the matter, described the plight of the Bushmen as a "harrowing story of human suffering and despair" and ruled that they be allowed access to water.
Today many say court orders in their favour have been ignored by officials. They need permits to enter the reserve and are not allowed to hunt. Those found hunting face arrest.
But why were they relocated?
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72068000/jpg/_72068814_botswana_game_reserve_map_464.jpg
The government says the restriction of people on the land is intended to preserve the wildlife and the ecosystems of the vast reserve, which is slightly bigger than Denmark.
But human rights groups and the Bushmen believe the real reason is more sinister.
Mining is one of Botswana's key industries, with diamond mining the leading source of revenue.
Continue reading the main story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24821867#story_continues_3) “Start Quote

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70929000/jpg/_70929731_dsc_0560.jpg
We are now dependant on government hand-outs: we are being made lazy and stupid”
Roy Sesana
The ancestral lands of the Bushmen lie in the middle of the world's richest diamond field. They believe they were relocated to make way for a multimillion dollar mining project.
A London-listed diamond producer has begun plans for production about 45km (28 miles) from the eastern border of the reserve.
Construction of the first phase of the project began in 2011, with the first output expected later this year.
The government has always denied that there is a link between the relocations and the diamond deposits, first discovered in the 1980s.
The state has provided some amenities in the resettlement camps: There are clinics, schools and concrete houses in fenced-up yards - all part of a plan to modernise this community.
But modern life does not work for everyone: The Basarwa have built huts in their yards, as a reminder of happier times and their traditional lives.
Changing lifestyles http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70929000/jpg/_70929237_dsc_0571.jpg The Bushmen have always been hunters and say they have never learned the skills needed to breed cattle
Unemployment is high and this community has no expertise to speak of, or at least none that they can use in the outside world.
The village's liquor shop has no shortage of customers. It is not uncommon to see young men stumbling out of local watering holes in the mid-afternoon.
It is not just living and social conditions that are proving problematic.
Hundreds of cows and their herders are resting under thorn trees preparing for a 5km-walk (three miles) to the nearest grazing patch.
When the Bushmen were relocated, each family was given five cattle or goats to encourage them to become farmers.
But being pastoralists has had its challenges.
"If you push somebody to a certain kind of lifestyle that he doesn't know, he will be facing a lot of difficulties," says one bushman farmer, Jumanda Galekebone.
"Our people don't know how to look after the cows when they get sick, they don't know about diseases of cattle like foot and mouth disease," he explains.
His peers agree, so there under the thorn trees, surrounded by cattle who could do with some fattening up, they tell me that they want to go home.
They say modern life has not worked for them.
"This life hasn't improved any of their lives. We still get a lot of people going inside the park to hunt and they get arrested. Some of us here are facing court penalties for hunting. It just proves that you can't force change on people," says Mr Galekebone.
But it appears that the Bushmen have no choice but to change, to adapt - at least as far as the latest government plans reveal.
Out of touch? Some believe that the Bushmen's way of life does not belong in modern Botswana society.
Some officials have referred to them as "remote area dwellers", a "Stone-Age" people who should be pulled into the 21st Century.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70929000/jpg/_70929239_dsc_0587.jpg Some fear that traditional Bushman culture would be reserved for tourists
In 2006, another court ruled that the government's refusal to allow the Basarwa into the CKGR was unconstitutional.
A handful have been allowed by officials to return to the park but only those whose names appeared in the court papers.
Roy Sesana, a community leader, is one of them.
But he says he does not enjoy the victory. He now lives between CKGR and New Xade to be close to his family and his people, he tells me.
"We have been separated from our children and our wives. What kind of life is this? We didn't do anything to deserve this," he says.
Mr Sesana was one of the main applicants in a number of cases against the government.
For a people who have spent most of their lives roaming the land freely, hunting wild animals and gathering berries and nuts for food, this place offers them no chance to live off the land.
"We are used to feeding ourselves - now dependant on government hand-outs, we are being made lazy and stupid," says Mr Sesana.
"Now we are being treated like dogs. The dog is the only thing that can't bring its own food home. It has to wait for its owner to give it some food."
International human rights groups are calling for a boycott of Botswana's tourism industry, its second largest revenue generator until the government "stops persecuting the country's first inhabitants".
President Ian Khama, who is seen as more subtle when it comes to managing the Bushmen situation, has announced that hunting in controlled areas would be outlawed by January 2014.
"The decision was necessitated by available scientific based information indicating that several wildlife species are in decline," Mr Khama told parliament.
He said the Bushmen would be taught "non-consumptive" ways of using their resources.
But the Bushmen argue that their years of living in harmony with the environment prove that their ways are ecologically sustainable.
They say instead that this move is an attempt to do away with their culture.
"The only place where you find Bushmen now in our traditional clothes surrounded by traditional huts is in the local tourism villages," says Mr Sesana.
"We are worried that in the future, there will be no-one who would be able to practice the Bushman culture unless they are parading in front of tourist for companies who are using them for business," he says.
So in a sense I think it's good to be critical of a certain petit bourgeois worship of nature but we shouldn't take the view of a paternalist when it comes to communities who really do live a lifestyle outside of what is normally viewed as "civilization". There are very good reasons why some communities stay outside of the "civilized world" that make a lot of sense from within their material context, and a lot of it has to do with (1) the way capitalism views/interacts with "nature" (2) the way capitalism views/interacts with their labor and (3) their alienation from political and economic mechanisms. That's one of the motivations for another society of course - one which does not diametrically oppose modernity and nature, reduce a person's worth to the surplus value they produce and forcefully alienate people from their world.


You hit upon a lot of the points that I wanted to address really eloquently~


Thankyou



Mm, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it works differently than that: http://www.howplantswork.com/2009/02/16/plants-dont-convert-co2-into-o2/

I'm having trouble finding any good sources about this though.
Ah that takes me back to the days of high school bio. You're right, although from the standpoint of the animal kingdom, the absorption of water is kind of secondary to the destruction of CO2 and the creation of oxygen. Even if the O2 comes from the water, I guess we don't care since we are more concerned with global warming and breathing than the actual (far more complex) chemical cycle.



Pretty much everything but a bit of the crust of the Earth in all of the known galaxy is habitable.Yeah although it's quite rare for things outside to pose an existential threat to that little bit of crust. Every now and again there's a super volcano, asteroid or cosmic ray but for the most part life has managed to thrive, change and evolve for some 4 billion years on the same planet (or two planets according to some theories which say life was shared between Marx and Earth)


Either a lot of your are so steeped in verbose Marxist-Leninist theory that it's made you pedant beyond belief or you're being thick. You know what people mean when they say "nature", come off of it.


Nature, as most people use the term, refers to the natural environment, all living (and non-living) things that exist on earth in a setting relatively untouched by humans, contrasted with the built environment which encompasses the rest of the planet, which is populated heavily by and strongly influenced by humans and human activity.

The problem is that this definition of nature is only really coherent. First off, there's nothing left on earth that isn't shaped by man. Even national parks are shaped by man. Indigenous people have shaped nature in many ways too - something recent archaeology has shown. And we are shaped by nature - our desire to overcome suffering, the food that we eat, the food that is healthy for us, our motivations behind eating unhealthy food, and so on - all aspects of our behavior are shaped by nature.

[ArisVelouxiotis]

What is this metaphysical rubbish? Spiritual? Are you some kind of religious nutter? And what is wrong with being above "creation", or rather, above nature? Fuck nature. Nature is sickness, suffering, pain, terror, abuse, rape, mutilation, death, despair. All horrible things are natural. Nature must be conquered, enslaved, subjugated, controlled and managed for our and all things benefit.

Well that escalated quickly...

[Illegalitarian]

The problem is that this definition of nature is only really coherent. First off, there's nothing left on earth that isn't shaped by man. Even national parks are shaped by man. Indigenous people have shaped nature in many ways too - something recent archaeology has shown. And we are shaped by nature - our desire to overcome suffering, the food that we eat, the food that is healthy for us, our motivations behind eating unhealthy food, and so on - all aspects of our behavior are shaped by nature.


Relatively untouched by man. As in, it hasn't been clipped and stripped and industrialized, being heavily populated by humans. Ecosystems that are still, for the most part, undisturbed and uninterrupted by large-scale human activity. That is the ecological definition, anyways, and a fair one imo.


Unless we're now talking about nature in the sense of all phenomena that encompasses the physical world, but I think such a definition is too encompassing to really have much a place in a discussion that's clearly referencing the natural environment.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Perhaps a more interesting question would be why certain indigenous communities chose to remain in "nature" or the "wild" (if they have the power) as opposed to taking modern medicine and technology.

What the fuck is surprising about that, you fuck? People are disposed to avoiding change if they can, so precisely, why would they change? For the better, for the worse, people often cling to traditions and their surroundings no matter what.


Interestingly, being on the bottom of the system of wage labor leads to shorter life spans, less happiness, less personal freedom and more economic exploitation. Unfortunately for those people however, their traditional hunting/gathering/farming grounds have become economically desirable for major businesses and therefore those Bushmen "need" to be relocated. In "civilization" they just run into wage slavery, AIDS and poverty.

Even the immense poverty of the early industrialisation was an improvement in the objective from what preceded it. Child labour is systemic not only in capitalism but in many pre-industrial society. Do you really believe the children are not required to take part in the gathering of food or farming in those communities? A struggle to survive that is not much different from wage-slavery, yet somehow that is particularly objectionable to you, apparently.

[ArisVelouxiotis]

Is fuck the only word you know?I havent seen a single post by you that you dont swear or be condescending.Do you feel so much better if you do that?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Is fuck the only word you know?I havent seen a single post by you that you dont swear or be condescending.Do you feel so much better if you do that?

Not really. Nothing makes me feel better. Is fuck the only word I use? Or is it the only word you can read?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

What the fuck is surprising about that, you fuck? People are disposed to avoiding change if they can, so precisely, why would they change? For the better, for the worse, people often cling to traditions and their surroundings no matter what.


So much anger and so little concern for reading what I actually wrote. Who said anything about finding something "surprising"? What I'm concerned with here is not just giving some naive view of why a community might prefer a certain hunter gatherer society, but whether or not such communities might see actual real costs behind entering modern society. I don't think that they are so dumb and ignorant as to be unaware of the consequences of modernity.

Yeah sure people resist change because they don't know what it might bring, but there's obviously so much more than that going on in many of these cases, as can be seen from the actual lowering of life expectancies, spread of alcoholism and foreign diseases. It's not just all cultural conservatism from traditional people, that's a very simplistic way of thinking about the issue even if it is a factor.

My desire is for a modernity that such communities would want to enter of their own volition when they look objectively upon its benefits, not one imposed by some Capitalist government desiring to open up the Kalahari desert for foreign mining interests. Or one which does not alienate them from political and economic power, leaving them exposed to sickness or economic exploitation.



Even the immense poverty of the early industrialisation was an improvement in the objective from what preceded it. Child labour is systemic not only in capitalism but in many pre-industrial society. Do you really believe the children are not required to take part in the gathering of food or farming in those communities? A struggle to survive that is not much different from wage-slavery, yet somehow that is particularly objectionable to you, apparently.I'm not making any moral claims about finding anything "objectionable". You're the one bringing up child labor, not me. The point I'm making, which you seem to be missing, is that many societies (not ALL but many) actually see a lowering of living standards with their inclusion in modern capitalist civilization, at least for a few generations. Those costs are NOT essential to "modernity" as such but ARE often brought along with modern Capitalism because of the way that the ruling elites view land, indigenous people and natural resources.

If you didn't notice, I'm not trying to criticize "civilization" or say that hunter gatherer societies are in any way preferrable, I'm trying to point out some of the motivations behind why some groups of people don't find modernity as it is constituted today to be a "progressive" force for them. You didn't actually address any of the concerns mentioned by the Bushmen, like increasing rates of AIDS, alcoholism, longer working hours, the need to compete in a marketplace for which they lack any necessary skills, and other social costs.

This isn't exactly a "new" phenomenon. Forced inclusion into "modern" society had a devastating impact on numerous indigenous communities, because it was not done with any concern for bringing superior services and resources but for exploiting the land and labor. When modernity comes through force alone it doesn't bring with it the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in a modern society. Alcoholism, lowering life expectancy and poverty also came to Native American tribes for the same reason - not because modern medicine, roads and means of production are bad, but because of the way that Capitalism introduces these benefits to people unfamiliar with them. It views those people as cheap labor at best, and as wholly expendable at worst (as they lack any skills that could make them valuable). It's easy to blame indigenous people for resisting modernity out of ignorance or because people just "don't like" change (there of course IS some truth to the latter) but it's not a very interesting explanation, especially in light of the fact that there ARE some communities which willingly enter modern "civilization". Why is there a difference? Is it really just cultural or psychological? Some of them are those that benefit from it, and there are others (like indigenous communities in Colombia) who are doing it because violence is driving them from their home villages.

I guess you're more concerned with getting aggro to anyone you perceive as a "primitivist" than actually addressing the concerns I raised. Which is weird because I'm not a primitivist and I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying. All I want to do is have a mature discussion over actual communities that have had some negative costs associated with the spread of modern technology.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

So much anger and so little concern for reading what I actually wrote. Who said anything about finding something "surprising"? What I'm concerned with here is not just giving some naive view of why a community might prefer a certain hunter gatherer society, but whether or not such communities might see actual real costs behind entering modern society. I don't think that they are so dumb and ignorant as to be unaware of the consequences of modernity.

Yeah sure people resist change because they don't know what it might bring, but there's obviously so much more than that going on in many of these cases, as can be seen from the actual lowering of life expectancies, spread of alcoholism and foreign diseases. It's not just all cultural conservatism from traditional people, that's a very simplistic way of thinking about the issue even if it is a factor.


It was implied child labour was something introduced by this "modernism" as if it was a foreign agent to pre-industrial societies. But at any rate, whether they see real costs or not is irrelevant. I don't think they would have to be "dumb" to be unaware of what modernity entails, this would depend on what sort of contact they have had, wouldn't it? If they have had none, they wouldn't possibly known aside from internal conjecture which would necessarily be limited, and if they had some form of limited outside contact, then surely they could paint some image, but would it be accurate?

The problem is that there is no such thing as a community and all those societies, much like the present society must be destroyed. Perpetuating their children in their own images, traditions passed on like hereditary disease, culture passed on like disorders. No enclave of callous hippies, at least not raising "children as their own" as if they were property, like a little brood of replicas forever doomed to perpetuate their parents folly.


My desire is for a modernity that such communities would want to enter of their own volition when they look objectively upon its benefits, not one imposed by some Capitalist government desiring to open up the Kalahari desert for foreign mining interests. Or one which does not alienate them from political and economic power, leaving them exposed to sickness or economic exploitation.

But would they want to? Let us say they would want to preserve their culture - and for the sake of argument say this was a very reactionary culture (which I know is obviously a gross oversimplification and ignores history and so on, so forth), would that be acceptable for them then to remain outside of society? We're talking a hypothetical future here, and naturally any speculation is difficult, but on principles or something. Would it then just be "paternalism" to even force their children to go to school and not labour?


I'm not making any moral claims about finding anything "objectionable".

You appeared to be treating "wage-slavery" with particular strength, as though it was worse than slavery in the forests looking for food or on a subsistence farm.


Those costs are NOT essential to "modernity" as such but ARE often brought along with modern Capitalism because of the way that the ruling elites view land, indigenous people and natural resources.

Well, I don't disagree with that in principle.


I guess you're more concerned with getting aggro to anyone you perceive as a "primitivist" than actually addressing the concerns I raised. Which is weird because I'm not a primitivist and I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying. All I want to do is have a mature discussion over actual communities that have had some negative costs associated with the spread of modern technology.

While I don't like the primmies (like bcbm and his passion for Kaczynski), it's rather your relativism that I find particularly disagreeable. This treatment of "communities" as special units that must make some sort of collective decision on behalf of their members that smells of foulness.

[Illegalitarian]

Even the immense poverty of the early industrialisation was an improvement in the objective from what preceded it. Child labour is systemic not only in capitalism but in many pre-industrial society. Do you really believe the children are not required to take part in the gathering of food or farming in those communities? A struggle to survive that is not much different from wage-slavery, yet somehow that is particularly objectionable to you, apparently.

Nah, people in hunter-gatherer societies typically had/have pretty long life spans compared to people in the industrial era, life spans comparable to what we have today. Painting ancient societies and the people who still live by these traditions as living from morsel to morsel and enduring constant, back-breaking labor akin to an early industrial-era prole is just wrong (re: Original affluent society)



But would they want to? Let us say they would want to preserve their culture - and for the sake of argument say this was a very reactionary culture (which I know is obviously a gross oversimplification and ignores history and so on, so forth), would that be acceptable for them then to remain outside of society? We're talking a hypothetical future here, and naturally any speculation is difficult, but on principles or something. Would it then just be "paternalism" to even force their children to go to school and not labour?


I would say forcing any group of people in such a situation out of a lifestyle they've lived for thousands of years would be pretty paternalist. It comes off as pretty 'white mans burden'-y to me.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Nah, people in hunter-gatherer societies typically had/have pretty long life spans compared to people in the industrial era, life spans comparable to what we have today. Painting ancient societies and the people who still live by these traditions as living from morsel to morsel and enduring constant, back-breaking labor akin to an early industrial-era prole is just wrong (re: Original affluent society)

Average life-spans and survivability of children was dramatically low, often due to infectious disease. Of course you have to do a lot of work, people still do. Is subsistence farming a dance on roses? Is that why their populations were so low? Not to mention the disastrous effects of hunter-gathering on the local environment (including involvement in early human-era extinction events) which necessitated a nomadic life-style.

[Illegalitarian]

Average life-spans and survivability of children was dramatically low, often due to infectious disease. Of course you have to do a lot of work, people still do. Is subsistence farming a dance on roses? Is that why their populations were so low? Not to mention the disastrous effects of hunter-gathering on the local environment (including involvement in early human-era extinction events) which necessitated a nomadic life-style.


Infant mortality was and is higher in hunter-gatherer societies than it is in most nations (not sure what it was in early-industrial era Europe and America), but the lifespan of hunter-gatherers was typically around 70 years. Compare that to the 30-40 year lifespan of people living in the early industrial era and we see quite the gap.

It wasn't a lot of work, though, compared to industrial society or even compared to the amount of work we do today. It was/is typically around 6 hours a week counting hunting/gathering and around 40 hours in total, counting food preparation, building of shelter, etc, which most of these societies very much enjoy(ed) and place a great importance on, so the leisure time these societies typically have is far greater than anything we've known for hundreds of years. Hunter-gatherers, not the strictly farming societies that arose after the ag rev. Disastrous in relation to what, the large-scale systematic environmental destruction and extinction rates that exist today? These societies don't/didn't live in harmony with all of the little birdies and bears and trees like in Avatar, but they certain't were not a significant force of degradation, at least, not even remotely close to what we see today.


Again, not a primmie, I just think it's important that we don't discount these communities as backwards or in need of saving.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It was implied child labour was something introduced by this "modernism" as if it was a foreign agent to pre-industrial societies. But at any rate, whether they see real costs or not is irrelevant. I don't think they would have to be "dumb" to be unaware of what modernity entails, this would depend on what sort of contact they have had, wouldn't it? If they have had none, they wouldn't possibly known aside from internal conjecture which would necessarily be limited, and if they had some form of limited outside contact, then surely they could paint some image, but would it be accurate?


I can grant this, although many of these communities do have extensive contact with the outside world. Presumably, many tribespeople do chose to keep their lifestyle out of the fact that they are merely ignorant of the qualities of modern existence, particularly those tribes with little or no contact. The Bushmen in the article however have lived in both a traditional and a modern society, and their own first-hand narratives indicate that they have faced a degradation in their material conditions. Their narratives of these costs are backed up by others such as Native American communities which saw a large drop-off in their population numbers and an increase in poverty for a few generations. The Lakota of Pine Ridge to this day have a life expectancy of 45-50 years and tend to live in terrible conditions - even if modernity brought them some advantages, at least in the long term, it's brought them huge costs. Many tribes in Colombia who have been forced out of the jungle by war are left with few marketable skills except for begging and prostitution.



The problem is that there is no such thing as a community and all those societies, much like the present society must be destroyed. Perpetuating their children in their own images, traditions passed on like hereditary disease, culture passed on like disorders. No enclave of callous hippies, at least not raising "children as their own" as if they were property, like a little brood of replicas forever doomed to perpetuate their parents folly.
I do think we should be critical of reactionary, oppressive cultural norms in traditional communities, but I think we can also try to look at the material conditions that make people skeptical of modernity too.

It should be noted that many such societies have made huge progress in overcoming reactionary social norms, and haven't imported many of the reactionary aspects of modern, Western society. These communities are not static and unchanging (this is a myth of the "noble savage" which, based on my knowledge of your views, you oppose) but are dynamic, and even those wholly removed from modern society (like the Sentinelese in the Andaman Islands, who spur all contact with the outside world) have been changed by it (through the introduction of scrap metal for tool making, for instance). One thing which agrarian communities associated with the EZLN in Mexico have asserted, for instance, is the right of women to participate in governance. Women have taken up leadership roles and traditional forms of patriarchy have been challenged, even if they haven't been overturned. They have also challenged homophobia in the world of Western Capitalism. Of course, there's a long way to go, and I don't disagree that access to schooling, medicine and other benefits should be brought to their children. Their cultural norms should be as much open for criticism as the cultural norms of Europe and America. I don't think that people within these cultures themselves aren't critical of those norms, any less than the European and American proletariat is critical of their own culture. If anything, the progression from hunter-gatherer societies in Europe, Asia, Africa and Mesoamerica prove that people in these societies are not so wedded to their culture that they can't move beyond it on their own.

I definitely don't think that capitalism has provided the best model for doing this either, as can be seen from the racist abuse which Native Americans received in the boarding schools imposed on them by the Canadian and American states. Yes, their children should receive schooling, have access to life-saving medicine and so on. I don't think forcing them off the land in which they live so that it can be opened up for mining or kidnapping their children and forcing them into a school that assumes their culture and race needs to be assimilated into White, European society is a good way for realizing that end.



But would they want to? Let us say they would want to preserve their culture - and for the sake of argument say this was a very reactionary culture (which I know is obviously a gross oversimplification and ignores history and so on, so forth), would that be acceptable for them then to remain outside of society? We're talking a hypothetical future here, and naturally any speculation is difficult, but on principles or something. Would it then just be "paternalism" to even force their children to go to school and not labour? I don't think it's ideal for a Communist society to just allow reactionary social norms to restrain people in these communities, no. If the people from some village in Waziristan wants to oppress girls and deny them freedom, then yeah its important to critique that, and take steps to help women in those situations be liberated. Its also important to make sure that children in hunter gatherer or subsistence agriculturalist societies have access to schools or medicine. It's important to criticize the way modernity is being forced onto these communities without bringing them the benefits, or without including them in a broader social and political movement. What I find paternalist is the belief that people from "primitive" societies can't be agents of change themselves, and need to be dragged from the muck by outsiders. Though I also find it paternalist to view people in traditional societies as innocent zoo pieces which need to be protected from modernity.

I do agree that we should struggle against their alienation from the rest of society, but I don't think that's a product of their hunter gatherer culture alone. I do think in many cases it's motivated by the costs of Capitalism for people with minimal industrial skills but extensive skills at hunting and collecting useful fruits, veggies and herbs from the jungle.



You appeared to be treating "wage-slavery" with particular strength, as though it was worse than slavery in the forests looking for food or on a subsistence farm. These people themselves are reporting that wage slavery is worse for them than their old lifestyles because of the costs it is incurring. I'm sure most people would rather be a wage slave in a Boeing factory than a hunter gatherer, but if a people have no marketable skills and live in an area with an overabundance of labor and a low demand for that labor, I think it's not unreasonable to say that their actual living conditions would go down. Modernity in this context isn't bringing the benefits of modern culture (universal access to electric lighting, schools, modern medicine, etc) but it is bringing many costs.

I don't think you can make a universal rule (wage slavery is better than living as a hunter gatherer) from an accurate generalization (wage slavery tends, on average, to provide better access to certain modern benefits)


While I don't like the primmies (like bcbm and his passion for Kaczynski), it's rather your relativism that I find particularly disagreeable. This treatment of "communities" as special units that must make some sort of collective decision on behalf of their members that smells of foulness.I'm no cultural relativist. I'm not basing my view on a belief in the intrinsic goodness of their culture, or some naive belief that every culture's definition of the "good" should be protected. I'm more interested in the first hand accounts of people within these cultures and the material conditions unique to each of these groups. I think that these material conditions motivate a desire to remain outside of modern global capitalism aside from any reactionary cultural attachments to a particular way of life. IMO looking at the actual material conditions in these communities is overlooked by the usual emphasis on cultural preservation and so on.


Relatively untouched by man. As in, it hasn't been clipped and stripped and industrialized, being heavily populated by humans. Ecosystems that are still, for the most part, undisturbed and uninterrupted by large-scale human activity. That is the ecological definition, anyways, and a fair one imo.

Except no such places exist on the earth anymore. I think the "wild" is a better term to use for what you're talking about as it is less metaphysically loaded.



Unless we're now talking about nature in the sense of all phenomena that encompasses the physical world, but I think such a definition is too encompassing to really have much a place in a discussion that's clearly referencing the natural environment.

Those two definitions of nature are connected and only really diverge as we stop seeing man as somehow metaphysically separate from everything else.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I can grant this, although many of these communities do have extensive contact with the outside world. Presumably, many tribespeople do chose to keep their lifestyle out of the fact that they are merely ignorant of the qualities of modern existence, particularly those tribes with little or no contact. The Bushmen in the article however have lived in both a traditional and a modern society, and their own first-hand narratives indicate that they have faced a degradation in their material conditions. Their narratives of these costs are backed up by others such as Native American communities which saw a large drop-off in their population numbers and an increase in poverty for a few generations. The Lakota of Pine Ridge to this day have a life expectancy of 45-50 years and tend to live in terrible conditions - even if modernity brought them some advantages, at least in the long term, it's brought them huge costs. Many tribes in Colombia who have been forced out of the jungle by war are left with few marketable skills except for begging and prostitution.

The drink sure did and still does a number on the American native populations, and those 'reservations'... Possible too would be however that a group would reject modernity due to the conditions of capitalism, to throw the baby out with the bath-water as they say, and one fear that such a resistance would last perhaps beyond an eventual end of capitalism.


It should be noted that many such societies have made huge progress in overcoming reactionary social norms, and haven't imported many of the reactionary aspects of modern, Western society. These communities are not static and unchanging (this is a myth of the "noble savage" which, based on my knowledge of your views, you oppose) but are dynamic, and even those wholly removed from modern society (like the Sentinelese in the Andaman Islands, who spur all contact with the outside world) have been changed by it (through the introduction of scrap metal for tool making, for instance).

Though to overcome reactionary social norms, they'd have imported something at least - I mean, if those norms existed to begin with or were not changed due to internal struggle, which I am sure happens - right? Certainly the west has never had any problem with forcing on reactionary views when it serves the interest of capitalism or some group - European and American Christian fringe groups involvement in modern African anti-homosexual movements, for example.


I definitely don't think that capitalism has provided the best model for doing this either, as can be seen from the racist abuse which Native Americans received in the boarding schools imposed on them by the Canadian and American states. Yes, their children should receive schooling, have access to life-saving medicine and so on. I don't think forcing them off the land in which they live so that it can be opened up for mining or kidnapping their children and forcing them into a school that assumes their culture and race needs to be assimilated into White, European society is a good way for realizing that end.


Of course not, I don't think anyone would disagree with those points. It was never in their interest to do assist them. I do however not entirely agree with this idea that "land" belongs to certain people by virtue of history or other - I mean, one could for example resist the careless rapaciousness by which it was taken for wreckless exploitation in the context of capitalism, which would be fair, but too easily such thinking implies that land belong to certain people. Of course, capitalism or pre-capitalist society simultaneously forces their dependence upon the land which they are evicted from, one of those inherent contradictions, I suppose.


I do agree that we should struggle against their alienation from the rest of society, but I don't think that's a product of their hunter gatherer culture alone. I do think in many cases it's motivated by the costs of Capitalism for people with minimal industrial skills but extensive skills at hunting and collecting useful fruits, veggies and herbs from the jungle.

Well, I don't disagree with that, and obviously I think the existence of capitalism is something that is a much more urgent matter than some secluded tribe hiding out somewhere because the world does neither want them nor need them or care about them (that is, until they find some zinc in the ground they happen to live on, and you know what transpires, not really good for anyone in the end, neither modernity nor the people on the site).


I'm no cultural relativist. I'm not basing my view on a belief in the intrinsic goodness of their culture, or some naive belief that every culture's definition of the "good" should be protected. I'm more interested in the first hand accounts of people within these cultures and the material conditions unique to each of these groups. I think that these material conditions motivate a desire to remain outside of modern global capitalism aside from any reactionary cultural attachments to a particular way of life. IMO looking at the actual material conditions in these communities is overlooked by the usual emphasis on cultural preservation and so on.

I agree, and it is this "cultural preservation" and its associated off-shoots that I find so vehemently offensive. I think that there is a great deal of richness in human history as regards societal structures, and any treatment of them as purely simple and primitive would naturally be incorrect, but the same goes for this worship of hunger-gatherer societies as somehow in-tune with nature and everyone living well (just how well such a society would live would depend a lot on the richness of poverty of the natural environment it inhabited and all). It's kind of like those people who are obsessed with this thing they call "cultural appropriation" and treating some cultural expression as inherent to a certain ethnic or cultural grouping, a sort of repulsive cultural essentialism. It treats those things as static museum exhibits-- In other words, I do not really disagree with the points you raised.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The paradigm of "fairness" is not owed to the natural world, so to hell with it. What is the natural world? It is the void that the ruling classes legitimize themselves with. We must desolate its very foundations.

How would that actually work in reality? How does one separate oneself from nature? If I give some orangutans and silverbacks some suits and ties and a nice crib, are they then separate from nature? Like wah?

[bcbm]

While I don't like the primmies (like bcbm and his passion for Kaczynski)

haha i think you might be overstating the case a wee bit

[Illegalitarian]

I
Except no such places exist on the earth anymore. I think the "wild" is a better term to use for what you're talking about as it is less metaphysically loaded.

Of course they do, but what I do mean is what some call "wilderness" or "wild", but in ecology we dichotomize it at "natural environmental" and "built environment". I think most people on earth refers to this as "nature" in that context, but I can see how this is problematic in a conversation such as thing where the concept of nature as a whole has sort of been ran with away from the OP.




Those two definitions of nature are connected and only really diverge as we stop seeing man as somehow metaphysically separate from everything else.

Of course they're connected, as one encompasses the other, but not vice versa. It seems like they diverge by the.. dare I say.. nature of one of those definitions with the other in terms of exclusionary power.

[Illegalitarian]

Hmmm.


Well I don't think anyone here would hesitate to shit all over decadent, imperialistic, reactionary American """culture""", because it needs shit upon. I guess every other reactionary society and culture needs criticized and changed too, even if it is some random tribe out in the jungle. It's not like the vast majority of cultures won't need a drastic realignment if communism is to ever be brought forth as a global socioeconomic structure anyways.


Though I do agree with SCM that there's really no point in goading a reactionary tribal society into an even more reactionary and exploitative capitalist one. Fuck this thread for making me think about things ugh

[Rafiq]

Rafiq, I don't think the the rise of black holes in almost every part of the universe or cosmic heat death will be stayed by the hand of the proletariat unless we make (presently inconceivable) breakthroughs in physics.

Of course I'm not being literal. I am attacking ecology as an ideological category. If you can't see that, don't bother attempting to argue with me.

[Rafiq]

How would that actually work in reality? How does one separate oneself from nature? If I give some orangutans and silverbacks some suits and ties and a nice crib, are they then separate from nature? Like wah?

Are Silverbacks and Orangutans capable of a consciousness that actively transforms the natural world around them in accord with their own social development?

In the objective scheme of things, everything is natural, that is obvious, but this is a metaphysical question. The human notion of nature is that which has been untouched by man, not that which simply exists or has existed by, well, "natural" means.

How would it work in reality? I am attacking the ideological foundations of ecology, I am not proposing any sort of solution to the world's real ecological problems. I am simply attacking the logic from which many attempt to confront them.

[Rafiq]

Anti-modernism is an inherently neo-liberal trend, the rejection of modernism has coincided with the reign of finance capital.

Here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/camattes-primitivism-marxist-t182124/index.html?t=182124

[bcbm]

neo liberalism is like the height of modernism, however many people are jerking off organic local small batch meth or whatever

and the natural world is worthwhile because it is the only known planet in the universe where this shit exists. if you want to callously pave it over cuz 'humanity' or whatever you're an anti-scientific moron

[Os Cangaceiros]

There's some quote from Adlai Stevenson (an American politician from back in the day) in which he said that mankind had the power to "turn the earth into a desert or make the deserts bloom". That's pretty much how I feel about humanity's pull on the planet. I think that technology can either be used in very destructive or very productive ways, depending. Anti-civ arguments would be a lot more persuasive to me if I didn't feel like the society they'd like to ultimately see was so profoundly unappealing. Maybe an industrially-advanced society needs to be vertically-integrated with "labor discipline" and all the other BS in order to function. I'm not necessarily convinced of that, though, or else I wouldn't hold the beliefs I do.

[bcbm]

i mean i think any 'ideal' future will balance industry and 'the natural' in a way benefiting all without turning the planet into a smokestack.

[Radio Spartacus]

What is the alternative to civilization? Living in tiny villages in harmony with your abstract concept of nature and pretending that isn't a form of civilization?

If the anti-civilization crowd, the primitivists, had their revolution the resulting loss of life from the removal of various forms of infrastructure people depend on (medicine for example) would amount to genocide (in the colloquial sense of the word)

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I will respond more properly later however I will say this reminds me of arguments I have gotten in with statists who would flip out over stuff like this and rant about "muh roadsz!!!!!! Who's gonna pave muh roadsssss!!!!!1!!!1!!"

I also think its odd that someone (Rafiqi) who has more of a penchant for melodramatic posts than me even (which is saying something) whom oftens says things akin to "we must murder capitalist society and make love to its corpse, total desolation, much terror, very annihilation, full Communism, argggggh," and then here, we see oddly, the very same Rafiqi, defending said society/civilization fundamentally. Am I have a stroke or LSD flashback?

[Sentinel]

Infraction to Takayuki for flaming, in post #48.

[tallguy]

Derrick Jenson

I want to bring down civilization. It's really clear that civilization is killing the planet. I’m interested in living in a world that has more wild salmon every year than the year before. A world that has more migratory songbirds every year than the year before. A world that has less dioxins and flame retardants in mothers' breast milk. A world not being destroyed. A world where krill populations aren’t collapsing. A world where there are not dead zones in the oceans. A world not being systematically dismantled. I want to live in a world that is not being killed. I will do whatever it takes to get there.

I agree

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Well, so far he seems content with trying to suffocate civilization in propaganda of dubious literary merit. And how typical of Jensen to evoke the image of the mother breastfeeding her children, that is, after all, only "natural", isn't it? Along with painful, degrading and dangerous circumstances of childbirth. So, once again, how would a "wild" society provide for safe, free and effective contraception, abortion and sex reassignment surgery? How would it allow for safe childbirth and equality in domestic labor? It's interesting that no one of the anti-civ people has answered this.

[motion denied]

If Derrick Jenson wants that, he shouldn't fight civilisation, but capitalism.

[Comrade #138672]

"Fuck nature." Hahaha.

Anyway, nature is indeed pretty fucked up. Still, people often fetishize "nature" and think of it as pure perfection, created by God him/herself. But then humans came along and fucked everything up. Sounds like the Original Sin 2.0 to me.

"Nature" is senseless. People often think that animals only kill out of necessity. No. They also kill for fun and often in very cruel ways. Penguins have been observed to rape their children and dead rotting penguin bodies. Dolphins have been observed to kidnap other dolphins and rape them continuously. Chimps have been observed to rape other animals, like frogs, birds, etc. And the list goes on and on.

Nature is sick. It is up to us to save ourselves from the cruel arbitrariness of "nature" with whatever means we have at our disposal (especially after we have gotten rid of the parasitic bourgeoisie). "Nature" is not going to help us.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well, so far he seems content with trying to suffocate civilization in propaganda of dubious literary merit. And how typical of Jensen to evoke the image of the mother breastfeeding her children, that is, after all, only "natural", isn't it? Along with painful, degrading and dangerous circumstances of childbirth. So, once again, how would a "wild" society provide for safe, free and effective contraception, abortion and sex reassignment surgery? How would it allow for safe childbirth and equality in domestic labor? It's interesting that no one of the anti-civ people has answered this.

Along with disease, pain, suffering etc. as numerous people have said previously in this thread. All of those things are "natural", just as natural as songbirds flying gracefully through the air or squirrels fucking or whatever Jensen is jacking it to in his inane diatribes.

BTW, strictly-regulated fishing industries do have the benefit of increasing fish biomass, particularly salmon (http://www.akbizmag.com/Alaska-Business-Monthly/October-2013/2013-Alaska-Pink-Salmon-Chum-Harvest-Sets-New-Record/)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Also, a world in which there are more salmon every year than the year before is impossible because of run failures & such. Just saying.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Along with disease, pain, suffering etc. as numerous people have said previously in this thread. All of those things are "natural", just as natural as songbirds flying gracefully through the air or squirrels fucking or whatever Jensen is jacking it to in his inane diatribes.

Fair enough, but the point was that "natural"* suffering does not afflict both genders equally - "natural" childbirth, "natural" sex, all of these are a nightmare to most women. Dudebros like F. F. and Jensen present themselves as being against oppression, yet they have no problem with condemning more than half of humanity - the most vulnerable, subaltern part - to slavery.

* What "natural" really means is "paleolithic" to the aficionados and "early agricultural-state without slavery" to the rest of the nature-worshippers. It's a nasty little term associated with all manners of pseudo-scientific bigotry, hence the transphobia of many primitivists.

[bill]

The word civilization has an interesting etymology. It's immediate origin is of course from the Latin civis, meaning "state". I think for the early Roman period this might have meant something more like "township", that is, the joint commonwealth of urbs "town" and rus "rural environs".

The ultimate proto-Indo-European root is key-, for which the definition of "to lie down, settle; home, family; love; beloved" must evidently be given. This is the origin of the English word home by Grimm's Law, as well as various other words in other IE languages, meaning "abiding", "lying", 'loving", and other intimating things.

It's strange to see how a concept which explicitly referred to human intimacy developed and was sublated into the process of alienating human beings from each other, that is civilization and labour diversification. It effectively came to mean its opposite, or at least how unknown strangers (i.e. fellow citizens in a modern "civilized" state) are introduced into the familial abode.

There's a pretty clear dialectic happening here. The rape of the Sabine women by the Romans as a pretty good metaphor for the whole process. The Romans kidnap the Sabine women. The Sabines can't pursue their kidnapped daughters/sisters after they crossed the threshold into the Romans' house (at that point they became the Romans' wives, i.e. domestic property, fixtures of their households). The Sabines go to war with Rome, capture the Capitoline hill, but the warring sides are soon reconciled after the kidnapped women enter the fray. Then the two nations are united.

Voila! A patriarchal civilization is born!

[BIXX]

The word civilization has an interesting etymology. It's immediate origin is of course from the Latin civis, meaning "state". I think for the early Roman period this might have meant something more like "township", that is, the joint commonwealth of urbs "town" and rus "rural environs".

The ultimate proto-Indo-European root is key-, for which the definition of "to lie down, settle; home, family; love; beloved" must evidently be given. This is the origin of the English word home by Grimm's Law, as well as various other words in other IE languages, meaning "abiding", "lying", 'loving", and other intimating things.

It's strange to see how a concept which explicitly referred to human intimacy developed and was sublated into the process of alienating human beings from each other, that is civilization and labour diversification. It effectively came to mean its opposite, or at least how unknown strangers (i.e. fellow citizens in a modern "civilized" state) are introduced into the familial abode.

There's a pretty clear dialectic happening here. The rape of the Sabine women by the Romans as a pretty good metaphor for the whole process. The Romans kidnap the Sabine women. The Sabines can't pursue their kidnapped daughters/sisters after they crossed the threshold into the Romans' house (at that point they became the Romans' wives, i.e. domestic property, fixtures of their households). The Sabines go to war with Rome, capture the Capitoline hill, but the warring sides are soon reconciled after the kidnapped women enter the fray. Then the two nations are united.

Voila! A patriarchal civilization is born!


Patriarchy and gender roles have been around since agriculture has arisen- meaning those societies already were patriarchal.

[bill]

Yes, that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I need to use emoticons more often...

From what I understand, however, it was with herding communities that patriarchy really took off (with their emphasis on power and property).

Farmers were more or less communistic and "equi-"archal. I'd imagine a society were one's social duty was to one's chores (from each according to his ability, and so forth).

When the Old European agriculturalists were subjugated by the nomadic Aryans, they picked up their values as well: namely the fetishizing of wealth, women's bodies, and war. The Pashtuns still have a saying to this effect, "gold, women, and land" or something like that. It's snappier in Pashto.

The Iroquoian farmers gave enormous political influence to the weaker members of society (women and the elderly), whereas the hunting Ojibwes up north where staunchly patriarchal and had a strong sense of property--at least personal property.

This is probably a gross simplification, but the general idea seems plausible.

[BIXX]

Yes, that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I need to use emoticons more often...

From what I understand, however, it was with herding communities that patriarchy really took off (with their emphasis on power and property).

Farmers were more or less communistic and "equi-"archal. I'd imagine a society were one's social duty was to one's chores (from each according to his ability, and so forth).

When the Old European agriculturalists were subjugated by the nomadic Aryans, they picked up their values as well: namely the fetishizing of wealth, women's bodies, and war. The Pashtuns still have a saying to this effect, "gold, women, and land" or something like that. It's snappier in Pashto.

The Iroquoian farmers gave enormous political influence to the weaker members of society (women and the elderly), whereas the hunting Ojibwes up north where staunchly patriarchal and had a strong sense of property--at least personal property.

This is probably a gross simplification, but the general idea seems plausible.

I'm willing to guess that both are right to an extent- I mean, even though it is incorrect I often have lumped the two together in my mind.

However I would like to read more about what you are saying, links? Honestly you can find a bunch of shit regarding what I said if you google "gender roles agriculture".

Anyway, both of those are civilized processes.

If I don't forget I'll be back to this thread later.