Daniel Quinn

Anyone ever heard of this nutjob? I used to be fairly into his writings when I was politically immature.

His main idea is that human civilization, or "Taker" culture, as he likes to call it, is unsustainable because it requires the constant use of resources that the earth can't provide forever. Nothing exactly new to it, but for some reason a lot of hippies are really into his books, "Ishmael", which is about a talking gorilla, being the most famous one.

As a matter of course, he idealizes hunter-gatherer society, or the "Leavers":

“The story the Leavers have been enacting for the past three million years isn’t a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesn’t give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what you’ll find if you go among them. They’re not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not having a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make lives worth living. And – I repeat – this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they’re innately noble. This is simply because they’re enacting a story that works well for people – a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven’t yet managed to stamp it out.”

Of course, part of his suggested program is that the Third World, especially Africa, should just not be fed as a way to reduce the human population. The remaining population would be around 100,000 under his ideal system, and not a few of them white I would guess.

Thoughts?

There is actually just one primitivist I do like, and his name is Pentti Linkola. And that is because that he is honest at least. He is an open conservative who thinks that everything after 1789 has went wrong. He is identifying himself with the extreme right, and they love him.

When it comes to Quinn, I am ambivalent. In Ishmael, I got the impression that Quinn wanted us to question our own style of life, and that he therefore was harmless. I was quite mistaken I guess...

The problem with primitivism, and what makes it so endearing to debate with primmies, is the almost religious idealism and faith they do hold in their own doctrine. Primitivists are invoking a, in my interpretation, post-christian idea of the "Fall from Eden". There is no strong primitivist movement outside of the ELF, but there is - I feel - a strong primitivist undercurrent in the autonomous left, which is tainting the movement.

They are repeating their mantra that if you cut down a tree, there will be one tree less, showing that most primmies actually do hold limited knowledge on the way the environment actually works. The only exception are those primitivists who are associating with Linkola, and they are most often outspoken nazis so they should be ignored. We should instead focusing on people with a leftist mentality who have been drawn to primitivism.

The best way to counter primitivism is to actually educate yourself about environmental problems, ecosystems, global warming, forests, and such. Since primitivists usually do not know more about the environment that what they see in sentimental movies, you will have the edge on them on hard facts.

Lets make this straight, within the progressive movement, primitivism is a scorn since it:

A: Dilludes progressive ideology.
B: Draw artillery fire from bourgeoisie pundits when needed.
C: Is unappealing to the class interests of the working class (and any class whatsoever).

What we should do is to either try to turn most of the primmies if possivle, and if necessary kick them out of the progressive movement at large.

But give a primitivist a real argument, and she will reply with something like this:

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money" Cree Prophecy