Michael Albert vs John Zerzan

[Anarchic Tribes]

spot on

[claptonpond]

All technology destructive to the planet? I definitely don't agree with that. Technology combined with capitalist social relations is generally destructive and oppressive, certainly.

In short, it's class.

Anyway, destructive to the environment or not, I certainly don't want to go back to a pre-tech lifestyle, with an average life expectancy of 26 (and that's a generous estimate). I'm 31, and I aint ready to die yet.

Not that parecon doesn't have it's flaws, of course. Again, I encourage everyone to read Bookchin - he's not always right, but he manages to be environmentally-minded while rejecting the primmies' crazy manichaean take on tech.

[workerscommunes]

Just out of interest, what do most primitivists suggets we do with all the technology and industrial towns and cities which already exist? Abandon them and go live elsewhere? Destroy it all?

[Anarchic Tribes]

Why is the reaction to extremism always more extremism?
I don't see the point in arguing whether we should have the technology that we have, because we already have it. But what's the point in more? Enough already eh.

[theyellowspot]

Clapton said:

All technology destructive to the planet?

i'd be curious to know which technological innovations you think are not destructive to the planet in some way. i've never been able to come up with one.

[workerscommunes]

Anarchic said:

Why is the reaction to extremism always more extremism?

I wasn't being extreme, I was asking what the stance of primitivists was on existing technology as I geninely had no idea.

Thanks for the clarification.

[claptonpond]

Workers said:

Just out of interest, what do most primitivists suggets we do with all the technology and industrial towns and cities which already exist? Abandon them and go live elsewhere? Destroy it all?

Good question.

Here's a coupla gems from primmies (not necessarily representative, but hey...):

A hunter / gatherer can walk throu an abandoned city and grab cans of soup from someones abandoned pantry.

nuke waste
Use whats sitll in the reactors for power to make things that will be needed in a post civ primitive society. The rest will need to be buried very deep (up to a mile it is said) in stable ground. Very dangerous process. One last task for the scientists/military.

And again on nuclear waste:

Maybe we should launch them into the sun, or would that mess up our solar system?

The nuclear waste question is a particularly important one - that shit's gonna have to be monitored for thousands of years. Preferably using something a little more sophisticated than a pointy stick and a coupla rocks. You can't just bury it and hope it goes away. And as for launching it into the sun...

And now, purely for entertainment purposes, here's my favourite primitivist quote ever:

we rewild by attending primitive survivalist gatherings to learn how to survive in the wild. we learn things like hunting and foraging. we learn how to cut open animals and tan their hides with their brains. we eat roadkill, etc.

;D

[claptonpond]

Anarchic said:

Why is the reaction to extremism always more extremism?
I don't see the point in arguing whether we should have the technology that we have, because we already have it. But what's the point in more? Enough already eh.

The point of more technology would be to develop less destructive technologies in order to reduce our dependance on more destructive ones, and maybe to try and fix some of the damage we've already done.

[claptonpond]

theyellowspot said:

i'd be curious to know which technological innovations you think are not destructive to the planet in some way. i've never been able to come up with one.

Well, okay, I guess you could argue that all human activity affects the environment and is therefore 'destructive' to the planet.

[claptonpond]

Michelaccio said:

Yes to what YS said about each man having good points, and about the merit of using more than one approach. As anarchists, I think that it's always important for us to examine all possibilities of improving human freedom, even if they come from what may seem at first a different or strange philosophical perspective.

Absolutely. We need to examine the possibilities critically in order to see whether they really could improve human freedom, or whether they'd restrict it.

On your point, CP, about technology being destructive when combined with capitalist social relations, I agree. But I would go much further and take the view that capitalist social relations spring forth from the same paradigm of domination and control that has given rise to Western technological culture. In other words, capitalism itself is an aspect of the technological paradigm, which existed prior to it and informs it to this day. I don't think that the two can easily be separated.

Certainly capitalism wouldn't exist without industrial technology, so the two are very much intertwined. I don't think capitalism is a necessary result of tech though - you could have (and did have) tech without capitalism. And I don't see why you couldn't have tech without hierarchical social relations.

As for domination and control, everyone aims for some degree of control over their environment. We wouldn't survive without it. I suspect you just threw in 'domination' for its negative connotations.

When it comes to the question of existing technology, as AT says, we've already got it. It cannot be uninvented, and I don't see the need for people to completely abandon it, either. I do think, though, that the underlying assumptions in our contemporary society, equating technological development with “progress” and human liberation, should come under question. It's a blind spot for many serious, intelligent, progressive thinkers—such as Chomsky, for example (see Zerzan's essay on Chomsky, for which AT posted the link earlier).

I agree that it's important to critique technological development. Most primitivists, though, seem to be just as blinkered as those who blindly equate tech with 'progress' - blindly equating tech with destruction and oppression.

[claptonpond]

Michelaccio said:

My argument was that technology was a necessary condition for capitalism, not that capitalism was a necessary consequence of technology. I'd argue the same with regard to “scientific” state socialism and technology as well. Quite a bit of domination and control inherent in that philosophy. You've probably heard the old Soviet joke: “capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the opposite.”

;D I hadn't actually heard that one.

Anyway, technology's necessary for fascism too, and there's even more domination and control inherent in that. Point is, the domination and control are inherent in those forms of social organisation, not in technology.

As for having technology without hierarchy, good luck. As technology becomes more sophisticated, it is further removed from the understanding of the average person. Sure, there are “user friendly” technologies, but most people have little understanding of how the devices they use in everyday life actually work. We become more and more dependent on “experts.” A generation or two ago, quite a few people could fix their own car when something went wrong. Now they need an expert with a computerized system just for a basic diagnosis of what the problem is. The more a person relies upon high technology, the more they rely upon these “experts.” Hard for that not to evolve into hierarchy. Specialized knowledge is a powerful form of leverage over others, when others have grown to depend on devices built and maintained with that knowledge.

Are you saying we need to get rid of all specialised knowledge and division of labour? Because that doesn't sound to me like a recipe for freedom. With no specialisation, everyone has to be able to do everything. If you're sick, you better know how to heal yourself, because no-one's got any specialised medical/herbal knowledge.

Of course knowledge is a powerful form of leverage, but getting rid of it is neither practical nor desirable. We need to get things balanced in such a way that no specialist group can hold society to ransom - not necessarily an easy thing, but I'd rather give it a go than ditch all specialised knowledge.

On the question of whether I just “threw in” the word domination because of its connotations...I'd like to claim credit for this insight or turn of phrase, but it has been a common theme in ecological studies and in the emerging philosophy of technology, and was so long before Zerzan or primitivism came into focus. The theme of “conquest of nature” or “mastery of nature” has been explored by scientific minds (who viewed it as a good thing, naturally) and romantic critics for a long time. Even Marx and Engels talked about it. The only point on which they all seemed to agree is that the purpose of technology is the domination of nature. Later on, many came to conclude that this domination also meant domination over other people. There's a really interesting study on this by William Leiss from the early 1970s, called The Domination of Nature. I'm sure it's still in print—it's a classic.

Actually, I think the whole 'domination of nature' thing comes from religion, in particular the judaeo-christian tradition that claims god gave man dominion over nature. So not necessarily anything to do with tech, and not particularly useful terminology to be using, given its connotations. Besides, as I said before, I think some degree of control over nature (is that the same as domination?) is a good thing.

As for parecon (getting back to the other half of the original topic), there's an anarcho-communist critique of it here: flag.blackened.net/af/org/org62.pdf

[claptonpond]

Actually, I don't take it as axiomatic that domination and control aren't inherent in technology, I just have yet to be convinced that they are. I think it's a very big call (lumping all of technology together, that is - domination and control may very well be inherent in some technologies), and needs to be backed up with something pretty solid.

I'm glad to hear you're not after shutting down the medical schools!

As I've said, I do think it's important to have some critique of technology. I don't take the 'neutral' view of technology, but I wouldn't treat it as a single entity or paradigm either. I think some technologies are overwhelmingly negative, while others are overwhelmingly positive. In some cases these qualities are inherent, in others the technology can be pretty much neutral.

Sure, self-sufficiency's important, but I think most people are more than happy to sacrifice some self-sufficiency for comfort, and for the opportunity to specialise in what they personally find interesting/rewarding. Yes, specialisation can lead to hierarchy, but is it inevitable?

I don't have an answer as to how to find the balance - I'll have to cop out and say it's probably one of those things we'll have to figure out as we go along. I'm not sure that I do agree with you about the balance being harder to maintain with increasing specialisation - surely the different kinds of specialist become more and more inter-dependent, as well as more dependent on the generalists? Which specialism would you say is dominant on today's society?

You say the impulse (for domination, I presume) runs much deeper within Western civilisation than just christendom. Do you think non-Western civilisations have different technological paradigms?

Just read that Bob Black piece - he mostly seems to focus on the fact that Bookchin's views have (shock, horror) changed in the last 30-odd years, and that Bookchin was a stalinist in his youth.

[Anarchic Tribes]

I wasn't being extreme

WC,
I didn't think you were. I thought CP and many other people were when it comes to 'primmies'. As the post following yours clearly shows.
Zerzan's views and writings are extreme but also valid.
Some bits are far out but we don't have to swallow something whole to know that it tastes good.
I wondered why this extremism of the 'primmies' is always met with an argument of yet more extremism. It doesn't help does it.
I saw a bunch of vegans dissing the primmies because they eat roadkill. Extremists fighting extremists with extremism is what that is (despite the fact they're on the same side). I know plenty of vegans that eat so much junk food (not out of skips), really expensive much packaged, loaded with chemicals vegan junk food. Do the primmies diss the vegans for this? Or do they just wonder and inquire.