Green Anarchy 🦎🍂 An introduction to Anti-Civilization anarchist thought and practice

One qualifier that we feel is important to begin with is the distinction between “anarchy” and “anarchism”. Some will write this off as merely semantics or trivial, but for most post-left and anti-civilization anarchists, this differentiation is important. While anarchism can serve as an important historical reference point from which to draw inspiration and lessons, it has become too systematic, fixed, and ideological…everything anarchy is not.

Admittedly, this has less to do with anarchism’s social/political/philosophical orientation, and more to do with those who identify as anarchists. No doubt, many from our anarchist lineage would also be disappointed by this trend to solidify what should always be in flux. The early self-identified anarchists(Proudhon, Bakunin, Berkman, Goldman, Malatesta, and the like) were responding to their specific contexts, with their own specific motivations and desires. Too often, contemporary anarchists see these individuals as representing the boundaries of anarchy, and create a W.W.B.D. [What Would Bakunin Do (or more correctly–Think)] attitude towards anarchy, which is tragic and potentially dangerous.

Today, some who identify as “classical” anarchists refuse to accept any effort in previously uncharted territory within anarchism or trends which have often been at odds with the rudimentary workers’ mass movement approach (ie. Individualism, Nihilism, etc.). These rigid, dogmatic, and extremely uncreative anarchists have gone so far as to declare that anarchism is a very specific social and economic methodology for organizing the working class. This is obviously an absurd extreme, but such tendencies can be seen in the ideas and projects of many contemporary anarcho-leftists (anarchosydicalists,anarcho-communists,platformists, federationists). “Anarchism”, as it stands today, is a far-left ideology, one which we need to get beyond. In contrast, “anarchy” is a formless, fluid, organic experience embracing multifaceted visions of liberation, both personal and collective, and always open. As anarchists, we are not interested in forming a new framework or structure to live under or within, however “unobtrusive” or “ethical” it claims to be. Anarchists cannot provide another world for others, but we can raise questions and ideas, try to destroy all domination and that which impedes our lives and our dreams, and live directly connected with our desires.

What is Primitivism?

While not all green anarchists specifically

identify as “Primitivists”, most acknowledge

the significance that the primitivist critique has

had on anti-civilization perspectives. Primitivism

is simply an anthropological, intellectual, and

experiential examination of the origins

of civilization and the circumstances

that led to this nightmare we currently

inhabit. Primitivism recognizes that for

most of human history, we lived in

face-to-face communities in balance

with each other and our surroundings,

without formal hierarchies and institutions

to mediate and control our

lives. Primitivists wish to learn from

the dynamics at play in the past and in

contemporary gatherer-hunter/primitive

societies (those that have existed and

currently exist outside of civilization).

While some primitivists wish for an

immediate and complete return to

gatherer-hunter band societies, most

primitivists understand that an

acknowledgement of what has been

successful in the past does not unconditionally

determine what will work in the

future. The term “Future Primitive,” coined by

anarcho-primitivist author John Zerzan, hints that

a synthesis of primitive techniques and ideas can

be joined with contemporary anarchist concepts

and motivations to create healthy, sustainable, and

egalitarian decentralized situations. Applied

non-ideologically, anarcho-primitivism can

be an important tool in the de-civilizing project.