I’ve recently had cause to (again) reexamine things. Or not to reexamine, so much as to think about again in context of having to explain them to someone else. Have you heard of anarcho primitivism? I’ve heard the term tossed around a lot, but it was recently levied in context of my own thoughts, and I’ve since been reading up on it and realized that a lot applies. I wouldn’t call myself one- an anarcho primitivist- but there’s a lot of relevance.
I think it’s funny how our thoughts grow. We all are doing our best just to get by, day to day, and it’s not often that we pause (not ever, for some) to reevaluate the point we’ve arrived at. In reading about anarcho primitivism, I’ve suddenly become aware of what thoughts are in my head. Not that I didn’t know they were there, just that they suddenly became very clearly different from what I believed before.
When we were little my cousin and I played a game we very simply called “boss.” We played it constantly at my grandmother’s house, over and over, endless repetitions on the same theme. Essentially, she and I were performers held captive by the boss (there was a swing in the backyard, and we did tricks on it). Night after night we were forced to perform for audiences who had no idea we were held captive. We had to be very careful of what we said- we had to pretend to be totally content with our position, at least when others were present. We were told what to eat and when, what to do, what to say, what to wear. We were carefully watched, and there was surveillance all over the house. We had babies, also (in the form of American Girl dolls). And we had plans to escape.
Escape was fairly complex and was always the high point of this game. You had to very carefully climb around the entire length of the sizeable chain link fence that enclosed the backyard, your feet never touching the ground (this would electrocute you), touching each of the poles as you went around (this turned off the electric fencing). Then at the end you could climb over the fence and run away. If you touched the ground, you would be recaptured and locked in your room.
I’ve thought of this now because it didn’t occur to me until recently how much this game reflected on the actual state of things- and this is something we came up with when we were what, 6 and 9? Even then we understood- you’re always captive to the boss. You escape and then it starts all over again, especially if you have kids you have to protect. I am carefully monitored (hello, internet) and can’t say certain things publicly, or wear certain things, and I am told what to eat and wear and do. So are you. I have a vision of what it could be again- I can imagine the escape- but where do you escape to?
I’ve talked about this before on here, I think. My vision of just living- of collecting/growing/preparing food for myself and my loved ones, making clothes, surviving- and spending the rest of the time dancing, singing, making art, telling stories, talking to the trees. No where in there is there space for a “job”. A job is where you sell your time for an intermediary object that you can exchange for the things you would have naturally, if only they hadn’t been locked away by a group of people who have decided freedom isn’t free. Elephants don’t have jobs because they simply go about their business. They do “work”, if you want to call it that. They gather food, and sometimes they have to walk a long way to do it. But they don’t have “jobs.” Everyone participates.
We are so disconnected in this culture that when I explain to someone that I’m fed up with all this, they usually tell me to go somewhere else. I ask them where. They usually splutter something about West Virginia or something, someplace where it’s less populated. I argue that I would still have to buy land, I would still have to pay taxes on it, I would still have to be registered on some form somewhere. They don’t get it. They don’t realize I don’t want to be secluded, I don’t want to run away, I don’t want to live alone in the wilderness (far from it!). I want to live in a community based on mutual aid. I want to have neighbors that aren’t strangers- who help me and I them. We work together to survive. We live together. Our days are filled with the simple tasks of being alive.
I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I will say it again: That is not possible while you are paying taxes.
It is not possible while you need money, and therefore a job, to live. It is not possible when you have to follow the laws made by other people, not your own community. It is not possible when your labor goes to support the goals of others, not to help build your own community. It is not possible when your own joy is marginalized into “vacations”.
Here’s a bit on rewilding from the anarcho primitivism Wikipedia entry:
For most primitivist anarchists, rewilding and reconnecting with the earth is a life project. They state that it should not be limited to intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but, instead, that it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from ourselves, each other, and the world. Rewilding is understood as having a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to feed, shelter, and heal ourselves with the plants, animals, and materials occurring naturally in our bioregions. It is also said to include the dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and infrastructure of civilization.
Rewilding is also described as having an emotional component, which involves healing ourselves and each other from what are perceived as 10,000-year-old wounds, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, and de-constructing the domesticating mindset in our social patterns. To the primitivist, “rewilding includes prioritizing direct experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and aspect of reality, connecting with our feral fury to defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the process of becoming uncivilized.”
More tomorrow.
Fish In the Water is a farmer-to-be so-called foodie writer living on the beautiful rural Eastern Shore of MD.
Maybe I’m just old, but it strikes me that you frequently see yourself trapped in a hopeless Me/Us vs. The Establishment world in which your only chance of happiness lies in the total dissolution of the latter. Seems like a recipe for perpetual dissatisfaction to me.
All of us have a vision of how we’d like the world to be, but it’s evolved into the way it is for countless millennia & countless reasons & is therefore extremely difficult & gen’lly slow to change (altho it does change all the time).
I see the challenge for each of us being to positively change what we can & to seek ways to maximize our own personal fulfillment & that of everyone else around us, even tho that means working w/in What Is rather than w/in How I Want the World to Be. Blaming What Is for perpetual dissatisfaction does nothing but make you miserable & is an abdication of your responsibility to make the most of your life, for your own good & for that of those you care about. If you see your unhappiness as someone else’s fault & beyond your control, how can you expect to lead a satisfying & meaningful life?
Gov’t & taxes aren’t likely to go away, so your options are to move much further away than West Virginia or to deal w/ it & do your part to establish the kind of community you pine for (which you are doing already BTW) w/in the world as it is, whether you approve of it or not. Fight against that which appalls you either thru calling attention to it, civil disobedience, or quiet subversion. Make the life you want based on your ideals, making note of where yours bump against society’s & choosing wisely how to navigate those points of interaction so as to give you the most freedom & to minimize the potential penalties (or at least to walk into them w/ eyes open).
Whether you see it or not, you’re already helping shape & change the world to more closely align w/ your vision. Why not take some satisfaction in that rather than casting it as a hopeless battle against Big Brother?
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I like Stu’s comment!
The hippies had the same problems and dealt with them by going to communes, most of which collapsed or descended into disorder because, despite good intentions, a natural order of weak vs. strong usually emerged and it began to look a whole lot like the outside world after some time. The modern version of those are “intentional communities” (basically communes re-marketed), where people with similar ideologies and ideas of what they want their community to be like hole up together on a piece of shared land. Those are out there and are an option.
Intentional communities may actually have a better chance because they are often made up of hippie elders that have passed their competitive stage of life and just want to tread water in retirement, whereas the communes were hippies in their prime/peak years when they were most likely to be competitive.
Maybe explore the idea of piecing together an existence from 100 small revenue streams, where you do what you want to do but do about 20% more than you need and sell it.
Outside of the commune, the world you want doesn’t really exist and probably never did… so you’d have to meet it halfway. Homeless people don’t pay taxes. That’s an option.
Stu and Matt,
You both make some good and insightful points. However, Tara is thinking through what is bothering her and expressing her hopes and dreams for a New Sensibility within and among her brothers and sisters her and now. Stu’s advise essentially boils down to my mother’s Tea Party stoicism of “Shut up and deal with it.”
I agree with Tara that what we got is in large measure way beyond our ability to change. I takes the “reasonable adult” blinders to ignore the fact that there are institutions and people with far more leverage than us and the power and means to entrench this acquisitive system and barricade it from any real change to a more cooperative, communitarian form. To recognize the seeming futility in fighting against that system or pining for something different is not as naive as Stu and Matt suggest. In fact, I would argue that is clear sighted and rational.
Nevertheless, applying some historical context is absolutely appropriate as is encouraging people to take action and do what you can to make the changes that you can. But one should never give people false hope that going to a city council meeting, or voting, or pamphleting, or writing can defeat Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Banks, and Big War. These established institutions have their own internal logic, their own interests, and their own megaphones for perpetuating the status quo. We vote with the tokens we are forced to use. We participate in not participating. We opt out for opting for something different even when it feels like we’re just pissing into the wind.
That being said, what Tara and many of us are doing, the choices we have made and the actions we have already taken will put us in a better position when environmental and fiscal realities finally take down those establishment players soaked in their arrogance and greed. It is already happening.
But anarho-primitivism? No. Sorry. Just as a person that is educated can never go back to seeing the world through their previously shrouded eyes, a people that has transmigrated from our “the garden” of the tribal, hunter-gather culture can never go home again. We can only work close to home to build a new hyper-localized social reality. What we are engaged in is soemwhat like what the CHristian community used to teach the faithful; that we must live our truth and be a light unto the world. In that sence, it is kind of like the R.E.M. song “Bandwagon”;
Come on aboard, I promise you you won’t hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There’s lots of room for you on the bandwagon,
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won’t we all parade around and sing our songs,
A magic kingdom, open-armed
Greet us hello, bravo, name in lights
Passing on the word to fellow passengers and players, passing in,
Until you’re tired looking at all the flags
And all the banners waving
This is some parade, yesiree Bob
Could we have known?
Yesiree Bob, could we have known?
Look at all the flags and all the banners waving
Open up our arms, a magic kingdom, open-armed and greet us all
Come on aboard, I promise you you won’t hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There’s lots of room for you on the bandwagon
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won’t we all parade around and sing our songs and wave our flags
A magic kingdom, greet us all hello, greet us hello, greet us hello
Peace y’all,
ward
Ward: Thanks for the comment. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what rubbed me the wrong way in Stu’s comment, until you articulated it quite clearly.
Mattbg: Do you really see homelessness as an option? I don’t agree that it’s an option. It is a situation in which you do not have to pay taxes, yes, but do you really see it as a feasible, liveable option in Tara’s life? Sounds kind of snarky to me to hear someone saying that.
No, I don’t see homelessness as a good option. I’m just saying that it’s the only option you have if you aren’t willing to meet the world halfway.
I agree that it’s very difficult to imagine a livelihood where you don’t have a “job” or don’t pay taxes, but there are things in life that you can’t imagine not having (when you really think deeply about it) in today’s society, and they have to be provided somehow. Things like roads, safe water, policing, healthcare, etc. It’s great to say that these could be provided by the community, but that doesn’t exist outside of intentional communities and undeveloped countries, which is probably why Tara has been told to “go somewhere else”.
It was a bit snarky to suggest homelessness and it was meant to be a non-serious alternative, but I think the idea of putting many small revenue streams together by doing what you want to do and making a bit extra to sell was a good one. That’s one way you can meet the world as it exists today halfway.