Thursday, March 15, 2012

Rewilding & Feminism

    Green anarchism is largely critiqued for the commonly linked, controversial, theory/practice of primitivism. Primitivism, to many red anarchists, is met with apprehension and dubbed as poorly thought out, unrealistic pipe dream. This also creates a rift in basic anarchist ideology - should I stay or should I go? Staying within the confines of typical urban civilization for the benefit of others or leaving the concrete jungle for a sustainable eco-friendly community of equals with no slaves or masters?
     Staying behind to make an impact on local politics and influencing others by creating sharings, radical libraries, etc. is not only noble, but in fact, necessary. Food Not Bombs, for instance, would not flourish, or exist for that matter, if there were not individuals within the web of consumer-capitalist society questioning the unquestioning participants of oppression. Anarchism would be exclusive to those already in equal communities off the radar and intellectuals - if everyone agreed with leaving civilization, there would be no presence of anarchists challenging ingrained morals and ideologies.
    This logic is based on the belief that people are ignorant, either purposefully or against their will (or a mixture of both).  The main objective of anarchism is to create a society of equals without centralized government or hierarchy, based within the premise of individualism. Keeping these two basic beliefs that are universally accepted by anarchists in mind, is it ethical to convert people to your recipe for revolution, like Christians converting folks on the street, even against their will, or for their own benefit by force? If as an anarchist, you are keeping true to individualism which is just as much practice as theory, the whole basis for decentralization of power, and a word rightly used interchangeably with freedom, how would you be able to achieve the over all objective without force?  
    In my personal opinion, I believe it is foolish to stay in the hornets nest, suffering and participating in the destruction of our ecosystems and deterioration of personal freedom. Having the option to actualize freedom, equality, sustainability, etc. and not utilizing the opportunity, is, again, foolish. Staying within capitalism slowly decays our planet - no matter which way you slice it, money is not sustainable. Not only that, but civilization has perverted our morals and psychological state. Not many of us know how to obtain resources without a store, or dumpster for that matter, leaving us disconnected from the environment that is supporting us. Money itself has contributed to the destruction of the nuclear family, most of us with deep Freudian complexes stemming from lack of connection with our mothers and fathers. This is why green anarchism is the only feasible solution to our economic ruin, moral deterioration and psychological abuse.
    I have my qualms, of course, with some aspects of primitivism. Rewilding, as far as harmony between us and the planet is essential, but many take it too far not realizing when we were hunter gatherers, it was survival of the fittest. Keep in mind hierarchy stems from one person having more resources or strength, using it as leverage or power, people abusing the resources for their own cut, then fighting among one another out of selfishness. Strength, of course, would rank men as more useful than women, in fact, this is where basic sexism comes from and why sexism is the fundamental discrimination and not racism, for example. Government does protect you from being harmed by another, at least in theory, promoting a value system previously enforced by religion, now nonexistent in the United States. With the development of these notions, we can remove ourselves from the idea of government or hierarchy and apply it in the wild, which technically, in the correct use of the term, is civilized.  So a successful primitive society would have to be a gender-neutral society, which in turn, must be a society that will not value one character trait over another, for instance physical strength over gardening, this fundamental thinking is what creates hierarchy. This would automatically deem children, seniors and people with physical or mental disabilities inadequate.  In short, I don't think we should be de-evolving but re-evolving, apart from this gender-ized evolution that is dependent on greed to survive. It would take work to make sure a successful primitive society does not degenerate into hierarchy within a few generations, but feasible within the realm of feminism.
 

 

       
    

2 comments:

  1. This is a great post, I'm glad to have found another intelligent proponent of green anarchism out there.

    "In my personal opinion, I believe it is foolish to stay in the hornets nest, suffering and participating in the destruction of our ecosystems and deterioration of personal freedom. Having the option to actualize freedom, equality, sustainability, etc. and not utilizing the opportunity, is, again, foolish. Staying within capitalism slowly decays our planet - no matter which way you slice it, money is not sustainable."

    Very well said, I completely agree, the greatest positive impact we can have for our selves and the world is through a complete boycott of the system, and that can only be achieved by connecting with Nature and living more self-sufficiently. We can either survive on Earth naturally and freely or through the middle-men slave-masters that impose their conditions for living on this planet on us; the former is of course the sane choice.

    "It would take work to make sure a successful primitive society does not degenerate into hierarchy..."

    Yes, and the way to do that is make sure the seeds of hierarchy and false authority have not been planted in the social structure, I believe this is accomplished through establishing individual sovereign homesteads that are part of voluntary gift-economy communities. I explain this reasoning more in depth in the the top 2 essays here: http://colindonoghue.wordpress.com
    Any feedback from you is welcome.

    Peace,
    Colin D.

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    Replies
    1. You said it! I'm equally delighted there's someone else who doesn't think green anarchism is some irrational idealistic hippie fantasy. This article was posted on anarchistnews.org not too long ago, and the red anarchists were saying green anarchism is genocide (like promoting industrial civilization isn't) and that they're 'beyond' the term feminism because they have somehow rewired their brains despite extensive psychological abuse of our social structures/media/government and despite the fact that most of anarchists unwittingly exclude people of minorities and are composed mostly of white punk-subculture men.

      So trust me, this was a sigh of relief. I immediately bookmarked your blog, and posted the Native Americans & the Occupy Movement: Potentially a Powerful Partnership on my facebook. All I can say is many of the liberal activists in my area need to read that, considering they want social justice, although to them it means, they would like to be a capitalist too.

      Thanks, feedback is always cool, keep updating your blog, I'll be reading (although, no comments?)

      -crystal

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