So it turns out that I`m a panjectively primalist anarcho-perrennialist pantheist vitalist animist with Agorist sympathies... SPOILER ALERT: There ain't nothing new about post-left anarchism.
Jul 20, 2023Liked by THE CROW IS A MESSENGER, NEVERMORE MEDIA
Some stellar stuff here: Darren Allen's concise meditation on living the primal life from the inside out, and your own crystal clear synthesis of anarchism, spirituality, and indigenous solidarity (quoted from The New Anarchism). Bravo the pathfinders!
Thank you! I hope you consider yourself yourself amongst those pathfinders, because you are.
I'm planning on quoting you in an upcoming piece, which will use Darren Allen's devastating critique of David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything... I think you named the important questions in your review of that book...
Thanks. I definitely resonate on those core subjects, always in search of deeper meaning in living within "nature," and the essence of "human nature" at its primal core. And, to what extent that core essence is still accessible, in living practice today and for tomorrow. Re. Kaczynski, I haven't read him (except your excerpt) but your paraphrase "in the absence of ego" gives pause. That state will require quite a Great Leap Forward, I imagine. ;)
LOL. :) Not sure what you mean by "it." But I think you mean Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson, Thoreau, D H Lawrence, Lao-Tzu, Basho... plus Derrek Jensen, Edward Abbey...
This leads us to biocentrism, another core tenet of the New Anarchism. Simply put, biocentrism is the belief that the natural world does not exist in order to be exploited by human beings. Rather, human beings are seen as existing within a biotic community which includes not only all plants, animals, and fungi, but also rivers, mountains, and celestial bodies like the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
That’s what most religions teach as well. Man wasn’t put here to profit from the earth, he was put here as a steward. He’s supposed to take care of the world, the animals and the trees. In certain spiritual beliefs humanity is an integral part of the environment and should take care of it.
It’s only the corporatist that feel as if they have to exploit the earth, and they tricked people into moving into great cities instead of staying on the family farm. The further people got from the source of food and the further they got from being able to put hands in dirt, they’ve forgotten how it’s like to be connected to the earth. That’s why the environment, animals and all, fights them. When a man is one with his environment, coyotes walk right by him and snakes leave him alone. When he isn’t, he gets attacked.
“Another thing I learned was the importance of having purposeful work to do. I mean really purposeful work—life-and-death stuff. I didn’t truly realize what life in the woods was all about until my economic situation was such that I had to hunt, gather plants, and cultivate a garden in order to eat. During part of my time in Lincoln, especially 1975 through 1978, if I didn’t have success in hunting, then I didn’t get any meat to eat. I didn’t get any vegetables unless I gathered or grew them myself. There is nothing more satisfying than the fulfillment and self-confidence that this kind of self-reliance brings. In connection with this, one loses most of one’s fear of death.”
Hmmm. So Kaczynski had to be on the run and hiding in order to learn what every farmer and hunter has learned since the beginning, that if you don’t successfully hunt and farm, you starve. He didn’t have to go into hiding to learn it, but hey, I’m not going to knock the learning method.
“He even lumps ‘child-care’ into work, as if taking care of children under primitive conditions is equivalent to what it is like for us today.”
I’m trying not to laugh at that, because once I and my sister were old enough to walk and think, we were allowed to roam all over the one hundred and twenty acres that my family owned. We could walk the three miles to the stock tank, or the two miles to the feed yard, where we could get beechnut candy and bottled sodas. We could walk the mile to the neighbors, so long as we were back by dark.
It wasn’t strange for us to meet our mother coming back from work and have her wave at us and point at the sun. We just knew that in an hour, she’d have dinner cooked and we had better be there or we’d get nothing to eat that night.
“Kaczynski mentions violence, which also occurred in primal societies, and then rightly points out that this is not ‘alienating violence’. Homicide was as rare as warfare, which was all but non-existant in our Paleolithic past.”
I wonder where he got that, because even in “Primitive” communities, they had conflicts with people from outside the community. Native American fought among each other all the time; for food, for women, for better hunting grounds, and in Europe, early man wiped out Neandertols and stole their women.
“Of course, we share too. We pay taxes. Our tax money is used to help poor or disabled people through public-assistance programs, and to carry on other public activities that are supposed to promote the general welfare. Employers share with their employees by paying them wages.”
I’d argue with Mr. Kaczynski that our government giving money to the poor and disabled doesn’t really help them, because it robs them of the pride of earning it for themselves. The more you pay people not to work, the less they’ll be willing to work, or will even stop working altogether.
Employers don’t share by paying what is essentially me providing my training and expertise to my employer in return for money. My employer pays me because if he doesn’t, I can take that expertise to someone else who would pay me.
What a great comment! Please stick around - you're the type of reader I want.
You are right about the "alienating violence" part. I'd like to see Darren respond to this. For some weird reason, he doesn't allow comments on his Substack
The views of Darren Allen and I overlap considerably, but he does need to be read carefully, because he clearly thinks he's right all the time, and it's not true.
Some stellar stuff here: Darren Allen's concise meditation on living the primal life from the inside out, and your own crystal clear synthesis of anarchism, spirituality, and indigenous solidarity (quoted from The New Anarchism). Bravo the pathfinders!
Thank you! I hope you consider yourself yourself amongst those pathfinders, because you are.
I'm planning on quoting you in an upcoming piece, which will use Darren Allen's devastating critique of David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything... I think you named the important questions in your review of that book...
Thanks. I definitely resonate on those core subjects, always in search of deeper meaning in living within "nature," and the essence of "human nature" at its primal core. And, to what extent that core essence is still accessible, in living practice today and for tomorrow. Re. Kaczynski, I haven't read him (except your excerpt) but your paraphrase "in the absence of ego" gives pause. That state will require quite a Great Leap Forward, I imagine. ;)
YOU HAVEN'T READ KACZYNSKI?????
Wow, how did you figure it then? Ronald Wright? Jacques Ellul? Kundalini awakening?
LOL. :) Not sure what you mean by "it." But I think you mean Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson, Thoreau, D H Lawrence, Lao-Tzu, Basho... plus Derrek Jensen, Edward Abbey...
We should really shoot the breeze over the phone at some point, I'm going to see if I still have your number!
Darren has been the most impactful writer in my life, good to see others enjoy his important work.
This leads us to biocentrism, another core tenet of the New Anarchism. Simply put, biocentrism is the belief that the natural world does not exist in order to be exploited by human beings. Rather, human beings are seen as existing within a biotic community which includes not only all plants, animals, and fungi, but also rivers, mountains, and celestial bodies like the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
That’s what most religions teach as well. Man wasn’t put here to profit from the earth, he was put here as a steward. He’s supposed to take care of the world, the animals and the trees. In certain spiritual beliefs humanity is an integral part of the environment and should take care of it.
It’s only the corporatist that feel as if they have to exploit the earth, and they tricked people into moving into great cities instead of staying on the family farm. The further people got from the source of food and the further they got from being able to put hands in dirt, they’ve forgotten how it’s like to be connected to the earth. That’s why the environment, animals and all, fights them. When a man is one with his environment, coyotes walk right by him and snakes leave him alone. When he isn’t, he gets attacked.
“Another thing I learned was the importance of having purposeful work to do. I mean really purposeful work—life-and-death stuff. I didn’t truly realize what life in the woods was all about until my economic situation was such that I had to hunt, gather plants, and cultivate a garden in order to eat. During part of my time in Lincoln, especially 1975 through 1978, if I didn’t have success in hunting, then I didn’t get any meat to eat. I didn’t get any vegetables unless I gathered or grew them myself. There is nothing more satisfying than the fulfillment and self-confidence that this kind of self-reliance brings. In connection with this, one loses most of one’s fear of death.”
Hmmm. So Kaczynski had to be on the run and hiding in order to learn what every farmer and hunter has learned since the beginning, that if you don’t successfully hunt and farm, you starve. He didn’t have to go into hiding to learn it, but hey, I’m not going to knock the learning method.
“He even lumps ‘child-care’ into work, as if taking care of children under primitive conditions is equivalent to what it is like for us today.”
I’m trying not to laugh at that, because once I and my sister were old enough to walk and think, we were allowed to roam all over the one hundred and twenty acres that my family owned. We could walk the three miles to the stock tank, or the two miles to the feed yard, where we could get beechnut candy and bottled sodas. We could walk the mile to the neighbors, so long as we were back by dark.
It wasn’t strange for us to meet our mother coming back from work and have her wave at us and point at the sun. We just knew that in an hour, she’d have dinner cooked and we had better be there or we’d get nothing to eat that night.
“Kaczynski mentions violence, which also occurred in primal societies, and then rightly points out that this is not ‘alienating violence’. Homicide was as rare as warfare, which was all but non-existant in our Paleolithic past.”
I wonder where he got that, because even in “Primitive” communities, they had conflicts with people from outside the community. Native American fought among each other all the time; for food, for women, for better hunting grounds, and in Europe, early man wiped out Neandertols and stole their women.
“Of course, we share too. We pay taxes. Our tax money is used to help poor or disabled people through public-assistance programs, and to carry on other public activities that are supposed to promote the general welfare. Employers share with their employees by paying them wages.”
I’d argue with Mr. Kaczynski that our government giving money to the poor and disabled doesn’t really help them, because it robs them of the pride of earning it for themselves. The more you pay people not to work, the less they’ll be willing to work, or will even stop working altogether.
Employers don’t share by paying what is essentially me providing my training and expertise to my employer in return for money. My employer pays me because if he doesn’t, I can take that expertise to someone else who would pay me.
What a great comment! Please stick around - you're the type of reader I want.
You are right about the "alienating violence" part. I'd like to see Darren respond to this. For some weird reason, he doesn't allow comments on his Substack
The views of Darren Allen and I overlap considerably, but he does need to be read carefully, because he clearly thinks he's right all the time, and it's not true.