John Zerzan

John Zerzan (August 10, 1943) is an American anarcho-individualist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate a return to the ways of life of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer as inspiration for the shape a free society should take. His criticisms extend to domestication, language, symbolic thinking (such as mathematics) and art, as well as the concept of time. His best-known books are: (in English) Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005) and Twilight of the Machines (2008).

After a life of union and ecological activism tending toward more and more radical positions, he became known in 1995 after a full-page interview in the New York Times. Likewise, his thesis has been contradicted by anthropology and described as unscientific and anti-human.

Childhood and education

Born in 1943 in Salem, Oregon, to immigrant parents from the Czech region of Bohemia, he studied History at Stanford University and completed his Master's Degree at San Francisco State University; He later attempted to complete a doctoral thesis at the University of Southern California, but abandoned it before completing it.

Thought and work

Zerzan's theories are based on those of Theodor Adorno regarding the concept of negative dialectics, with them he intends to build a theory of civilization as part of our alienation and loss of virtues as human beings. Zerzan's claims about the situation of primitive societies are based on a particular reading of the works of well-known anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard B. Lee.

According to Zerzan, today we can still find civilizations that are not alienated and organized in a non-oppressive way, as is the case of the !Kung, Bushmen and Mbuti. He uses these civilizations as a political ideal, or as an instructive example to criticize contemporary societies, and especially industrial and technological ones.

Zerzan uses anthropological studies of these societies as a basis for a broad critique of aspects of modern life. He describes contemporary society as a world created on the psychological production of scarcity and poverty, the history of civilization would be the history of the renunciation of our virtues and rights.

Zerzan is commonly associated with the philosophies of primitivism or neo-Luddism and especially with his opposition to technology. He rejects not only the State, but other institutions that he considers authoritarian. The “primitivism” that he maintains can be explained as the intention of a purely hunter-gatherer society, without technology or domestication. Among the critics of primitivism, Murray Bookchin stands out, who emphasizes the contradictory, misogynistic, esoteric and anti-human nature of his postulates, which he understands derive from North American deep ecology.

Zerzan's work has a markedly dualistic basis between the “primitive” – considered non-alienated, wild, non-hierarchical, playful and socially egalitarian – and the “civilized” – considered alienated, domesticated, hierarchically organized and socially discriminatory. (see: myth of the noble savage).

Position on the ideas of Degrowth

Zerzan criticizes that "some of his concepts do not go too far, such as slow cities, slow food or the idea of voluntary simplicity, considering that "they do not have much scope because they lack criticism of the entire phenomenon." He estimates that "degrowth may be desirable, but a concrete fight must be put forward against all these dynamics, institutions and forces that push in the other direction." He also considers that their intentions are good, but doubts their effectiveness through political participation, although recognizing the possibility that they find an alternative way.

Works

Books and brochures

• When We Are Human: Notes From The Age Of PandemicsJuly 2021.
• A People's History of Civilization, April 20, 2018
• Time and Time Again. Detritus Books, 2018.
• Why hope? The Stand Against Civilization. Feral House, 2015.
• Future Primitive Revisited. Feral House, May 2012.
• Origins of the 1%: The Bronze Age pamphlet. Left Bank Books, 2012.
• Origins: A John Zerzan Reader. Joint publication of FC Press and Black and Green Press, 2010.
• Twilight of the Machines. Feral House, 2008.
• Running On Emptiness. Feral House, 2002.
• Against Civilization (editor). Uncivilized Books, 1999; Expanded edition, Feral House, 2005.
• Future Primitive. Autonomedia, 1994.
• Questioning Technology (co-edited with Alice Carnes). Freedom Press, 1988; 2d edition, New Society, 1991, ISBN 978-0-900384-44-8
• Elements of Refusal. Left Bank Books, 1988; 2d edition, C.A.L. Press, 1999.

Articles

• Telos 141, Second-Best Life: Real Virtuality. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Winter 2007.
• Telos 137, Breaking the Spell: A Civilization Critique Perspective. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Winter 2006.
• Telos 124, Why Primitivism?. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Summer 2002.
• Telos 60, Taylorism and Unionism: The Origins of a Partnership. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Summer 1984.
• Telos 50, Anti-Work and the Struggle for Control. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Winter 1981–1982.
• Telos 49, Origins and Meaning of World War I. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Fall 1981.
• Telos 28, Unionism and the Labor Front. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Summer 1978.
• Telos 27, Unionization in America. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Spring 1976.
• Telos 21, Organized Labor versus The Revolt Against Work: The Critical Contest. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Fall 1974.