Violence in the name of primitivism or anti-civilization
September 7, 2021 6:13 AM Subscribe
Hello, Hivemind: I'm looking for examples of violence that has been done in the service of the belief that civilization and modernity have led to worse societal outcomes (e.g., so-called "primitivism" or "anarcho-primitivism").
The obvious example is Ted Kaczynski, who argued that "civilization" had led to less individual freedom, greater environmental devastation, more anxiety and depression, etc., and used that argument as a justification for his bombings. I'm wondering if other people have used similar justifications for violence.
Thanks in advance!
The obvious example is Ted Kaczynski, who argued that "civilization" had led to less individual freedom, greater environmental devastation, more anxiety and depression, etc., and used that argument as a justification for his bombings. I'm wondering if other people have used similar justifications for violence.
Thanks in advance!
Also too obvious: Taliban
Khmer Rouge? Or Maoism more generally?
posted by rd45 at 7:51 AM on September 7, 2021
Khmer Rouge? Or Maoism more generally?
posted by rd45 at 7:51 AM on September 7, 2021
I'm not sure if you're only interested in real world examples, but The Purge movie series is predicated on the notion that annual cathartic extravaganzas of violence, where everyone is allowed to run amok without fear of punishment, are necessary to maintain strict order.
posted by carmicha at 8:06 AM on September 7, 2021
posted by carmicha at 8:06 AM on September 7, 2021
I don't think of property damage as violence, but maybe you do - so Earth First! might work and an earlier iteration of the tactic of property destruction is Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang".
Thinking of international movements that are willing to be violent to resist, the Zapatistas are another possible example. There's a lot of examples of indigenous resistance to Western expansion that might fit, too.
(re: above - how could Maoism be seen as anarcho-primitivism? That's opposite.)
posted by RajahKing at 8:58 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Thinking of international movements that are willing to be violent to resist, the Zapatistas are another possible example. There's a lot of examples of indigenous resistance to Western expansion that might fit, too.
(re: above - how could Maoism be seen as anarcho-primitivism? That's opposite.)
posted by RajahKing at 8:58 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
The obvious example to me is World War II. Like right-wingers everywhere, the Nazis hated urban modernity and the filth&corruption inherent in city living; they wanted a return to an idyllic, pastoral lifestyle out in the countryside.
posted by Rash at 9:22 AM on September 7, 2021
posted by Rash at 9:22 AM on September 7, 2021
All patriarchal oppression would qualify.
The patriarchal oppression of women (especially brides) in Hindu "joint families" in India (i.e. married women living with husband and husband's parents) makes an especially good case study. Women are forced into these living situations for most part: marriages are arranged with only nominal levels of "choice", and after the wedding women have little say in whether they live with the husband's parents or independently. If the former, they will live as chattel.
- Zero percent (0%) of my old school friends who live in such a situation are able to use a mobile phone without restrictions from their in-laws.
- None of them can wear jeans or other "western" clothing except with special permission from their in-laws.
- None of them are allowed to cut their hair short, and about half of them are not allowed to listen to any western music or watch any western TV shows.
- They are to bear children per their in-laws' timetable, as many children as their in-laws dictate, and even get abortions at their in-laws' command (e.g. if the fetus is female or has genetic abnormalities).
- They may be allowed to work outside the home for wages, but only if they have time left over after making sure all of the cooking, caregiving for elders, preparations for religious observances, etc. are done. Domestic helpers are affordable for many, but they are usually employed only for cleaning services, because it is a young married woman's duty to personally perform the other tasks I listed. Interestingly, childcare is often taken over by the paternal grandparents and it is considered disrespectful for a child's mother to expect to have much of a say in how her child (especially a son) is raised.
Any opposition to these expectations is seen as the product of "western influence"; one of the most damning assessments of any bride is that she is "too modern". Brides/young married women are required to behave in traditional, old-fashioned ways.
Men are largely exempt from this requirement. For example it would be considered scandalous and disrespectful if a woman turned up in a western-style evening gown at a Hindu wedding reception, but it's commonplace for men to wear western suits and tuxes at the same occasion.
Oh, and to tie it to your specific question, all of the above expectations are enforced via violence. In a 2015 survey, something like 70% of Indian people surveyed said it was "necessary" for a man to beat his wife or for in-laws to beat a daughter-in-law, and 90% said that it was "sad but understandable". Dowry-related abuse is endemic. Honor killing is not exactly rare. Cherry on top: the Indian supreme court ruled in 2013 in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape riots that a husband's right to rape his wife must be upheld by law, because to do otherwise would violate Indian cultural values (code for: let's not be getting evil modern western ideas in here, gotta let the husbands rape wives!).
posted by MiraK at 10:10 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
The patriarchal oppression of women (especially brides) in Hindu "joint families" in India (i.e. married women living with husband and husband's parents) makes an especially good case study. Women are forced into these living situations for most part: marriages are arranged with only nominal levels of "choice", and after the wedding women have little say in whether they live with the husband's parents or independently. If the former, they will live as chattel.
- Zero percent (0%) of my old school friends who live in such a situation are able to use a mobile phone without restrictions from their in-laws.
- None of them can wear jeans or other "western" clothing except with special permission from their in-laws.
- None of them are allowed to cut their hair short, and about half of them are not allowed to listen to any western music or watch any western TV shows.
- They are to bear children per their in-laws' timetable, as many children as their in-laws dictate, and even get abortions at their in-laws' command (e.g. if the fetus is female or has genetic abnormalities).
- They may be allowed to work outside the home for wages, but only if they have time left over after making sure all of the cooking, caregiving for elders, preparations for religious observances, etc. are done. Domestic helpers are affordable for many, but they are usually employed only for cleaning services, because it is a young married woman's duty to personally perform the other tasks I listed. Interestingly, childcare is often taken over by the paternal grandparents and it is considered disrespectful for a child's mother to expect to have much of a say in how her child (especially a son) is raised.
Any opposition to these expectations is seen as the product of "western influence"; one of the most damning assessments of any bride is that she is "too modern". Brides/young married women are required to behave in traditional, old-fashioned ways.
Men are largely exempt from this requirement. For example it would be considered scandalous and disrespectful if a woman turned up in a western-style evening gown at a Hindu wedding reception, but it's commonplace for men to wear western suits and tuxes at the same occasion.
Oh, and to tie it to your specific question, all of the above expectations are enforced via violence. In a 2015 survey, something like 70% of Indian people surveyed said it was "necessary" for a man to beat his wife or for in-laws to beat a daughter-in-law, and 90% said that it was "sad but understandable". Dowry-related abuse is endemic. Honor killing is not exactly rare. Cherry on top: the Indian supreme court ruled in 2013 in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape riots that a husband's right to rape his wife must be upheld by law, because to do otherwise would violate Indian cultural values (code for: let's not be getting evil modern western ideas in here, gotta let the husbands rape wives!).
posted by MiraK at 10:10 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Per carmicha, not sure if you're looking for only real world examples, but there's a whole left eco-terrorism component to Kim Stanley Robinson's recent novel "The Ministry for the Future," which isn't 100% what you're asking about but definitely has a resonance.
posted by kensington314 at 11:37 AM on September 7, 2021
posted by kensington314 at 11:37 AM on September 7, 2021
I don't think of property damage as violence, but maybe you do
If you think of Earth First!-type activities as violent, you might feel the same way about the Earth Liberation Front/Animal Liberation Front and the Sea Shepherds, and maybe even some of the stuff that Greenpeace got up to back in the old days.
posted by box at 2:53 PM on September 7, 2021
If you think of Earth First!-type activities as violent, you might feel the same way about the Earth Liberation Front/Animal Liberation Front and the Sea Shepherds, and maybe even some of the stuff that Greenpeace got up to back in the old days.
posted by box at 2:53 PM on September 7, 2021
Marital rape is justified in India by the very western British colonial laws, but don’t let facts get in the way of a narrative.
Anyway, I disagree that any patriarchal oppression qualifies for this question. In the Indian examples (which are localized in certain types of families and personalities, and hardly representative of the average Hindu family, much like oppressed Christian wives are not representative of Christians on the whole, but… whatever), the violence is part of the tradition, not a reaction explicitly against westernization.
posted by redlines at 7:31 PM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Anyway, I disagree that any patriarchal oppression qualifies for this question. In the Indian examples (which are localized in certain types of families and personalities, and hardly representative of the average Hindu family, much like oppressed Christian wives are not representative of Christians on the whole, but… whatever), the violence is part of the tradition, not a reaction explicitly against westernization.
posted by redlines at 7:31 PM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
The obvious example is Ted Kaczynski, yes.
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on September 8, 2021
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on September 8, 2021
At risk of interrogating the premise, I think it's worth interrogating the premise a bit since you're getting answers out of which it's hard to to discern a clear pattern.
The Luddites don't really fit the narrative I think the OP is after: the objection was to precarity for textile workers as a result of mechanisation in that industry, the benefits of which accrued primarily to factory owners as artisans were unable to compete with factories and secure work was replaced with precarious low-wage work. The Luddites were reacting to a specific historical development, not to "modernisation" per se; in particular, the machines, in and of themselves, were not the issue.
"Their struggle has been tragically warped into a caricature when it is more relevant than ever."
So characterising the Luddites as opposed to "civilisation" or "modernity" seems to rely on defining those things in terms of industrial capitalism, which is not at all obvious.
Or: beyond the Luddites, industrial sabotage has been a pretty common feature of labour activism --- check out the etymology of "sabotage" --- and it would be sort of bizarre to blanket-characterise an engine of social evolution like the labour movement as "anti-civilisation", since labour organisation tends to increase the complexity of how a society is organised.
Part of the problem with the sort of "primitivism" I think the question is referring to is that it's often articulated in a way that presumes narratives about "civilisation" and "primitive people" that are racist and ahistorical. The "primitivism" I think the OP has in mind is totally suffused with some of the very attitudes that the "primitivist" is ostensibly opposing. (I'm thinking about stuff like anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan's portrayal of hunter-gatherer societies.)
Take the OP's example: the Unabomber manifesto is pretty ahistorical and racist and uncritically accepts a lot of highly contestable notions in exactly the way you might expect from a white [ex-]academic writing way outside his field --- e.g. Kaczynski's never going to escape anything he's railing against while tossing around the phrase "wild nature" like it unambiguously means something.
But then I feel like there's a risk, when looking for examples of this kind of "primitivism", of taking for granted the definition of "civilisation" etc. in a similar way. This is because compiling a list of people/groups that acted "against civilisation" in favour of the "primitive" requires defining those things.
TL;DR I don't see much of a useful category that contains both Indigenous resistance and the Unabomber, so maybe "civilisation" and "modernity" need some clarification?
posted by busted_crayons at 3:20 PM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Luddites don't really fit the narrative I think the OP is after: the objection was to precarity for textile workers as a result of mechanisation in that industry, the benefits of which accrued primarily to factory owners as artisans were unable to compete with factories and secure work was replaced with precarious low-wage work. The Luddites were reacting to a specific historical development, not to "modernisation" per se; in particular, the machines, in and of themselves, were not the issue.
"Their struggle has been tragically warped into a caricature when it is more relevant than ever."
So characterising the Luddites as opposed to "civilisation" or "modernity" seems to rely on defining those things in terms of industrial capitalism, which is not at all obvious.
Or: beyond the Luddites, industrial sabotage has been a pretty common feature of labour activism --- check out the etymology of "sabotage" --- and it would be sort of bizarre to blanket-characterise an engine of social evolution like the labour movement as "anti-civilisation", since labour organisation tends to increase the complexity of how a society is organised.
Part of the problem with the sort of "primitivism" I think the question is referring to is that it's often articulated in a way that presumes narratives about "civilisation" and "primitive people" that are racist and ahistorical. The "primitivism" I think the OP has in mind is totally suffused with some of the very attitudes that the "primitivist" is ostensibly opposing. (I'm thinking about stuff like anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan's portrayal of hunter-gatherer societies.)
Take the OP's example: the Unabomber manifesto is pretty ahistorical and racist and uncritically accepts a lot of highly contestable notions in exactly the way you might expect from a white [ex-]academic writing way outside his field --- e.g. Kaczynski's never going to escape anything he's railing against while tossing around the phrase "wild nature" like it unambiguously means something.
But then I feel like there's a risk, when looking for examples of this kind of "primitivism", of taking for granted the definition of "civilisation" etc. in a similar way. This is because compiling a list of people/groups that acted "against civilisation" in favour of the "primitive" requires defining those things.
TL;DR I don't see much of a useful category that contains both Indigenous resistance and the Unabomber, so maybe "civilisation" and "modernity" need some clarification?
posted by busted_crayons at 3:20 PM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
sorry I don’t have an example at hand, but the writing of derrick jensen comes to mind. it’s been a 10+ years since I’ve read any of his books, but i see he has a new one out this year. deep green resistance or endgame books might have some of what you’re interested in.
posted by tamarack at 10:08 PM on September 9, 2021
posted by tamarack at 10:08 PM on September 9, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mekily at 6:22 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]