Talks by John Zerzan this Monday and Friday
KP | 23.05.2006 14:53
Monday 29 May
7.30 for 8pm at Rampart Centre, Rampart St, London E1
organised by London Anarchist Forum
eventsandissues.bravehostcom
Wednesday 31 May
University of Leicester, 501 Ken Edwards Building, 3.30pm-5pm
7.30 for 8pm at Rampart Centre, Rampart St, London E1
organised by London Anarchist Forum
eventsandissues.bravehostcom
Wednesday 31 May
University of Leicester, 501 Ken Edwards Building, 3.30pm-5pm
Talks on
The Critique of Civilization and the Growing Crisis
by John Zerzan,
Today we experience a deepening crisis in every sphere, which urges us to rethink our acceptance of the most basic social institutions. Divisions of labor and domestication, the cornerstones of civilization itself, are in need of problematizing. The absence of fundamental critique would mean that we accept an unfolding, multifaceted disaster as merely inevitable. Might we find, in the prospect of a new paradigm/ framework/vision that breaks out of the confines of failed earlier approaches to health and liberation? Keeping in mind that there should never be a single “correct” path, there is much promise in what is called anti-civilization theory, primitivism, and green anarchy in various parts of the world. Mass society and its technological imperative are now increasingly seen as the problem, not the solution.
John Zerzan is an anarchist author and activist and editor of Green Anarchy magazine.
His writings include Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive (1994), and Running on Emptiness (2002). He has also edited Against Civilization (1999) and (with Alice Carnes) Questioning Technology (1991).
For more information:
http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/cppe or http://www.sgsa.org.uk or e-mail 
bartelby@refusingstructures.net.
---------------------------------------------
The Critique of Civilization and the Growing Crisis
by John Zerzan,
Today we experience a deepening crisis in every sphere, which urges us to rethink our acceptance of the most basic social institutions. Divisions of labor and domestication, the cornerstones of civilization itself, are in need of problematizing. The absence of fundamental critique would mean that we accept an unfolding, multifaceted disaster as merely inevitable. Might we find, in the prospect of a new paradigm/ framework/vision that breaks out of the confines of failed earlier approaches to health and liberation? Keeping in mind that there should never be a single “correct” path, there is much promise in what is called anti-civilization theory, primitivism, and green anarchy in various parts of the world. Mass society and its technological imperative are now increasingly seen as the problem, not the solution.
John Zerzan is an anarchist author and activist and editor of Green Anarchy magazine.
His writings include Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive (1994), and Running on Emptiness (2002). He has also edited Against Civilization (1999) and (with Alice Carnes) Questioning Technology (1991).
For more information:
http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/cppe or http://www.sgsa.org.uk or e-mail bartelby@refusingstructures.net. ---------------------------------------------
KP
Additions
zerzan's "anarchism" is pretty questionable to me
24.05.2006 08:40
Zerzan presents himself as an "anarchist" and has certainly been happy to speak for "the anarchists" to the mainstream media, but to me the things he has to say have very little to do with what I take to be the core principles of anarchism - questioning social hierarchies, and organizing people to do away with relationships based on command and obedience. Instead, he locates the social problems that we face in a very abstract notion of "technology".
This can ring true with many people, because technology in the service of capitalism hasn't proved particularly helpful to many people or the natural world, to say the least.
Personally, I would be happy enough for Zerzan to present his views, which I think are sometimes interesting but mostly goofy as hell, if he didn't insist on saying he was an "anarcho-primitivist". He could easily just call himself a "primitivist" and be done with it, and I really wish he would.
For an interesting debate between Zerzan and Michael Albert of Zmag, see http://www.zmag.org/debateprim.htm
This can ring true with many people, because technology in the service of capitalism hasn't proved particularly helpful to many people or the natural world, to say the least.
Personally, I would be happy enough for Zerzan to present his views, which I think are sometimes interesting but mostly goofy as hell, if he didn't insist on saying he was an "anarcho-primitivist". He could easily just call himself a "primitivist" and be done with it, and I really wish he would.
For an interesting debate between Zerzan and Michael Albert of Zmag, see
http://www.zmag.org/debateprim.htm
yossarian
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