John Zerzan

Against Civilization, first published in 1999 by Uncivilized Books and out of print for several years, is the well-regarded primer to Green Anarchism, Anarcho-Primitivism and the most radical but relevant form of anarchism to develop in the past decade. Anarcho-primitivism is a shorthand term for a radical current that critiques the totality of civilisation from an anarchist perspective and seeks to initiate a comprehensive transformation of human life. Revised and expanded edition.

Readings and Reflections

Against Civilization

The Pathology of Civilization

Running on Emptiness

And Other Essays (New Autonomy)

Future Primitive

This neo-Luddite sequel to Elements of Refusal includes "Future Primitive," "The Mass Psychology of Misery," "Tonality and the Totality," "The Catastrophe of Postmodernism," excerpts from "The Nihilist's Dictionary," and other essays, columns, and reviews. From the editor of Against Civilization and the confidant of alleged Unabomber Ted Kazcynski.

And Other Essays

Elements of Refusal

Cemal Atila

Gelecekteki ilkel

The mentor of the green anarchist and neo-primitive movements is back with his first book in six years, confronting civilisation, mass society, modernity and technoculture - both the history of its developing crisis and the possibilities for its human and humane solutions. As John Zerzan writes, 'These dire times may yet reveal invigorating new vistas of thought and action. When everything is at stake, all must be confronted and superseded. At this moment, there is the distinct possibility of doing just that.'

Twilight of the Machines

El crepusculo de las maquinas

Alice Carnes

Tool, Toy Or Tyrant?

Questioning Technology

El mundo globalizado, industrializado, civilizado está cada vez más mediado por la tecnología, que promete cercanía y comunicación a gente que está cada vez más sola y aislada. La humanidad se ha ido domesticando para adaptarse a las exigencias de la división del trabajo, las ciudades, los smartphones. Puede entenderse como una evolución pero ha tenido una consecuencia severa que ha calado hondo: la alienación de las personas. No es una novedad, lleva en marcha miles de años pero, incluso cuando se constata que vivimos en una realidad que no hace feliz a casi nadie, pocos se han atrevido a diagnosticar las raíces del problema y a asumir las consecuencias. Precisamente eso es lo que logra, de una forma tan contundente que resulta abrumadora, John Zerzan, uno de los principales pensadores de la crítica radical. Así, identifica claramente que el problema es la propia civilización y todo lo que implica: pensamiento simbólico, domesticación, jerarquías, desigualdad, destrucción de la naturaleza, ruptura de las relaciones... No se limita a desmontar todo lo que consideramos como dado, sino que analiza los valores y las formas de vida primitivos de tal forma que cualquiera reivindicaría la necesidad de recuperarlos. Gracias a su capacidad analítica y a un documentado conocimiento antropológico, Zerzan encuentra los antecedentes de una sociedad libre, de una humanidad que tenía como pilares la libertad, la naturaleza o la vida comunitaria. No es de extrañar que haya que remontarse a una época prehistórica, de ahí que su pensamiento sea considerado como el referente del anarquismo primitivista.

El crepúsculo de las máquinas

the stand against civilization

Why hope?

Tool, Toy or Tyrant

These are dark and darkening times, challenging us to look deeper to grasp the roots and dynamics of the looming civilizational crisis. Chronic illness of the planet calls for radically new thinking if there is to be any hope of renewal. When We Are Human offers thought at a necessary and primal level. All previous civilizations have failed, and now there's just one global civilization, which is starkly, grandly failing. To deny or avoid this fact is to remain in the sphere of the superficial, the irrelevant. The physical environment is reaching the catastrophe stage as the seas warm, rise, acidify, and fill with plastics. Icebergs ahead and floating past beachgoers idly watching the planet die. So much is failing, so much is interrelated in the technosphere of ever-greater dependence and estrangement. Social existence, now strangely isolated, is beset by mass shootings, rising suicide rates, slipping longevity, loneliness, anxiety, and the maddening stream of lies and concocted politics. Zerzan trains his passionate focus on several fields of discourse: anthropology, history, philosophy, technology, psychology, and the spiritual. Points of light that become a kaleidoscope refracting new insights and contributing an overall picture of late civilization.

Notes from the Age of Pandemics

When We Are Human

A new edition of Zerzan's first collection of essays, exploring alienation, and the resistance it has engendered.

Essays

FC Press

Black and Green Press

"'Origins' is the essential collection of anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan's groundbreaking work on the roots of our modern ecological, social, and psychological crisis. These essays, spanning over three decades, have shaken anarchist thought and discussion to its core, moving beyond the state to a larger understanding of the impact civilization has had upon our lives and our planet"--P. [4] of cover.

A John Zerzan Reader

Origins

Anarhoprimitivizam protiv civilizacije

"Zerzan's writing is sharp, uncompromising, and tenacious." — Derrick Jensen "John Zerzan's importance does not only consist in his brilliant intelligence, his absolute clearness of analysis and his unequalled dialectical synthesis that clarifies even the most complicated questions, but also in the humanity that fills his thoughts of resistance. Future Primitive Revisited is one more precious gift for us all."—Enrico Manicardi, author of Liberi dalla Civiltá (Free from Civilization) "Anyone who travels with his eyes open understands the sense of much of what you have written, and the longer I live the greater my contempt for the opportunists who run governments and dictate our lives with technology."—Paul Theroux "Of course we should go primitive. This doesn't mean abandoning material needs, tools, or skills, but ending our obsession with such concerns. Declaring for community, our true origin: personal autonomy, trust, mutual support in pursuit of all the joys and troubles of life. Society was a trap—massive, demanding, impersonal and debilitating from day one. So hurry back to the community, friends, and welcome all the consequences of such an orientation. The reasons for fear and despair will only multiply if we remain in this brutal and dangerous state of civilization."—Blok 45 publishing, Belgrade As our society is stricken with repeated technological disasters, and the apocalyptic problems that go with them, the "neo-primitivist" essays of John Zerzan seem more relevant than ever. "Future Primitive," the core innovative essay of Future Primitive Revisited, has been out of print for years. This new edition is updated with never-before-printed essays that speak to a youthful political movement and influential writers such as Derrick Jensen and Paul Theroux. An active participant in the contemporary anarchist resurgence, John Zerzan has been an invited speaker at both radical and conventional events on several continents. His weekly Anarchy Radio broadcast streams live on KWVA radio.

Future Primitive Revisited

Jesús Sepúlveda

Aragorn!

Wolfi Landstreicher

Uncivilized is an anthology of Green Anarchy magazine from Eugene Oregan. It collects the uncompromising attack against civilization, technology, the Left that Green Anarchy provided shaped into a weapon for the next generation of anti-civilization anarchists.

The Best of Green Anarchy Magazine

Uncivilized

The infamous eco-anarchist John Zerzan whose books have resulted in recent interviews by Vice and Believer magazines, checks in with further provocative articles about the chaotic results of civilization and technology. Says novelist Lang Gore in his introduction: "The present collection of essays continues the overarching thrust of John's scholarship, unveiling the post-apocalyptic nature of our times by noting the apocalypse was yesterday, several thousand years ago, to be precise, and that nothing produced by civilization can ever redeem the systematic attempt it has undertaken these (very) few millennia to destroy or alienate any human connection with the earth. "In fact, when civilized Europeans imposed themselves everywhere on Earth, they created a terminal crisis for themselves by their very contact with indigenous societies. Suddenly, those with eyes to see and ears to hear could recognize that patriarchy, property and authority, and certainly slavery, were neither necessary nor desirable, let alone determined by 'human nature.'"

The Stand Against Civilization

Why Hope?

Has civilization been a good idea? Zerzan doesn't think so. We may need this critical perspective, as the nature of civilization becomes clearer--and more frightening!

John Zerzan

Books

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