Against Civilization - John Zerzan

Contents

Introduction 4

Section One: Before Civilization
Roy Walker: The Golden Feast (1952) 7
Hoxie Neale Fairchild: The Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism (1928) 11
Jean- Jacques Rousseau: Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1754) 14
Henry David Thoreau: "Excursions" (1863) 17
Fredy Perlman: Against His-story, Against Leviathan! (1983) 18
Arnold DeVries: Primitive Man and His Food (1952) 20
Marshall Sahlins: "The Original Affluent Society" (1968) 22
Lynn Clive: "Birds Combat Civilization" (1985) 25
John Landau: "Wildflowers: A Bouquet of Theses" (1998) 26
Theodor Adorno: Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (1947) 28

Section Two: The Coming of Civilization 29
George P. Marsh: The Earth as Modified by Human Action (1907) 30
Frederick Turner: Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness (1980) 33
James Axtell: The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (1985) 37
John Zerzan: Elements of Refusal (1988) 39
Paul Shepard : Nature and Madness (1982) 42
Mark Nathan Cohen: Health and the Rise of Civilization (1989) 46
Robin Fox: The Search for Society (1989) 51
Chellis Glendinning: My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (1994) 52

Section Three: The Nature of Civilization 54
Friedrich Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1793) 55
Charles Fourier: Theory of Four Movements and General Destinies (1846) 56
Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) 57
John Landau: "Civilization and the Primitive" (1995) 58
Max Horkheimer: Eclipse of Reason (1947) 59
Max Horkheimer: Dawn and Decline (1961) 61
Richard Heinberg: "Was Civilization a Mistake?" (1997) 62
Barbara Mor: Here: a small history of a mining town in the American southwest: warren bisbee az (1985) 67
Ivan Illich: Toward a History of Needs (1978) 70
Zygmunt Bauman: Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) 72
T. Fulano: "Civilization Is Like a Jetliner" (1983) 75
Unabomber (a.k.a. "FC"): "Industrial Soctety and Its Future" (1995) 77

Section Four: The Pathology of Civilization 78
Max Nordau: Conventional Lies, or Our Civilization (1895) 79
William H. Koetke: The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and The Seed of the Future (1993) 80
Joseph A. Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988) 84
Theodore Roszak: Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society (1972) 87
Andrew Bard Schmookler: The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Soctal Evolution (1995) 90
Peter Sloterdijk: Critique of Cynical Reason (1987) 92
Fredric Jameson: The Seeds of Time (1994) 94
Labor of Ludd: "The Medium Is the Medium" (1998) 96
Des Refractaires: "How Nice to Be Civilized!" (1993) 97
David Watson: "Civilization in Bulk" (1991) 99
Richard Heinberg: Memories and Visions of Paradise (1995) 104

Section Five: The Resistance to Civilization 105
Rudolf Bahro: Avoiding Social and Ecological Disaster: The Politics of World Transformation
(1994) 106
John Zerzan: Future Primitive (1994) 109
William Morris: News from Nowhere (1995) 110
Feral Faun: "Feral Revolution" 113
"Don't Eat Your Revolution! Make It!" (1995) 115
Glenn Parton: "The Machine in Our Heads" (1997) 116
Alon K. Raab: "Revolt of the Bats" (1995) 122
Kirkpatrick Sale: Rebels Against the Future: Lessons from the Luddites (1995) 125
Derrick Jensen: "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" (1998) 128
Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous: "We Have To Dismantle All Tms" (1995) 130

Section Six: Under the pavement, the beach. (Paris, 1968) 132
Permissions 133
Biographical Note 134