Why I'm Not a Primitivist

Actually, I could just as easily title it "Why I am a Primitivist", because what I really mean to do is to counter the assumptions people often make about my primitive-inspired values.

I do not, for example, advocate a literal return to a primitive lifestyle. Fact is, we can't. In the same way that a frog can't once again become a tadpole, modern human beings can't again become primitives; we have physically changed too much to do so. With the advent first of mono agriculture and then the printing press and then of cars and computers and cell phones, etc., our brains have been rewired. Make no mistake, machines are now a part of us. We are cyborgs. And while we might learn to split with machines, to tear them painfully from our flesh, we cannot rid ourselves of their memories, nor should we. Our interaction with technology has on a very literal level reconfigured our consciousness. The modern brain, while certainly no better than the primitive brain, is unquestionably different, with a different skill set and a different outlook, and denying that reality can only lead to further mistakes in our journey. There is no restore option on the human brain.

Not only that, but even if it were possible to go back to a primitive way of life, we would still not be able to do so, because we don't really know what primitive life was like. The evidence of our primitive history is far too insufficient to make any kind of reliable broad hypothesis. Plus, one of the few things we do know about primitive life is that it was immensely diverse, much more diverse than our homogeneous existence today allows us to even imagine. Evidence among existing indigenous communities verifies at least that much, so the idea of generalizing about primitive existence and then using that generalization as a pattern for building new sustainable communities seems slightly far fetched. Who's to say which primitive history, forged in response to different environmental conditions, should guide us?

Nonetheless, while we can't return to a primitive lifestyle, we can't escape it, either. We do have to integrate our past. And suggestions that we have evolved or progressed since primitive times strike me as an effort to do just that--to deny both history and reality, to deprecate our full selves. If we can learn from the ancient Greeks and Romans, from 1st century Chinese philosophers and 12th century Italian poets and 6th Century Arabian mathematicians, then we can learn from primitives, as well. And while we can't ever again live as our primitive ancestors did, we can again live without exploiting and depleting the resources upon which we depend for our survival, something most evidence suggests our primitive ancestors did far better than we do now. At the same time, we can learn more from modern indigenous cultures about democracy and freedom than we can from all the political theorists who have ever lived. In sum, though much has been irretrievably lost, there's also much more we can do to integrate primitivism into our modern consciousness. That's what I'm advocating.

Put another way, while I'm not literally a primitivist, I am an anti anti primitivist. In other words, I'm opposed to the tradition that describes our ancestral lives as "nasty, brutish, and short" and as something that needs to be left behind and forgotten. And I'm opposed, zealously opposed, to the idea that our species has progressed, an idea wrought with arrogance and racism. What I suspect we mean when we talk about progress is that we are now smarter than we once were and smarter, much smarter, than those who still live as we once did. We mean that we're smarter, in the same way that whites are smarter than blacks, men smarter than women, and humans smarter than other animal species, and, because we're smarter, we're better, and because we're better, we're entitled to use our inferiors as we see fit, belittling them thoroughly enough, we hope, to erase them from our DNA. We're entitled to control even our memories of them, to view even memories, as resources.

For a long time, living in another state and not subject to the daily reminders of my past religious upbringing, I began to deny that I ever took religion seriously. I began to weed that aspect out of my life altogether, even to the point in which it seemed ridiculous to take criticism of the church seriously. Much like lecturing a two year old for not sharing her toys, it just didn't seem worth much effort, not more than a brief scolding. How could I take something seriously that was so blatantly childish and unethical? But, thanks in some part to my blogger pals, I've come to realize just how thoroughly religion has shaped my personality, and how, in attempting to erase that element from my past, I had gotten lost. In no way am I saying that modern mainstream religion has valuable life lessons on a par with primitive life. (I believe there is such a thing as ethical progress, which, I think, can be applied to my evolution away from religion but not to the modernization of the human species.) But I am saying that much, though not all, of my dismissal of religion has been based on the idea of rising above, of transcending--rather than integrating, developing, and relating to--my roots. A butterfly can't go back to being a caterpillar, but neither can it erase the caterpillar from memory and identity.