Even evil has standards

[sabotabby]

Wow, check it out! Former "center-left" cyclist turned warmongering fascist Charles Johnson has turned again. Colour me skeptical (like someone pointed out on fengi's LJ, it'll take one more terrorist attack to turn him back, but it's almost heartening to read.

I wonder if he'll apologize for his blog being a gathering place for genocidal maniacs for the last eight years.

If he's serious, though: Welcome back to the reality-based community.

Comments

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

You left out opposition to symbolic thought, mediation, and art.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

They all sound nice. Why would a totalitarian green anarchist object to those?

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

To be specific, some primitivists object to them. Mostly Zerzan, and mostly as a thought experiment, because arguably even other primates have some symbolic thought. To not have these things, we probably really couldn't even be called humans--and how one would get rid of them is never addressed.

However, the reason they object to them is for the same reason they object to (insert a technology here)--they think it's a slippery slope. The ideology holds that technology and civilization is a totality created by mediation between humanity (the animal) and it's environment. They also hold that our social relationships (statism, patriarchy, stratification, exploitation) are inherent to our material culture and in particular the existence of a surplus. They are opposed to surplus. It is with surplus that one finds time to do things other than only surviving.

You probably should ask a primitivist if you want to know more. It's an ideology I only have score for. If I thought it had a shred of a chance of implementation in even a minor way, I'd have to be hostile to it's proponents. Fortunately for everyone involved--I simply can't take them seriously. I think noone else should either.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize there were "primitivists" for real before Sabotabby mentioned them. of course you get a lot of people dismissing environmentalists as being people who want to make everyone live in mud huts, but I didn't know there really were people who want to get rid of all technology etc. Well, I suppose there are people believing in lots of things, so of course there would be. Do they want to stop apes using tools too?