#anti-civ

[prayersforpigeons]

i think the 'just run away into the woods' critique of anti-civ anarchists boils down to not recognizing them as anarchists – they can't just go off into the woods for the same reason anarchist syndicalists don't just join a workers' co-op, communists don't just join a commune. it is not simply a statement of personal preference but a vision of a world transformed. like most anarchists they dont necessarily start from a systematic blueprint of that world, but that world-transformative vision is what carries many of them along same as anybody. the ones who arent motivated by that shirk popular movements and definitionally do not see the world becoming more in line with their values. but thats harder to argue with, & so anti-civ anarchists must 1) compose a coherent group with a singular understanding of the world, 2) be so uncaring of others that the most sensible thing to do would be abandon everyone while simultaneously be ruthlessly committed to ripping vaccines our of people's hands. a thought killing cliche (tho i appreciate OP recognizes it as unfair).

the capitalist-colonialist world system requires massive resource expenditure specifically to prevent people from opting out – where are all these places a 200 – 600 person band society could maintain a living culture with the land, free from land tax and policing and large scale resource extraction for the benefit of corporations? plenty of indigenous cultures have tried, are trying, to live outside of industrial society, and they get murdered for it. which is one of the reasons why the vast majority of active anti-civ anarchists ive met have been involved in anti-colonial & landback movement.

i hate the way these cheap dunks that keep so many discussions of things like eco-fascism on cheap targets instead of facing up to the reality of fascist responses to climate collapse. the anti-civs can't just run off into the woods for the same reason none of us can live the life we want. the relentless surveillance state backed by the ever growing & more cruel prison system the ever more militarized police the ever more violent & cruel border system the ruthless dispossession & mass murder of indigenous peoples & other vulnerable communities the immensely destructive mass extraction of resources from fragile ecosystems making vaste swathes of land uninhabitable, on & on & on. the mass death is already here, & it's not zerzan reading crust punks responsible for it.

Funny thing about that anti civ person is that like. They could just do what folks that live off the grid do, but more extreme. If you hate civilization you’re���allowed to live somewhere else. Hell since they’re so convinced in their own definition of civilization they have even more options! (Though they’ll probably be disappointed to find out first hand their definition was wrong)

I mean in a way I understand. If you truly believe that civilization is the worst thing to happen to humanity and you want the best for humanity, you will even use the tools of civilization to persuade other people to your ideas.

The thing of course is that I don't believe on that and it's so incredibly easy to point out that computers are made by, well, civilization.

I also think that to say "well go live in the woods then" is a bit rude but... honestly, if the anti-civ way of life is more rewarding, we would see more people trying to do it right? We would see people in third-world countries protesting against schools, hospitals, universities, transportation, etc. instead of wanting those, right? But instead you will find, surprisingly, that people want a better life for themselves and those who they love. And this isn't opposed to enviromental stewardship and protection, as it's often the same people who live in those places who also want enviromental protection.

It's often through organized systems, civilization, that people achieve human rights, a good life, and indeed, are able to organize how to protect nature.

It's just completely disconnected from the aspirations of most people.

[greraden]

It will never not be crazy to me that the anti-tech/anti-civ movement isn't bigger than it is. Sentiments like "modern society traps us in soul-crushing jobs that only benefit large corporations" or "people are disconnected from the beauty of nature and forced into urban sprawl" or "industrial civilization is actively killing our planet and we can't just sit here and watch it happen" are inescapable on social media (and sound like they could have come straight out of the pages of Industrial Society and Its Future or from groups like Wilderness Front) but the second people advocate for dismantling the system altogether people are silent.

[forbidden-sorcery]

[tastethebloodofmeatthawsmoth]

"I don’t think one can separate a critique of the state and capital from a critique of civilization. Civilization gave birth to the state and capital, which brought all kinds of oppressions and tools to manage that oppression such as surveillance, greed, domination, and all the other shitty things people find logic in doing to each other and the environment. Civilization is explained away by capital as being advancements in efficiency and quality of life, but remember the life expectancy of a Black male in the U.S. is about 25 years. He is expected to be dead or in prison by 25 years of age. Civilization has caused a disconnect between people and the earth. Civilization has given birth to all kinds of diseases; drugs that don’t cure anything but have you buying them to “manage” the disease, feed their greed; pollution; patriarchy; racism; prisons; etc. Civilization is the root cause of the misery which we term oppression and must be dismantled, ruthlessly and utterly destroyed." - anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble

[dailyanarchistposts]

Legitimacy in the terror age: counter-insurgency

Legitimation, winning the consent of the population for rule, has always been the basic task of governance. But the techniques and methods vary greatly. This essay’s contribution is to give us some sharp analysis of contemporary legitimation techniques in the age of terrors.

First of all, as we shift from a state of peace (i.e, war is “elsewhere”) to a state of continual terror-war, the whole of society becomes militarised, transformed into an “armed camp”. In fact, with direct combat now increasingly carried out by mercenaries or drones, this doesn’t mean mass conscription but rather “a matter of inducing the population to identify with a certain kind of order, the imposition of which takes place within the national borders as much as outside them” (quoting CrimethInc). This is an order in which, as a population at war, we spy, police, grass on ourselves, accepting every demand of the war-spectacle and war-economy: “militarised thinking spreading through life” (quoting some German anti-militarists).

To understand how this works, a useful lead comes from studying the field of “counter-insurgency”: specifically, ideas and techniques developed in the US (and elsewhere) by military and political strategists, and their academic collaborators, in response to insurgencies both at home (e.g., the black power and other domestic rebel movements of the 1960s) and on the colonial battlefields.

In essence, counter-insurgency means identifying “(nascent) social tensions” within a population that could give rise to rebellion, and then heading them off by: (a) targeting “(suspected) dissidents”, making predictable and undermining their actions, or removing and destroying them altogether; while (b) co-opting the majority, where this means “convincing people that there are avenues to address their grievances; if they were only to put their energy into trusting or adjusting the system as it exists, that would be the entity which can best care for their needs.” The basic principle, then, is “to restructure the environment to displace the enemy from it”, and so to “COIN a passive population”.

The role of intelligence is clearly paramount. There is a very interesting discussion on the US “Human Terrain Systems” (HTS) programme, in which the US military employed ethnographic researchers in Iraq and and other warzones, applying social network analysis to map the “human terrain” of the subject population, its connections, allegiances and potentials for submission or rebellion. In fact the basic ideas developed in the 1960s in response to domestic unrest. Once mapped, state agencies can intervene in the terrain in various ways, from funding NGOs to provide welfare services (e.g., replacing the social programmes “that combative entities such as the Black Panthers briefly pioneered before they were smashed by the State”), through feeding in drugs and weapons to exploit internal tensions, to radioing in the “airborne armed response team”.

[noneedtofearorhope]

Many [insurrectionary anarchists] refuse to offer a specific, singular model of the future at all, believing that people will choose a variety of social forms to organise themselves when given the chance. They are critical of groups or tendencies that believe they are ‘carriers of the truth’ and try to impose their ideological and formal solution to the problem of social organisation. Instead, many insurrectionary anarchists believe that it is through self-organisation in struggle that people will learn to live without institutions of domination.

“Insurrectionary Anarchism: Organize for Attack!” from Do or Die Issue 10

[cl0ck-killer]

Now, amid intensifying social and environmental breakdown, there is a growing realization that daily life overshadowed on every level by the internet complex has crossed a threshold of irreparability and toxicity. More and more people know or sense this, as they silently experience its damaging consequences. The digital tools and services used by people everywhere are subordinated to the power of transnational corporations, intelligence agencies, criminal cartels and a sociopathic billionaire elite. For the majority of the earth's population on whom it has been imposed, the internet complex is the implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty, psychosis, indebtedness, squandered life, the corrosion of memory and social disintegration. All of its touted benefits are rendered irrelevant or secondary by its injurious and sociocidal impacts.

Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World

[notasocialismjoke]

civilization? don't you mean encitification?

[lakecitylifeline]

Misconceptions About FTHPNW

Since posting our Grievance Zine on Twitter, people have said some completely incorrect things about Lindsay's behavior being due to the communist nature/structure of the organization. It's clear that people have zero idea how From the Heart actually operated.

To clarify: From the Heart PNW proper was never a communist organization, and Lindsay is not and has never been a communist. When the walkout finally happened, a majority of the people who participated were communists, and many communist spearheaded the attempt to democratize the organization and make it more internally and externally accountable.

I'm sure this confuses people, based on their impressions from social media, but words are cheap. From the Heart was never Red's org. It was always Lindsay's org, and Red just supported the effort. Red saw the political potential of the effort, and cared about it succeeding, but he knew better than to try and run it. The CDC was his project, and when he got sick that effectively disappeared. For the years he was too weak to do political work on the ground, he just posted and fundraised and recruited. Any impression people got from Red's twitter was purely his own politics, and had nothing to do with the org--he wasn't even there on the ground to see things himself most of the time.

Lindsay's politics are based primarily on whatever passes her personal vibe check. There was no formal structure in the org, only the informal ones of seniority and personal dominance, and the capitalist ones of private control of funds and media. When we tried to democratize the organization based on our expectations as communists, that new structure was a potential threat to her control and income, and so she quickly acted to crush it.

Lindsay butted heads with anarchists and constantly talked shit about them, but if you were around long enough you learned she had smoke for everyone. She would often say that "communism never works," and other vague anti-communist statements. When we talked about carrying political literature, or when we put up political graffiti, she would explode at us. She would get annoyed when we talked about communism, even with each other. If you went along with her, she liked you, and if you disagreed with her or pushed back, she would frequently use your political ideology--anarchist, communist, or liberal--to explain why you were so annoying.

Because of Red's social media presence, online recruits were mostly communists. With anarchists distancing themselves from Lindsay or leaving when they got fed up, it eventually left the organization majority communist. This created a weird situation where both the media presence and the volunteer base of From the Heart were mostly communist, but the actual operation, organization, and politics of the org on the ground were not.

She believes large, collectively-driven political change is impossible in the US, so any thoughts we had about trying to make the program more political were squashed. She thinks our only hope is to build and support a socialist micro-society among the unhoused, and then wait out the climate apocalypse--or that we'll all die in nuclear Armageddon, so we should just help a few people and dick around while we have the chance. She talked about how we were building a "new culture," and that she was opposed to a socialist revolution if we hadn't established the new culture yet (according to her own standards). If we didn't do things exactly how she wanted, that was a personal failure to build the new culture™️.

Lots of prefiguration, lots of apocalypticism, lots of inherent sin and personal martyrdom, constant demands for a protestant work ethic (i.e. if there's a problem achieving a goal, it's because people aren't working hard enough), and not much systematic material analysis--basically Christianity, but without the parts about being nice.

All that mattered was maintaining the flow of goods and services to the unhoused of Lake City, and maintaining her income. Anything else she viewed as a waste of time. Red's misdeed was creating a false face for this, and enabling and covering for Lindsay's behavior. Once he was gone, the parasocial fog lifted. The non-socialist nature of the org became a problem once we were asked to step up and replace Red's labor.

Don't think that your politics can't be used to justify abuse--as though there are no toxic anarchist spaces. Lindsay used anarchist prefiguration, communist revolutionary discipline, and liberal identity essentialism as rhetorical devices to control us, while holding onto the economic and social capital needed to run the org. There's a lesson in that.

[dreamsbeyondsleep]

Anti-civ is interesting to me because I definitely think we should tone some shit down! After the great communist revolution that will put an end to companies destroying tonnes of unsold product and dumping it in landfills, we could probably use less electricity at night, compost some more, do some environmental restoration etc. In my version a transhumanist future, the Earth is rendered even more ecologically stable by our decoupling from the environment (you don’t need to produce as many crops if humans don’t need to eat etc).

And that’s where my contention is with anti-civ rhetoric lies; in the idea that the only stable equilibrium humanity can have with the environment is one of low technological sophistication and low-level social organization. Civilization is a problem to be solved and anti-civ types are choosing the trivial solution. There’s this, and the fact that a lot of the rhetoric also leans into “everyone will just-” thinking and assumes that we can put genies back in bottles wrt most of the technology we have today. Really reveals a lack of technical background that irritates me.

Anyway, here’s hoping that a reasonable social movement takes all the good ideas from anti-civ and leaves all the bs.

[spacedkitty]

the definitions amongst the disparate leftist groups seem intentionally setup to cause semantic debates masquerading as ideological debates

the issue is that anti-civ wants to talk about and critique very specific things and one of the main words used to talk about those things is a specific usage of the word civilization.

many leftists just want to prevent anyone from ever thinking about these things or taking anti-civ seriously in the first place which is why they'll often describe anti-civ as primitivist or eco-fash or use some other thought terminating accusation.

this is also why its very common for leftists who do end up talking about anti-civ use entirely different and often useless definitions of civilization. one of the common claims is that civilization means anything humans have ever done... but what exactly is the purpose of that definition? how does it help you talk about or communicate something? its not helpful with talking about anything because its only purpose is to make it harder for people to understand what an anti-civ critique is trying to say. its actually very similar to capitalists saying that capitalism is anytime humans exchange anything so capitalism has always and will always exist.

unfortunately semantic debates are more memeable on the internet so why bother with a difficult ideological debate that might require introspection, questioning of assumptions, and making difficult decisions about where your priorities are.

I worry that this is a sentiment I've seen expressed by almost every group of leftists I've encountered on the internet, each with their own set of terminology/definitions that they state the other groups dismiss out of hand as some form of conspiracy to suppress their particular brand of leftist views.

I don't think any of these groups are wrong exactly, I just worry that perhaps the problem becomes one of insularity. I see why the definition being used is used in this case, because it helps to conceptualize of civilization in this manner when dealing with the particular critiques specific to anti-civ. However, without that context, it's extremely hard to parse and looks far closer to "well, like, society is evil and we should live in mud-huts" than makes sense, and in a world full of fascists, well, I've encountered a few people that truly seem to think that's the right approach..

Without context it is easy to see idiocy in the arguments of others if you are primed to do so (which our present society does an excellent job of).

Often I see people get absorbed into a particular brand of leftism and begin denouncing the others after having furious debates using words that seem to mean different things to the different parties. Sometimes when they encounter something to change their perspective they will jump to another brand with a similar fervor and go on to denounce the former brand with the same fervor they defended it with, now using different definitions.

I still have a great deal to learn, but it always feels difficult to do so when often genuine questions are treated with hostility and a dogmatic approach to a group's views. Which I guess I understand, given the frequency of trolls (from all sides of the political spectrum, let's be honest) attempting to waste people's time with frivolous bullshit.

I find myself looking into anti-civ and finding it compatible in many ways with my understandings of socialism and anarchism, and wondering why it felt so hostile and absurd when first I encountered it. Similar to the feelings I had when first learning of communism, socialism and anarchism.

Many leftists just want to prevent anyone from ever thinking about these things or taking anti-civ seriously

I honestly don't agree with you here. I know there are some who do, but I think the vast majority have gotten into confusing debates that mimicked impassible ideological differences and wrote it off, particularly when discussing with others in their movement.

A common problem I've encountered (particularly in online leftist circles) is one of defending ivory tower knowledge over conversational understanding, which makes understanding other groups significantly harder. If your go-to response to criticism or misunderstanding of your movement is "go read this tome" you open no doors to communication, only offering a silo of separate knowledge and perspective.

In summary, I don't think most leftists are opposed to understanding anti-civ, I think we are just primed by society and other leftist movements to see anti-civ perspectives, without the proper context, as reactionary and regressive. A view I think most leftist groups see in one another.

I hope things could possibly be shifted with better grassroots communication and like, maybe something as silly seeming as leftist dictionaries, but that remains to be seen (by me at least).

[nonhumanfreak]

[forbidden-sorcery]

[dailyanarchistposts]

Martial vs. Military

Another point where we agree with RF is in not fetishising destruction — not making attack into an affair of professionalised militants, and so effectively another removed political sphere. “We have no interests in being specialists in fighting. Rather, we dream of moments which call on each of us to become everything at once; situations which demand that each of us become fighters and healers, caretakers and firebringers.” (Quoting from ‘We Welcome the Fire, We Welcome the Rain‘).

For, as many anarchists have always maintained, destruction and creativity go hand in hand. “A building can be destroyed without constructing a new one, but a relationship of alienation cannot be ended without the creation of another type of relationship. … Without speaking of the creation of new social relations, we cannot speak honestly about the destruction of the State.” Giving full respect to committed nihilist comrades, as RF point out this means stepping away from the “nihilist proposal” that speaks only of destroying the State (or the whole existing system of domination).

While, at the same time, we cannot create in this world without also attacking. RF put this well by distinguishing “the martial” from “the military”. Militarisation means life impoverished, regimented, made anxious, reduced to service of the war machine. “The martial” means fighting for and as a part of our struggle for life, “not as the science of war, but the art of rebellion”, challenging our passivity and the state’s legitimacy as we break its claimed monopoly of violence. “This is something which has been steadily stripped away from us over the generations; the ability to fight on our own terms, as much as the awareness of the war we inhabit.” We regain it in practice: training, learning new skills, going out alone or forming gangs, and taking action. “This isn’t a call to “armed struggle” but for inclusion of a neglected aspect of a holistic approach to rebellion” (quoting Sea Weed).

In the end, for sure, this essay does not offer a programme for how to advance. Not that we’re looking for one. We know a lot of the paths we need to take — grow our skills and strength as individuals and groups, find comrades, be open to new encounters … these can even start to sound like platitudes, but they’re right. “Avenues for sharing, discussing and sharpening perspectives and methods is one accomplishment of anarchists and other radicals, in our own limited way so far. Our enemies are well aware of this …” “Experience tells us that even a little empowerment and picking-up of skills can have a huge impact in one’s character or desires, and with our unconstrained lives at stake, let’s not be stopped by fear of failure.”

And then there are lots of questions, things we don’t know or are just starting to explore. One we’re especially interested in at the moment, that this essay highlighted, is one that we’ve tried to explore as we’ve worked on this site, and still only have glimpses of. How to understand ourselves not as isolated atoms but as accomplices and instigators acting in “social” worlds, without falling into the old political trap of “a campaign to win ’society’ over to ’us’ as a unified opposition”. How to think as proto-insurgents whose thoughts and actions can touch many others, including many other rebels and potential rebels, even if we cannot anticipate, far less control, what their effects may be.

[1] The Veil Drops can be downloaded as a pdf here: http://rabble.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/05-23-The-Veil-Drops-HI-RES.pdf It can also be read on The Anarchist Library. The full Return Fire 3 magazine and previous issues, including the articles referenced in [square brackets] in the text below, can be read, downloaded and printed via 325.nostate.net/?tag=return-fire

[noneedtofearorhope]

Graffiti slogan: "Ireland Solidarity Alfredo Cospito FIRE TO THE PRISONS" at Cherywood bypass, N11 road, Co.Dublin

Alfredo Cospito, along with Nicola Gia, were incarcerated in 2012 for kneecapping Roberto Adinolfi, managing director of Ansaldo Nucleare. Their action was carried out against the nuclear power company in direct retaliation for the nuclear disaster in Fukushima - in which the deadly ecocidal effects are felt to this very day, poisoning the ocean and local wildlife. Alfredo and Nicola were sentenced to ten years and eight months. From the outset the cowardly left condemned Alfredo and Nicola’s action against the dangers of nuclear power.

During their trial Alfredo released a statement which included:

“I am an anti-organisation anarchist because I oppose all forms of authority and organizational constraints. I am nihilist because I live my anarchy today and not in waiting for a revolution, which -if it ever came about - would only produce more authority, technology, civilization.”

During his sentence Alfredo was given additional charges as part of a larger trial involving many anarchists known as the Scripta Manent Trial. Many of the charged were convicted and given harsh sentences, Alfredo was given an extra twenty years for bombing a police training college in 2006 with his partner Anna Beniamino who was sentenced to sixteen and half years. The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation changed Alfredo's conviction to “Political Massacre” and gave him life in prison without parole plunging him into the concrete depths of the 41 bis prison regime. This regime was first created to be used against mob bosses to stop them communicating on the outside to diminish their power.  It wasn't long till the Italian state used this regime against “subversives”. The barbaric regime includes: solitary confinement for twenty two hours a day, a one hour visit once a month, heavily restricted communication to the outside world, no reading materials allowed sent in.

Since Alfredo's first sentence he had constantly communicated and took part in the anarchist movement debates via publishing writings and interviews. So the Italian state has gagged Alfredo and totally isolated him by burying him alive in a concrete tomb of 41 bis.The Italian state has labeled Alfredo as the leader of the Informal Anarchist Network - which is a leaderless, informal movement, with no organizational structure. It is a battle name of action, if they choose, to use as a signature for attacking and a means to collaborate with other anarchists of shared affinity for action across the globe without ever having to meet each other communicating through communiques of direct action claims. Alfredo never shied away or denied his support and involvement in the anti-organisational project of the Informal Anarchist Federation despite being condemned by much of the cowardly leftist elite including many liberal “anarchists”.

Many in the so-called “anti-capitalist movement” condemned Alfredo and his comrades as “terrorists”, “adventurists”, and “vanguardists”. The cowardly leftists couldn't conceive that the I.A.F don't act in the name of the oppressed, or in the hopes of inspiring the moribund “working classes” to rise up against the system but act through an individual will and motivation to take action against the murderous mega machine that is capitalist society in the here and now - not waiting for a mass revolution that more than likely will never happen.

From Instagram page: Éirí Amach : Cells Of Mother Earth

[cl0ck-killer]