Is there a difference between being anti civilization and anti technology?

Question

Being interested in gender liberation I noticed anok comparing it to being anti civ. what are some different anti tech critiques to get me started reading about it? Right now I consider mysel protect but against tech being driven uncontrollably by profit and competition, is there a word for this?

Comments

"... but against tech being driven uncontrollably by profit and competition, is there a word for this?"

idealistic? delusional? :-)

this is a good question, and any meaningful answer will have to address the nuance implied.  i may give it a shot. but i suspect others here will do a better job.

a few starting point links:

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/topics/anti-civ
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/topics/anti-technology

and of course the old green anarchy journal had some good critique (take a look at the anthology here: http://littleblackcart.com/Uncivilized-the-best-of-Green-Anarchy.html ).

then there is the good old unabomber manifesto:  http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fc-industrial-society-and-its-future

there are many others, peruse the anarchist library and little black cart for a variety of related writings.

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Without capitalism people would invent technologies to fit their needs and desires, much like how I believe the world would look very different simply because it is shaped te way it is (and the things in it) because of the same economic forces, monetary incentive and competition. I don't understand how this is delusional? Perhaps we have differing definitions of tech.

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yes, probably different definitions.

as i define technology, it requires an industrial infrastructure that destroys natural resources and habitats (preventing their use by others), as well as requiring hierarchical relations and enforced specialization.

it probably also requires capitalism to make all that happen.

Answer 1

In my view there is a difference between being anti-technology and being anti-civ, although the way the two are discussed leaves them really tightly intertwined to a point that I don’t know that I will do an adequate job of outlining those differences. I haven’t thought about this as much as I’d like to, so thanks for the challenge!

Anti-civ critiques look at the entire assemblage of systems and technics that support civilization. This is far more than just technology, but includes religion, the state, domestication and much more, whereas anti-tech feels somehow narrower and more of a critique of technology and technics specifically.

What complicates this is that many of those other systems that are part of civilization are (in part) perpetuated or proliferate via technology (eg. domestication leads to agriculture thanks to technology, agriculture quickens domestication). To confuse it further, there are many anti-civ folks (myself included) who don’t feel comfortable with the prescriptive anti-tech analysis of tendencies like anarcho-primitivism, even if I suspect that ultimately it will all have to go.

Regarding the intersections of gender liberation and anti-civ, I am guessing that anok’s comparison comes from this answer: http://www.anarchy101.org/8226/anti-civ-anarchy-transsexuality-completely-irreconcilable. Without presuming to put words into anok’s mouth, I will go so far as to say this has been an emergent focus in anti-civ circles in recent years.

By way of simplifying the themes of what is a pretty deep line of inquiry, gender as a social construct is perhaps the earliest point of division of labor, and quite possibly one of the first fields in which domination arose. It is also deeply connected to domestication. Some good starting points to look at some of what is being talked about in relation to this are Baedan: A Journal of Queer Nihilism (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/baedan-baedan), and Baedan 2, as well as Zerzan’s essay “Patriarchy, Civilization, and the Origins of Gender” (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-patriarchy-civilization-and-the-origins-of-gender). Also, I haven't looked it over in a while, but there was at least one issue of a zine called "Bloodlust" that might be relevant.

Comments

I wonder what happened with that project, Bloodlust. I remember only seeing one issue of it. It was on anarchalibrary blogspot but I found a pdf through the zinelibrary website:

http://zinelibrary.info/files/bloodlust.pdf