Twilight of the machines

149 Pages·2008·2.626 MB·English

by  Zerzan, John

TWILIGHT OF
THE MACHINES
JOHN ZERZAN
This book is not copyrighted, and was first published in 2008
Feral House
1240 W. Sims Way #124
Port Townsend WA 98368
www.FeralHouse.com
Book Design by Lissi Erwin/Splendid Corp.
TWILIGHT OF
THE MACHINES
JOHN ZERZAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS
vi Preface
Part I: Origins of the Crisis
1 Too Marvelous for Words: Language Briefly Revisited
xx Patriarchy, Civilization, and the Origins of Gender
xx On the Origins of War
xx The Iron Grip of Civilization: the Axial Age
xx Alone Together: the City and its Inmates
xx Future Primitive Notes
xx Beyond Symbolic Thought: an interview with Kevin Tucker

Part II: The Crisis of Civilization
xx Twilight of the Machines
xx Exiled from Presence
xx The Modern Anti-World
xx Globalization and Its Apologists: An Abolitionist
xx Perspective
xx Overman and Unabomber
xx Why Primitivism?
xx Second-Best Life: Real Virtuality
xx Breaking Point?
xx Finding Our Way Back Home

Preface
Preface
Specialization, domestication, civilization, mass society,
modernity, technoculture...behold Progress, its fruition
presented more and more unmistakably. The imperative of
control unfolds starkly, pushing us to ask questions equal
to the mounting threat around us and within us. These dire
times may yet reveal invigorating new vistas of thought and
action. When everything is at stake, all must be confront-
ed and superseded. At this moment, there is the distinct
possibility of doing just that.
People all over the world are showing that they are ready to engage
in this dialogue. The challenge is to broach a new conversation in one’s
own society. The effort begins with a refusal to accept the givens that
are turning on us so relentlessly, so viciously. The confrontation is with
the increasingly pathological state of modern society: outbursts of
mass homicide, an ever more drug-reliant populace, amid a collapsing
physical environment. The initiative remains disconnected and mar-
ginalized, with enormous inertia and denial in its way. But reality is
persistent, and it’s calling forth a questioning that is as unprecedented
as the darkening situation we face.
Clinging to politics is one way of avoiding the confrontation
with the devouring logic of civilization, holding instead with the
accepted assumptions and definitions. Leaving it all behind is the
opposite: a truly qualitative change, a fundamental paradigm shift.

vii
Twilight of the Machines
This change is not about:
• seeking “alternative” energy sources to power all the projects
and systems that should never have been started up in the
first place;
• being vaguely “post-Left”, the disguise that some adopt
while changing none of their (leftist) orientations;
• espousing an “anti-globalization” orientation that’s any-
thing but, given activists’ near-universal embrace of the
totalizing industrial world system;
• preserving the technological order, while ignoring the deg-
radation of millions and the systematic destruction of the
earth that undergird the existence of every part of the tech-
noculture;
• claiming—as anarchists—to oppose the state, while ignor-
ing the fact that this hypercomplex global setup couldn’t
function for a day without many levels of government.

The way is open for radical change. If complex society is itself the
issue, if class society began with division of labor in the Neolithic, and
if the Brave New World now moving forward was born with the shift
to domesticated life, then all we’ve taken for granted is implicated. We
are seeing more deeply, and the explorations must extend to include
everyone. A daunting, but exciting opportunity!

Twilight of the Machines is offered in this spirit. Part 1 deals with
remote origins and developments within early civilization. Part 2 has
a more contemporary focus. May assumptions be questioned, and may
conversations proliferate!
—John Zerzan
viii
Part I:
Origins of
the Crisis