Why Hope? : The Stand Against Civilization

153 Pages·2015·1.91 MB·English

by  John Zerzan

Why Hope?
The Stand Against Civilization
Published in 2015
All rights reserved
A Feral House book
ISBN 978-1-62731-019-2
Feral House
1240 W. Sims Way Suite 124
Port Townsend WA 98368
www.FeralHouse.com
Book design by D. Collins
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ix Introduction
THE ABSENT AGE, BY LANG GORE
02 Part I: Origins
02 PREFACE
02 IN THE BEGINNING
12 NUMB AND NUMBER
21 ORIGINS OF THE ONE PERCENT: THE BRONZE AGE
44 ARRIVEDERCI ROMA: THE CRISIS OF LATE ANTIQUITY
44 INDUSTRIALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS:
THE LUDDITES AND THEIR INHERITORS
74 Part II: Situations
74 PREFACE
74 NEXT WHAT?
81 BLOWN AWAY: GUNS AND "RANDOM" MASS SHOOTINGS
85 VAGARIES OF THE LEFT
88 FASTER! THE AGE OF ACCELERATION
93 A WORD ON CIVILIZATION AND COLLAPSE
96 Part III: Inspirations
96 PREFACE
96 ANIMAL DREAMS
109 LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS
119 THE SEA
128 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HEALTHY?
134 WHY HOPE?

INTRODUCTION
The Absent Age
THINKING ABOUT AN UNTHINKABLE REBELLION
I
n 1846 Søren Kierkegaard essentially anticipated the salient fea-
ture of the postmodern age—where reality is always screened
and the defining activities are Sitting and Watching—in an essay
titled The Present Age. He noted:
A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of adver-
tisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is imme-
diate publicity everywhere. In the present age a rebellion is, of all
things, the most unthinkable.
How much more unthinkable must rebellion be in an absent age,
where “all that once was directly lived has become mere representation”
(Debord). Where domination assumes “a labyrinthine form without a
centre,” to borrow the description of Gothic novel Melmoth the Wan-
derer, must any prospect of revolt be absent as well?
If so, our humiliation is complete. Michael Bakunin’s keenest insight
was this:
“Three elements or, if you like, three fundamental principles constitute the
essential conditions of all human development, collective or individual, in
history: (1) human animality; (2) thought; and (3) rebellion.”
Some of us know we are animals, all of us imagine we think, many
of us would like to be in revolt. Yet who can abide the endless publicity
surrounding revolt? And who can abide the endless, alas!, deference to
Karl Marx, who more than anyone has dominated the publicity sur-
rounding revolt?
Someone has said that history is made by those with a sense of