DESTROY CIVILIZATION?
I assume that all anarchists would
agree that we want to put an end to every institution, structure and system of
domination and exploitation. The rejection of these things is, after all, the
basic meaning of anarchism. Most would also agree that among these
institutions, structures and systems are the state, private property, religion,
law, the patriarchal family, class rule�
In recent years, some anarchists
have begun to talk in what appears to be broader terms of the need to destroy
civilization. This has, of course, led to a reaction in defense of
civilization. Unfortunately, this debate has been mainly acrimonious,
consisting of name-calling, mutual misrepresentation and territorial disputes
over the ownership of the label �anarchist�, rather than real argumentation.
One of the problems (though probably not the most significant one) behind this
incapacity to really debate the question is that very few individual on either
side of it have tried to explain precisely what they mean by �civilization�.
Instead, it remains a nebulous term that represents all that is bad for one
side and all that is good for the other.
In order to develop a more precise
definition of civilization, it is worth while to examine when and where
civilization is said to have arisen and what differences actually exist between
societies currently defined as civilized and those not considered. Such an
examination shows that the existence of animal husbandry, agriculture, a
sedentary way of life, a refinement of arts, crafts and techniques or even the
simply forms of metal smelting are not enough to define a society as civilized
(though they do comprise the necessary material basis for the rise of
civilization). Rather what arose about ten thousand years ago in the �cradle of
civilization� and what is shared by all civilized societies but lacking in all
those that are defined as �uncivilized� is a network of institutions,
structures and systems that impose social relationships of dominations and
exploitation. In other words, a civilized society is one comprised of the
state, property, religion (or in modern societies, ideology), law, the
patriarchal family, commodity exchange, class rule � everything we, as
anarchists, oppose.
To put it another way, what all
civilized societies have in common is the systematic expropriation of the lives
of those who live within them. The critique of domestication (with any moral
underpinnings removed) provides a useful tool for understanding this. What is
domestication if not the expropriation of the life of a being by another who
then exploits that life for her or his own purposes? Civilization is thus the
systematic and institutionalized domestication of the vast majority of people
in a society by the few who are served by the network of domination.
Thus the revolutionary process of
reappropriating our lives is a process of decivilizing ourselves, of throwing
off our domestication. This does not mean becoming passive slaves to our
instincts (if such even exist) or dissolving ourselves in the alleged oneness
of Nature. It means becoming uncontrollable individuals capable of making and
carrying out the decisions that affect our lives in free association with
others.
It should be obvious from this that
I reject any models for an ideal world (an distrust any vision that is too
perfect � I suspect that there the individual has disappeared). Since the
essence of a revolutionary struggle fitting with anarchist ideals is the
reappropriation of life by individuals who have been exploited, dispossessed
and dominated, it would be in the process of this struggle that people would
decide how they want to create their lives, what in this world they feel they
can appropriate to increase their freedom, open possibilities and add to their
enjoyment, and what would only be a burden stealing from the joy of life and
undermining possibilities for expanding freedom. I don�t see how such a process
could possibly create any single, universal social model. Rather, innumerable
experiments varying drastically from place to place and changing over time
would reflect the singular needs, desires, dreams and aspirations of each and
every individual.