bakunin vs the primitivists brian oliver sheppard

8/2/2019 Bakunin vs the Primitivists Brian Oliver Sheppard

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This pamphlet is a crit ique of so-called“primitivism,” an anti-technological currentmainly based in Western countries. It has ad eg r ee o f i n f l u en ce a m o n g s t a s ec t o r o f anarchists, but the author is incorrect to use theterm “anarcho-primitivist,” as this suggests

“primitivism” is a form of anarchism. It is not.As the author himself notes, Bakunin’s ideas arethe key reference point for anarchism, andradically at odds with “primitivism”



Bakunin vs. the

Primitivists

Brian Oliver Sheppard

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Brian Oliver Sheppard is an anarchist writer and organiser who writes for The IndustrialWorker and has written for Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, Kontrapunkt , Barricada, andother anarchist papers. His Exploitation and How it Affects You was published byBarricade Books in Melbourne, Australia, in 2000. He can be reached [email protected]

This text was first published as an article in the sadly no longer existing newspaperOnward: Anarchist News, Opinion, Theory, and Strategy of Today , in the year 2000.



coverage and publication in anarchist journals? Why not give equal time to Trotsky-ists or others who likewise aren’t working within an anarchist milieu?

Bakunin isn’t God, and just because he says something, it isn’t necessarily true(and there are other things about which Bakunin was quite wrong). But that muchof Bakunin’s analysis forms the basis of subsequent anti-authoritarian thought up

until our own time is a virtual truism. If the anarchist movement is ready to rejectthe insights that Bakunin gave us about society, then primitivism can perhaps beaccepted as an adequate successor. But if Bakunin’s insights are going to be re-garded as still relevant, as insights anarchists still consider true and worthy, thenthey are in bitter conflict with the ideas of primitivism. If we are going to be consis-tent, we can hold one set of beliefs - but not both of them.

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bakunin vs the primitivists brian oliver sheppard

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