Hello everyone,
First, a little about myself. By the age of 4, I was becoming an avid observer of nature; animal and plant life and behavior completely fascinated me. Soon though, I grew tired of just watching. I wanted to be PART of it. But how?
I was enthralled by nature and non-western and primitive societies, but was unaware of prehistory beyond 5,000 years ago due to my upbringing until I was about 14. Before that age I had been fascinated by a number of cultures which seemed superficially more in tune with nature, both those classified as hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists such as the Maya and Inca. However, once I began to delve farther back into prehistory, I instantly noticed a difference between the foraging societies and those which practiced horticultural, formed villages, then agriculture and cities, culminating in the global nightmare we are in today. I realized that I was trapped in a system behaving like a super viral organism whose host was humanity, whose “genes” were transmitted through culture. I was destined to be reduced to a battery in this machine, but I would die before letting that happen. I thought I was the only person in the world with this notion, and those closest to me at first thought I was crazy. Shortly after arriving at my conclusion though, I read Ishmael and Beyond Civilization and was filled with hope. Daniel Quinn’s words seemed to ring true–had I finally found others in the same quest as myself? I had sympathized with communist/socialist philosophy earlier in life, so the notion of returning to tribalism seemed right on.
However, as the years rolled by and I searched for others to embark on a journey of rewilding, I began to doubt not only Quinn’s solution, but also began to look beyond historic hunter-gatherers for inspiration. Instead I began focusing on intensively studying animal societies–baboons, lions, hyenas, chimpanzees, and gorillas. I also became fascinated with the fossil evidence of humans who were inferred to predate language–homo erectus and the australopithecines. I began to see that in comparison with animals and primitive humans, ALL contemporary human societies (including those of hunter-gatherers) seemed tame, regulated and oppressive, destined sooner or later to evolve mass societies. All historically recorded hunter-gathers possessed highly complex languages, mythologies, religions, and systems of taboos and rules. Every group has some practice that goes against instinct, things no animal would dream of, such as ordeals, scarification, and prohibitions regarding certain sexual activities and foods. Most recent groups were on the band level, inhabited marginal areas and were thus UNABLE to develop tribal hierarchies and redistribution systems, with one glaring notable exception–the cultures of the Pacific Northwest. The rich landscape allowed them to become semi-sedentary, increase their population, create and accumulate wealth. Even very early cultures in paleolithic Europe and central Asia, such as the people who built the mammoth bone huts, probably had very advanced, stratified social systems with displays of wealth and increasing domination by religious and political specialists.
Suddenly it hit me. “Hunting” and “gathering” were not just simple subsistence activities in the context of language-capable humans, but rather a basic “mode of production.” All hunter-gathers are communistic, sharing to an extant that few mammals do. Chimpanzees will share, grudgingly, to stop the annoyance of a beggar, keep/make a friend, or obtain some immediate favor (sex). Lions and hyenas share because one individual just cant eat a whole zebra. Wolves share meat with pups and their nursemaids. But few animals share like humans. Is sharing really beneficial to humanity in the long run? In some cultures it has even gone to extremes. A Yanomamo hunter may not even eat the meat of an animal he killed! What chimp would do that? Rather, sharing, morphed into trade, made civilization possible. It provided life insurance for the population increase that it fueled.
So if I can’t look to historic foragers for a model, where do I look? Had the last truly wild people vanished with the Neandertals? Was civilization so wired into our genes that we had no hope? What WAS the force that drove sharing, civilization, and the sanctifying of its rules? What do MOST modern humans have that no animal does: LANGUAGE.
While language can be used as a tool to express our emotions and immediate needs, it is not necessary for that. Both are expressed at the same time through posture, facial expressions, and tonal variation. Language was not simple communication, but had a much more sinister purpose. It had become the DNA to transmit civilization from one generation to the next. Humans appear intelligent beyond all other life, but it is only an illusion. WIthout all the knowledge gained from thousands of years and preserved in memorized, then written language, no human could EVER invent a computer, car, or go to the moon. But is language creation and use INEVITABLE?
I found the answer in studies of cases where children had been isolated since a young age and grew up either confined or roaming the wilds. EVERY ONE LACKED language. Not only did they lack language, they were never able to acquire it in its true sense, but learned only a few hundred words useful to them, much like the apes taught to use sign language or computer logograms. And their behavior? They were not autistic, not lost in an imagined world, but incredibly alert to their environment and able to survive incredible challenges–rainforests, mountains, predators and finding food. And they behaved like any other animal. They were notably selfish, and could act violently but without sadism. The most fascinating stories were those of Amala and Kamala, the Wolf girls of India, the boy of Aveyron, but especially that of Zana, whom some imminent scientists believe may have been an extraordinary case of the last surviving Neanderthal who lived in the Caucasus mountains of central Asia!
I found my answers. I had always been uncomfortable with the idea of the “noble” savage. What’s wrong with the “savage” savage? Why are civilized people so determined not to recognize themselves as the animals they are and return to a TRULY wild and free state? Even in this forum, one of the best I have found, I see over and over feral “villages” “tribes” and “peace.” Am I the only human left who believes we should truly go WILD in the animal sense, to be who we were when we roamed the savannahs with our familes? To be capable of rage and ferocity, not stuck in the 60’s glorifying peace?
Quinn did a great job of diagnosing the problem, but his solution sucks. Who here wants a tribal business anyway? And with people we don’t know, who don’t share our genes? I used to spend thousand of hours looking for others to “rewild” with. I even tried it out with others a few times. I’ve been to the Teaching Drum. I like the folks there. But I know it won’t work. It never has. You can’t take a group of strangers and expect them to function anything like a family without lots of rules and a system will start all over. That was the problem with communism and all revolutions. They required organization and replaced one government with a more tyrannical one. I live with my REAL family, even if they don’t share my beliefs, what does it matter? They don’t need to. Heck, animals don’t believe anything anyway! My brothers, sisters, and parents, we have all lived together our whole lives. We don’t need language to know how one of us will respond or react–we know it intuitively.
Zerzan is a whole lot closer to the fact of the matter. But he’s still hanging onto the 60’s era too, and using hunter-gatherers for a model. I think we need to move not only beyond civilization, but beyond language, religion (that includes SHAMANISM) and especially beyond tribalism. However, I know it won’t happen. Look around you at how many people are in the world. And all the STUFF. It boggles my mind. There’s no way the masses are going to walk away from it. Its too powerful, alluring beyond imagination.
But it CANNOT last forever. In fact, now that its all connected, the chances that it will fall are all the greater. This time disaster will affect ALL the so-called “nations.” Whether it will be the end of oil, massive crop failure, or an overnight event like an unprecedented electromagnetic pulse from a coronal mass ejection (such as that that knocked out the power in Quebec in 1989), an asteroid, or some combination, it WILL FALL. I truly believe it will happen in our lifetimes. But I’m not sitting around waiting. I used to want to go to the Amazon or the Arctic, but there is no place that civilization cannot be felt. And THIS is my land. I have come to know like I know no other place. And though I am constantly learning more about it, I know hundreds of plants and animals here. I know the seasons and where to find food. This is my paradise. This is my territory. And My family is Here.
So why an I writing this? I have read the posts here in the years I was searching and searching. I want to give you all hope, and at the same time present some ideas I have not heard elsewhere. I want to see what you think, what your questions and objections and thoughts are. I don’t bring up the details of what I believe with my family, and I have few friends other than them. I’m not looking for friends or partners in rewilding–just seeking to refine my own vision.
I will be awaiting your responses.