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!\cknowleJgcmcnts Many people provided valuable support or assistance for the publication of this book, including: Jean Heriot, Kirkpatrick Sale, Kathan Zerzan, Alice

CONTENTS

Parman, John Parman, Herb Weiner, John Roberts, Lawrence Jarach, Jean

Marie Apostolides, Kathryn Longstreth-Brown, Carolyn Wayland, Lorraine Perlman, Gary Rumor, Mary Roberts, Gary Brown, James Diggs, Drake Scott, Alex Troller and A. Hacker.

Preface to the Second Ed it ion

7

Introduction to the First Edition PART ONE 15

2nd, Revised Edition Anti-copyright

@ 1999 John Zerzan

1st Edition originally published by Left Bank Books (Seattle, 1988 ) . This book may be freely pirated and quoted. The author and publisher would like to be informed at: C.A.L. PressIPaleo

Editions

Columbia Alternative Library POB 1446

Beginning of Time, End of Time

31

Languagc: Origin and M eaning

45

Num bc r: Its Origin and Evolution

63

The Case Ag a i nst Art

73

Agriculture

PART TWO

Columbia, MO 65205-1446 USA

91

Industrialism and Domestication

Eugene, OR 9744 0 USA

105

Who Killed Ned Ludd?

Printed in the United States of America

113

Axis Point of American Industrialism

133

Thc Practical Marx

145

Origins and Meaning of WWI

165

Taylorism and Unionism

171

Unionization in America

AAA

POB 11331

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Zerzan, John. Elements of Refusal/John Zerzan. Columbia,

MO

: C.A.L. Press, 1999

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-8 90532-01-0

1. Social History. 2. Social Problems.3. Prehistoric Peoples. 4. Labor. 5. Work Ethic. I. Title.

301.09 10987654321

185

Organized Labor vs. "The Revolt Against Work"

Elements of Refusal John Zerzan

A NOTE ABOUT

The publication of Elements

CAL.

of Refusal

PRESS/PALEO EDITIONS

Columbia Alternative Library signals yet another salvo from this new book publishing under the imprint of Paleo Editions by the

collective. This publishing project is dedicated to bringing to the discerning public not

on ly the newest and most devastating critiques of the awful mess we call society, but

We welcome proposals for further hooks or pamphlets. No manuscripts, please. [f

also to keeping in print those "classics" which have lapsed into publishing oblivion. C.AL. P ress, POB 1446, Columbia, MO 65205-1446

you have an idea, contact

l)aul Z. Simons

Jason McQuinn John Zerzan

us

at:

Paleo Editions

An imprint of the Columbia Alternative Library

i,

II)l}

1'1 l-r\lIN!.,>

Nl'W YUI k, Nl'W York

tIl I�I'J'IIC,.\I

203

The Refusal of Technology

207

Anti-Work and the Struggle for Control

I'I{ I 'TACh TO T H E S ECOND E D ITION

PART THREE 21 7 245 255 261

The Promise of the '80s The '80s So Far Present-Day Banalities Media, Irony and "Bob"

Ihis collection of offerings was published by Left Bank in 1 988, and

w,'111 out of print fairly quickly.

I believe most of it holds up rather well,

IIi part because of a totality that keeps giving us new evidence, on every

li'vel, of its fundamental destructiveness. The magnitude of these

"h,dlcnges, created by such a depth of peril and falsity, is the strongest

IIlIpetus behind efforts to question every component of our truly

Ii ightening reality.

Unfortunately, stark reality has far more often brought the opposite

Afterword Commentary on For m and Con ten t in Elements of Refusal

response, based on fear and denial. More and more we are immersed in

Notes

routines and securities. How tempting, apparently, to avoid asking why,

297

Author's Bibliography

possible response. The fragmentary, the cynical, and the partial define an

301

Index

outlook even qualifies as a stance.

310

Appendix: Excerpts from Adventures in Subversion'. Flyers & Posters, 1981-85

bereft features of the social order as a whole, rushes into this intellectual

265

273

a

postmodern ethos of appearances, images, and veneers. Everyone can

feci the nothingness, the void, just beneath the surface of everyday thus elevating the superficial as the only appropriate, indeed the only extremely pervasive postmodcrn stance-if such a cowardly, shifting

I! is hardly surprising that the high-tech juggernaut, embodying all the

and moral vacuum with an increasing acceleration. I live in the Pacific Northwest, where I was born and where the final traces of the natural forests are being systematically eradicated. The vista of cloned humans looms, as we struggle to maintain some undamaged humanness in a blcak, artificialized panorama. The group suicide of techno-occultists at Rancho Santa Fe (March 1997) is too faithful a reflection of the desperation generated by engulfing emptiness. One of the would-be UFO voyagers spoke for so many others: "Maybe I'm crazy but I don't care. I've been here thirty-one years and there's nothing for me here." The first five essays in this volume, written during the mid-1 980s, arc the basis for more recent efforts such as "Future Primitive" (1992) and "Running on Emptiness" (1997). The question of the origins of our estrangement is refused by a reigning culture that recognizes neither origins nor estrangement. I feel that this question must be explored, in the facc of this stunning, still-unfolding enormity: the entire absence of

,

,

IhT

III

wile II.' lill-.

1·1�11.\t I

II) 1111

:'-.1·( "Nil

I'IHIIIIN

Tillll', language, IItllllh l'I", arl, agriculllll'l', O il Ihl� (It her hand. IIw yhe th ere are no f,"

mdations of alienatiun tu he t(lUnd in thcsc catl'gori es, or anywhere else. Certainly these five explorations , and the others that followed, have elicited so me very negative reactio ns. When they were published in Fifth Estate in th e '80s, FE never faile d to run accompanying commentaries rejecting their conclusions. This lin e of originary studie s has been called absolu tist, moralistic, religio us, paralyzing, even anti-pleasurc', among ot her things. To me they are none of the above, In trying to pu t forth the most cogent lines of thought, I m ay have written essays th at seem ed dcfinitively closed to other perspectives. If so , J regret it. "Industrialism and Dom estication" and "Who Killed Ned Ludd?" appear later in the book , but were written ea rlier. Discovering the intentional social contro l built into industrial te chnology and the factor y system was part of a qu estioning that led not on ly to a re-appraisal of technology itself, but al so to a search fo r the remote origins of Ou r present captivity, al l the way back at th e be gi nn n i gs of symbolic culture. Many of the remaining contributions deal with anti-work phenomena and other recent evidence of the erosion of belief in society's dominant values, These writings of ten implied that a colla pse of the transcendent order was all but immin ent. Here I was obviousl y a bit too sanguine. The onrushing impoverishmen t of daily life, not to neglect contracting economic pressures, has le d many to cling to any semblance of content or meaning, ev en when found in the context of work, Tbus trends of social and workplace al ienation that some of us sa w as promising bave yet to move to the stag e of significant resistan ce, even if the method of being attentive to barely -concealed indices of disa ffection remains valid, 1 hop e that aspects of F.l ements of Refusal may be usef ul to those who are appalled by tbe nigh tmare we face, and who are determined not to go along, This edition I dedicate to the Unabom ber. As Arleen Davila put it,