Comments on: My Name Is Keith, And I’m An Anti-Civilizationist http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/ An Uncivilized Blogger Thu, 23 May 2013 07:38:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: keithfarnish http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-7 keithfarnish Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:29:52 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-7 Jonathan The choices are infinite - who said we have to be hunter-gatherers? In fact that is not likely to be possible until the population dramatically shrinks. There are ways to live that have never been tried; as long as they are uncivilized (read the definition here: http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2005/03/what-is-civilization/) then they might stand a chance. Jonathan

The choices are infinite - who said we have to be hunter-gatherers? In fact that is not likely to be possible until the population dramatically shrinks. There are ways to live that have never been tried; as long as they are uncivilized (read the definition here: http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2005/03/what-is-civilization/) then they might stand a chance.

]]> By: keithfarnish http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-6 keithfarnish Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:27:04 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-6 Hi Anton You have hit the nail on the head and that's exactly what I have aimed to do with my book. If you are not sure, you can always read it through the preview on Google Books. One key thing is not to try and engage the entire population, that will never work - there is a small group of people ready to act, start there. Keith Hi Anton

You have hit the nail on the head and that’s exactly what I have aimed to do with my book. If you are not sure, you can always read it through the preview on Google Books. One key thing is not to try and engage the entire population, that will never work - there is a small group of people ready to act, start there.

Keith

]]> By: AEB http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-5 AEB Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:36:14 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-5 Keith, I certainly can't argue with your central proposition, as I imply as much in my own book, but the problem is approach, both in our target market and in our methodology of delivery. We need to have an organic shift in this direction that comes from the ground up; that is to say that while the controls seem to come from above, from the corporate interests that feed the pocketbooks of the few, the real demand--and therefore control--comes from the street. These are the people who make this whole illusion function as if it were real. Those of us who take this as their central task--whichever component of it we choose to work in--need to focus less on the "choir" and less on overly-complex arguments and overly-intellectual arguments and more on fundamentally useful applications and delivery of our content in digestible ways that resonate easily. There are many among us who have highly developed understandings, but cannot seem to reach the market of the masses, people who not only deserve lives of value--which is being extracted from them by this cultural machine--but also run our country at the root level. If I get the chance, I have two books ready to come out after this initial one, the first of which deals with this topic in a broad, but close-to-home way. AEB Keith,

I certainly can’t argue with your central proposition, as I imply as much in my own book, but the problem is approach, both in our target market and in our methodology of delivery. We need to have an organic shift in this direction that comes from the ground up; that is to say that while the controls seem to come from above, from the corporate interests that feed the pocketbooks of the few, the real demand–and therefore control–comes from the street. These are the people who make this whole illusion function as if it were real.

Those of us who take this as their central task–whichever component of it we choose to work in–need to focus less on the “choir” and less on overly-complex arguments and overly-intellectual arguments and more on fundamentally useful applications and delivery of our content in digestible ways that resonate easily. There are many among us who have highly developed understandings, but cannot seem to reach the market of the masses, people who not only deserve lives of value–which is being extracted from them by this cultural machine–but also run our country at the root level.

If I get the chance, I have two books ready to come out after this initial one, the first of which deals with this topic in a broad, but close-to-home way.

AEB

]]> By: Jonathan http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-4 Jonathan Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:38:17 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-4 I guess my impression is that to be anti-civilization means anti- any large scale social organization, whether organized overtly from the top or more organically from the bottom. So that would include being anti- Jeffersonian agrarianism, for example, a form of civilization that doesn't entail industry (as industry is currently understood). In other words, if you eliminate anything that I'd call civilization, you're left only with hunter-gatherer forms of society. I don't want to diss on hunter-gatherers! By some accounts I've read, those really are--or can be--about as ideal as any human society has ever been. Still, I personally could adapt to peasant agriculture a lot more easily than I could adapt to being a hunter-gatherer. I guess in the end I'll adapt to whatever I'm confronted with--or I won't, in which case, sucks to be me! But if I get to have a choice in the matter, I'd like to know the full set of choices. I guess my impression is that to be anti-civilization means anti- any large scale social organization, whether organized overtly from the top or more organically from the bottom. So that would include being anti- Jeffersonian agrarianism, for example, a form of civilization that doesn’t entail industry (as industry is currently understood). In other words, if you eliminate anything that I’d call civilization, you’re left only with hunter-gatherer forms of society. I don’t want to diss on hunter-gatherers! By some accounts I’ve read, those really are–or can be–about as ideal as any human society has ever been. Still, I personally could adapt to peasant agriculture a lot more easily than I could adapt to being a hunter-gatherer. I guess in the end I’ll adapt to whatever I’m confronted with–or I won’t, in which case, sucks to be me! But if I get to have a choice in the matter, I’d like to know the full set of choices.

]]> By: keithfarnish http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-3 keithfarnish Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:31:07 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-3 That's a very interesting thought, Jonathan. We only really have one civilization now, Industrial Civilization, in which the industrial part is symbiotically tied up with the civilized part - so if you get rid of the industry then the whole thing will come down. But no one should confuse egalitarianism and fairness with civility: you don't need civilization to be good, in fact from what we have seen, the opposite seems to be the case. That’s a very interesting thought, Jonathan. We only really have one civilization now, Industrial Civilization, in which the industrial part is symbiotically tied up with the civilized part - so if you get rid of the industry then the whole thing will come down. But no one should confuse egalitarianism and fairness with civility: you don’t need civilization to be good, in fact from what we have seen, the opposite seems to be the case.

]]> By: Jonathan http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/2009/09/15/my-name-is-keith-and-im-an-anti-civilizationist/#comment-2 Jonathan Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:04:46 +0000 http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/keithfarnish/?p=3#comment-2 Keith, "anti-civilization" doesn't strike me as synonymous with anti-industrial, but it seems that you are using them that way. Do you mean them to be synonyms? Or are you saying we need to say goodbye to industrialism and also, separately, to civilization? Keith, “anti-civilization” doesn’t strike me as synonymous with anti-industrial, but it seems that you are using them that way. Do you mean them to be synonyms? Or are you saying we need to say goodbye to industrialism and also, separately, to civilization?

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