The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Had a Facebook discussion with an acquaintance who is an anarcho-primitivist. Though I didn't exactly say that it went more like this.

Me: We’d love for the world to end, or we think we would. (First toothache or skin disease and you’ll change your mind, though.)- John Dolan

Him: Civilization, as we know it, is not our only guarantee for healed toothaches and skin disease. Civilization has only found a way to profit off these woes with drugs that may or may not make shit worse for you.

Me: Because anarcho-primitivist societies will give one plenty of free time to dedicate themselves to finding cures for diseases, right?

Him: Cures for diseases have been used for tens of thousands of years by indigenous people. We've only done away with most of them.

Me: Than why were pre-Colombian life expectancies comparable to those of their European counterparts? Though not anarcho-primitivist but both of my grandmothers lived in a rural society and had really high attrition rates amongst their children. My two grandmothers combined lost 6 children before they made it to ten years old; does that sound like an idealic society to live in. If you are going to knock civilization than go ahead and knock things like neo-natal care and appendectomies; which are things that have probably saved the lives of lots of people you know.

Yep. That about covers it.

That philosophy can only be popular with someone who has no experience in the third world or are woefully ignorant of history. It is a form of romanticism , a rejection of western culture. I have problems with our society but from experience in the Phillipines and Peru, I do not want their living conditions and I know many of them wish they had at least some of our amenities.

beto wrote:That philosophy can only be popular with someone who has no experience in the third world or are woefully ignorant of history. It is a form of romanticism , a rejection of western culture. I have problems with our society but from experience in the Phillipines and Peru, I do not want their living conditions and I know many of them wish they had at least some of our amenities.

Agreed.

A friend of mine just posted a link that shows that home births have a higher mortality rate than hospital births. This upset a planning-to-be-midwife acquaintance of hers, who blew up at her (while ignoring the study). I then asked a simple question. You see, I was born a month early, and would have been born 2 months early if not for my mother taking injections for the month before that. I was rushed to the NICU for a week afterwards. I asked what the odds were of me having survived a natural birth. Her response?

"I'm not having arguments about childbirth with men or people who are still so immature as to think it is disgusting or unnatural*. And I honestly don't want to have anything to do with people personally who really believe that Western science and beliefs are the only truth in this world."



*No one said it was unnatural, that's just plain silly. My friend said it was gross, which, if you look at the individual components of a childbirth, you could probably agree with.

Yow!

I don't know how all of the wacky got in to midwifery. The modern feminist midwife descends from a women's medical movement that was intended to let real data win out over sexism. It is so sad that some branches of that movement have morphed in to something closer to religion than medicine.

The emotional benefits of home birth are real and significant, but to pretend that there are not associated risks is the kind of willful ignorance we see with the right. Reactionary gender essentialism is as revolting from hippie birthing enthusiasts as it is from fundie birthers.

Zapp Brannigan wrote: Me: We’d love for the world to end, or we think we would. (First toothache or skin disease and you’ll change your mind, though.)- John Dolan

beto wrote:That philosophy can only be popular with someone who has no experience in the third world or are woefully ignorant of history. It is a form of romanticism , a rejection of western culture. I have problems with our society but from experience in the Phillipines and Peru, I do not want their living conditions and I know many of them wish they had at least some of our amenities.

Well said. On the streets in Chengdu, China, I saw people getting teeth pulled and drilled. The drills were run by gears powered by a foot lever. I'm sure you could find a modern dentist if you had the Yuen, but the street dentists had no shortage of business.

I look at primitivists the same way I look at survivalists who expect all the unfit urban-dwelling freaks to obligingly die off in the event of global catastrophe. Both groups are in for an unpleasant awakening should their desired scenarios come to pass.

Fukshot wrote:Yow!

I don't know how all of the wacky got in to midwifery. The modern feminist midwife descends from a women's medical movement that was intended to let real data win out over sexism. It is so sad that some branches of that movement have morphed in to something closer to religion than medicine.

It's funny you should mention the religion angle.

There's a group of religious fundies who have taken Psalm 127 to an extreme. "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... rhood.html
The article is outdated, now the duggars are up to 19 kids.

So there's the group that goes for the gusto in creating as many kids as possible, and it extends into related areas like home-schooling and home-birthing and even home-churching. Yep, home-churching. Now THAT is an echo chamber! Oh, and don't forget home-doctoring, also known as healing by prayer. Anyway, they've been slowly flooding the home-birthing field for a couple decades now with their extreme religion. I ran across a friend of the family a week ago, she is about three months along on her fourth child while the oldest just turned five. Whew, four kids within six years.

So, there's the source of the wacky in midwifery.

JayFromPA wrote:

Fukshot wrote:Yow!

I don't know how all of the wacky got in to midwifery. The modern feminist midwife descends from a women's medical movement that was intended to let real data win out over sexism. It is so sad that some branches of that movement have morphed in to something closer to religion than medicine.

It's funny you should mention the religion angle.

There's a group of religious fundies who have taken Psalm 127 to an extreme. "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... rhood.html
The article is outdated, now the duggars are up to 19 kids.

So there's the group that goes for the gusto in creating as many kids as possible, and it extends into related areas like home-schooling and home-birthing and even home-churching. Yep, home-churching. Now THAT is an echo chamber! Oh, and don't forget home-doctoring, also known as healing by prayer. Anyway, they've been slowly flooding the home-birthing field for a couple decades now with their extreme religion. I ran across a friend of the family a week ago, she is about three months along on her fourth child while the oldest just turned five. Whew, four kids within six years.

So, there's the source of the wacky in midwifery.

The home schooling part reminds me of a former coworker who managed to break away from his super fundie family. On the other end his brother wasn't as lucky and got his first kiss on his wedding day.

I see no reason why, especially with the technology we have available today, an anarchist society would also have to be a primitive one.

Fukshot wrote:Yow!

I don't know how all of the wacky got in to midwifery. The modern feminist midwife descends from a women's medical movement that was intended to let real data win out over sexism. It is so sad that some branches of that movement have morphed in to something closer to religion than medicine.

The emotional benefits of home birth are real and significant, but to pretend that there are not associated risks is the kind of willful ignorance we see with the right. Reactionary gender essentialism is as revolting from hippie birthing enthusiasts as it is from fundie birthers.

Oh, god, don't get me started. Yes, midwifes were a safer choice than doctors, before doctors figured out things like washing their hands before sticking them up in a pregnant lady's hoo-hah. Now, doctors have the edge on safety and health, but well-trained midwives are fantastic resources for those who would like a home birth, and good midwives should be able to identify when a birth is going poorly and requires more intensive medical assistance. Good midwives make pregnant women comfortable and help them feel more in control (as opposed to OB/GYNs who are more likely to take charge), but more importantly, they help make childbirth safer. Trying to explore your spiritual side by being a midwife while denigrating "Western" medicine (read: the scientific method) is dangerous and conceited.

She also later went on to redefine the people who couldn't have an opinion in that topic as "men or those without uteruses", which I thought added a nice touch of transphobia and exclusion of those different from herself. I also like how it removed several women I know who have had health problems that required a hysterectomy to treat, many of whom have had children before having to have their uteruses removed.

Urgh.

Progurt: I don't think that anyone in this thread had said so.

My big issue with anarchism is that it doesn't do anything to help the weak/unpopular, and that it's too easily crushed by the strong, meaning that you get a nice big helping of freedom until the nearest or most violent force around you decides that it wants what you have, and then you get majorly fucked (see: Native Americans, anarchist Catalonia during the 1930s).

Most of these Anarchists and Primitivists would be lost without their iPhone. Just like most Tea Party members would die off without "socialist" Medicare.

Awake wrote:Most of these Anarchists and Primitivists would be lost without their iPhone. Just like most Tea Party members would die off without "socialist" Medicare.

I wish there was a way to make it so if someone was a Teabagger or of similar opinion such that they demanded "government get out of everything" they were automatically p[ted out of Social Security and Medicare.

We could call it the "Fuck You, Hypocrites Bill"

I must lead a weird life, all teh midwives I met while my wife was pregnant with our son were RNs that did the midwifery on the side. Half of them were ER nurses.

Granted, I only knew about 8 and it was the suburbs of Chicago.

I met a Modern Primative at the St Louis Occupy. He was a Rainbow Family nutter that was a Reservist Marine who never left Lajune during his time in the Marines. I don't think that Peabody got his 'negative waves' that he was meditating to send at teh top of their tower...

Primitivism is not only a white middle class conceit, it's also sort of racist.
These " anarcho- primitives" ( even their name is a rip- off because it conforms to no anarchist philosophy I know of ) assume that pre- industrial people lived quiet and idyllic lives, and were rather simple- minded and childlike.
In their ignorance, they fail to understand that our ancestors in ancient times lived lives of terrible hardship, on a scale they cannot imagine. While ancient people were quite capable of mastering their environment and not the brutish savages portrayed by philosophers of the Enlightenment, they did die in large numbers to ailments that we think of as inconviences: influenza, tooth abcesses, infection, diarreah, etc.
What if they had to make a choice that many ancient Greek peasants had to make: whether or not to commit infanticide because the harvest had been bad and there wasn't enough food to go around?
It's a nice little fantasy to think about living a simple life in a bucolic setting when you're stuck in traffic and late for a job that you hate anyway, but in reality it beats the shit out of working your ass off just to feed yourself ( barely ) or having to rely on the local druid to cure your appendicitis.

Most folks don't realize that the whole world has been moving from the primitive to the civilized since the beginning of time. Primitive worlds have witch doctors. Civilization provides emergency medical care specialists, neurologists, pharmaceuticals, and a myriad of support. Primitives have slash and burn farming techniques while civilization has modern agricultural techniques (Monsato not included) that produce much higher crop yields and are far less stressful on the land. Individuals in a primitive setting hunt their own meat. Fail and your children starve. In civilization, you can always find a cheap pound of hotdogs for a dollar. So much more can be said but the reason is simple, survival. Life expectancy is longer and healthier when people work together and develop techniques and technologies that best serve their purposes.

As far as anarchism goes, does anyone remember the feudal system? Who would love for someone much larger and stronger to stand on their head with a sword to their throat telling them to hand over their crops, their wealth, and their women? Oh happy, happy days!

Progurt wrote:I see no reason why, especially with the technology we have available today, an anarchist society would also have to be a primitive one.

"Anarchy" implies lack of structure. Modern technology depends entirely upon the viability of it's infrastructure. With few fall-back skills, we'd have to start learning what would be, to most of us, a brand new system. The Cody Lundins of this world would become very important people.

Having said that, anarchy is not natural to human beings. We are, at the core, troop monkeys. If a catastrophe were to thrust all of us back into the Stone Age, we would, by nature, assemble into social structures that will become more and more complex.

Anarchosyndicalism aka anarchism, is a socialist philosophy that advocates communally operated industries controlled by the workers in those industries- in essence these cooperatives, or federations of them, replace the state as the means of political organization. The goal is greater liberty and autonomy for the individual balanced with the needs of the society he/ she lives in.
Many people , including these " primitivists", confuse this philosophy with anarchy, which is a description of a lawless state of affairs.
P.S. I hope I did the definition of anarchism some justice, Progurt.

eh. Libertarianism plus a little. Incredibly naiive point of view in a connected world-- societies don't interact in the same way individuals do, and the growing population and invasive culture is simply too big to stick one's head in the sand, shotgun in hand, telling the world to go away.

Libertarianism is fine as long as the economic part only supports deregulation between persons and does not include things that only exist as legal entities.

I wear a small "l" on my libertarianism since I never was a Republican to start with.

Yossarian wrote:[ On the streets in Chengdu, China, I saw people getting teeth pulled and drilled. The drills were run by gears powered by a foot lever. I'm sure you could find a modern dentist if you had the Yuen, but the street dentists had no shortage of business.

Reminds me of when I was 9 before the modern equipment that dispensed water on the drill site.

The heat was the primary source of pain. The smell of your own teeth burning was an xtra.

the comedian wrote:Anarchosyndicalism aka anarchism, is a socialist philosophy that advocates communally operated industries controlled by the workers in those industries- in essence these cooperatives, or federations of them, replace the state as the means of political organization. The goal is greater liberty and autonomy for the individual balanced with the needs of the society he/ she lives in.
Many people , including these " primitivists", confuse this philosophy with anarchy, which is a description of a lawless state of affairs.
P.S. I hope I did the definition of anarchism some justice, Progurt.

Works for me, +1

As Rudolf Rocker would put it, it's an opposition to tyrannical State Power and Monopoly Power.

ErikO wrote:Libertarianism is fine as long as the economic part only supports deregulation between persons and does not include things that only exist as legal entities.

I wear a small "l" on my libertarianism since I never was a Republican to start with.

"Libertarian" n. A conservative who wants to smoke pot legally.

((ducking))

There's a difference between the more recent Grover Norquist version of "Libertarians" and the historical and traditional meaning of the word.

Etymology of the word libertarian

The word stems from the French word libertaire. The use of the word "libertarian" to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, libertaire, which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[37] Hence libertarian has been used by some as a synonym for left anarchism since the 1890s.[38] The term libertarianism is commonly considered to be a synonym of anarchism in countries other than the US.[13]

Personally I'm more of a mutualist anarchist than an individualist anarchist.