I read John Zerzan’s book “Twilight of the Machines” recently.  A good friend recommended it after my blog post on the book “The Coming Insurrection.”

After twilight...we gon' let it all hang down!

I enjoyed the book. It was very enlightening. Zerzan says that the “problem” with/of civilization stems from the development of symbolic thought via language. That is, that language itself creates a separation between things. This separation leads to the creation of other separations.

Specifically, the next separation to come was an original division of labor, which resulted in domestication. Some people stayed at home, some ventured out. They became very different.

If you couldn’t tell, this was also the beginning of the separation of the sexes, according to Zerzan. The separation or distinction between what is considered exclusively male from what is considered exclusively female led next to the separation of classes.

But Zerzan doesn’t stop there. Which is good, and bad.

Technology, he says, is the hallmark of the current separation. He discusses the ways in which technology has further separated man from himself and the rest of Creation (not in a “Biblical” sense, there – just, the Totality of What-Is).

He talks about postmodernism, and its apathetic relativism, as an outgrowth of this technology.

Like I said, I liked the book, but I had a couple of issues with it.

First, it’s a book. There’s no call to action within, except for a complete abandonment of civilization as we know it now. Which strikes me as odd. Zerzan wrote his book, presumably, on some piece of technology, and technology was used to reproduce and distribute it.

Apparently, he also does extensive speaking tours around the world. Doesn’t he know that airplanes are technology? And that air travel is considered to be one of the most damaging (in terms of carbon footprint)?

My second issue is more serious. It has to do with his critique of technology, and his critique of civilization.

Something happened before language turned us into slaves. What was that? Maybe boredom. Zerzan talks about the fact that there is evidence for the creation of seagoing vessels as long ago as 800,000 years, and that scientists now say that members of the genus homo were roughly just as “intelligent” as it is today, 1m years ago.

So why, if we were just as intelligent, would we suddenly create this new mode? Did it come exclusively from the creation of agriculture? Couldn’t agriculture be much older – as the cultivation of certain crops over others – given that homo has had the same level of intelligence for so long?

Was it boredom?

Or is it a combination of forces? The sudden presence of agricultural “technology,” combined with population density and the accompanying pressures and stresses. It’s interesting to note the development of similar practices in very diverse places in the world at roughly similar times (e.g., the development of culture and technologies in Central and South America, similar to those in other parts of the world, and sometimes even preceding those developments in those places).

Which leads to my final critique of Zerzan’s argument. “Technology” is not an “evil.” There are multiple “technologies” that have been used by various peoples at various times. In fact, the handmade axes of 130,000 years ago mentioned in the article above are “technology.”

Computers, “machines,” as Zerzan calls them, are modern versions of technology. But my computer has not stopped me from being physically active, or from connecting back to the earth. In fact, it has enabled me to get closer than I thought I ever would. Yes, I have to leave this technology for another when I go, but that doesn’t make one “better” than the other.

At base, Zerzan’s argument appeals to me – I do believe in the need for people to return to their own physiologies, and through that, to a deeper connection to and understanding of the earth. But the method he recommends is suspect to me.