The English language, quite literally, came from nowhere. No native people spoke it, not even the English. It works as a conglomeration of languages, a mish-mash made for one purpose; trade. If languages provide us with a context with which to see the world, than English programs people to see the living world through the lens of exploitation: trees as dollar bills or animals as units of meat, humans as slaves. English tells us from the moment we utter our first word to our last that the world exists for one purpose; commerce.
Archive for the 'Philosophy of Rewilding' Category
Philosophically I loathe pacifism, because instinctively, I would never even consider it. Yet, reflexively I enact pacifism when attacked, threatened or intimidated. After practicing something long enough, you can re-train your reflexes. I have pacifist values, not because I want to or chose to, but because of my training from early childhood in civilization and specifically, in school. We learn to never fight back or we will receive worse than what we gave. This training needs to stop, now. We need to rewild our relationship to violence.
For the most part, I consider myself an optimist. I find it funny that a lot of people label me as a pessimist because I advocate for the collapse of civilization. When I say “civilization will collapse no matter what we do,” rather than see that as an opportunity for something new, they file it away under “doom and gloom.” I think these people have it all backwards.
Depression ain’t just for the economy. It sucks. I haven’t felt this depressed since age 20. At least, I haven’t felt noticeably this depressed since age 20. Age 21-24 I self-medicated using alcohol and cigarettes so I can’t clearly say what I felt during that time. But now, I don’t medicate at all, legal, illegal, prescribed or otherwise. I drink coffee for the occasional boost, like right now, in order to write this.
Humans have a long history of teaching social taboos through jokes irony, sarcasm, and mockery showing us what we do not find as acceptable behavior. Such comic geniuses as Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David know this too well, their narcissistic characters always breaking social taboos and looking like assholes. In Farley Mowats “People of the Deer” I recall a moment where he drew a picture of a deer smoking a pipe, to which the intuits laughed hysterically! I think this kind of ridiculousness encapsulates the humor in irony and mockery. It has a kind of innocence to it; it looks silly for a deer to do human things, just as it looks silly for a human to mimic deer things. We laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, whether we see a deer smoking a pipe or Larry David not bringing a gift to Ben Stiller’s birthday party.
No one knows what the future will bring, but this we know: Civilizations destroy the land. Our civilization won’t last much longer. A movement known as rewilding has started against civilization. This movement has a frontier and we live in it.
Do hunter-gatherers have religion? That question makes about as much sense as asking if hunter-gatherers had language, science or art. Of course they did. Although their religions looked vastly different than the religions (and science & art) that we see today in civilization.
I can’t help but feel like many people still have purist values when it comes down to understanding rewilding. I often hear people say “if you want to rewild, shouldn’t you go live out in the wilderness!?” Rewilding means un-doing domestication. Cities mark the most domesticated places in the world. Rewilding in the city has no contradictory values; it just means more work in some ways, less in others.
Guilt refers to the feeling we have when we make decisions that go against personal, cultural and mythological pressures. It feels like not doing what you “should” do. It works as one of the most powerful tools of social and cultural renewal. I do not think of guilt as a “bad” thing. I see it as a tool we need to understand. Rewilding goes against all of our life-long civilized programming. Anything we do to rewild could make us feel guilty. Of course, the culture of rewilding creates a new paradigm in which continuing to live in civilization would make us feel guilty since we know that civilization kills biodiversity. In a sense, rewilding involves crossing a threshold into two worlds. This creates a split cultural psyche, leaving us with weird schizophrenic behaviors; feeling both guilty for leaving civilization and guilty for not having left enough.
“Federal officials have called for killing about 30 sea lions near Bonneville Dam each year to keep them from gobbling a rising share of Northwest salmon that the government spends millions of dollars to protect.”
- The Oregonian Friday, January 18, 2008
Dear salmon. I have a confession to make. When I worked as a production assistant for television commercials, a friend called me for a job… on a political campaign advertisement.
People have called me many names:
Self-serving new-age nihilistic pseudo-hippie/yuppie quack-opportunist poseur-hipster-douchebag green-capitalist-bastard egotistical-celebrity-anarchist tool that gives everyone douchechills with a BS agenda, a trust fund from granny, and an obsession with publicity.
A poster of Meta-filter asked the question: Urban Scout, sincere crusader for sustainability or poseur-hipster-douchebag?
Much of what I do involves performance art, so you could label me a poseur. I dress in (what I think look like) hip clothes, so you could call me a hipster. I often make egotistical jokes about myself and others, I could see why someone would call me a douchebag. On top of that I sincerely teach rewilding skills to people and educate people on the ills of agriculture. My life revolves around teaching sustainability. So you could call me a sincere crusader for sustainability. Can’t I have all of these qualities simultaneously? This “one or the other” mentality reflects back to artistotles “is” of identity; you can only “be” A or B, not both.
This question (although intellectually incoherent) haunts me because of the sheer number of people who attack me using this aristolian logic. Most often people say that I “talk” more than I “walk” without thinking about the importance and need for talking about things. People need to understand this stuff. I sacrifice my own relationship with nature by sitting inside thinking and writing so that people will learn why civilization doesn’t work and what does work. I get off on thinking about this stuff and writing so I don’t think of myself as a martyr. It just really upsets me when people don’t see the value of talking about things. I keep talking because of the shit I see in the media projecting a fucked up world view.
George Bush Jr. said during his State of the Union Address:
America is leading the fight against global hunger. Today, more than half the world’s food aid comes from the United States. And tonight, I ask Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, so we can build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine. (Audience Applause.) [emphasis added]
I owe almost everything I know about rewilding language to my friend, author and teacher Willem Larsen from the College of Mythic Cartography, from the day he introduced me to “ePrime” to more currently as his obsession with animist languages sends reverberations through the rewilding community with his invention of “ePrimitive” an even further in depth attempt at rewilding English. No one has done a more thorough investigation and experimentation into this than Willem Larsen. No one. We all owe him a great deal of gratitude. I feel honored to have helped Willem get his thoughts in this first ever accumulated work.
Continue reading ‘E-primitive: Rewilding the English Language’
The Preface of the Preface AKA: The Trite, Obligatory Mention of My Own Humility
I didn’t write this book to change minds. I didn’t write this book to open peoples eyes to the ills of civilization. I didn’t write it to wake anyone up or turn anyone on to rewilding. I wrote it as a chronicle of my own reconnaissance into the anti-civilization, pro-indigenous mindset. I didn’t write it as “the word” of rewilding. This book will make great toilet paper or kindling when or if you finish it. In fact, please burn this book when you finish and keep on rewilding in your own way. My only intention with this book involves sharing my experiences and thoughts on rewilding in attempt at bringing light on elements of rewilding that some may not have seen.
The thoughts in this book reflect my current level of experience and collection of evidence. My thoughts on these topics will most likely change over time with new experiences and different pieces of evidence. Upon reading this 10 years from now, I may slap my forehead at the stupidity of my youthful ideology… Though I hope not. I hope I still see these ideas as the foundations of our collective feral future.
There, I’ve tooted my humility horn enough for you to understand that I have no ego… 
Blah Blah, that said, I have gleaned a lot of information and had countless experiences with rewilding in my life. Though I don’t claim expertise, but I will stake my claim of experience that I do have! This book works as a tally of my experience and accumulated thoughts on rewilding. Love it and leave it for something more. I know I will.
You heard right folks, the next installment of Urban Scout’s anti-vegan brigade! Inspiration for the following tirade came from, once again, the Willamette Week in which they interviewed an animal rights activist in the “hot seat.”
One day my friend Tony and I decided to see if we could make a bow-drill from scratch at a local park we traveled to often. We played around in the log jam for a few minutes and gathered up all the pieces we needed. All but cordage, which would involve more labor. I knew where a small patch of nettle grew and we decided to venture over to the patch, since nettle bark makes great cordage. However, just at the end of the log jam I saw an unfamiliar weed growing up through the rotten limbs.
The following stories about so-called anarchists come from completely subjective experiences that I have had (and a few others), with particular anarchists over a period of time. I do not mean to insult all those who label themselves as anarchists, but question the label when I have seen the culture or scene of “anarchists” act thusly.
Rewild, v; To return to a more natural or wild state; the process of undoing domestication.
SYN: uncivilize, undomesticate, feralize.
The first time I saw the word “rewilding” I had browsed to the green anarchy info shop website through a search looking for links to websites that explained primitive skills. The word grabbed me immediately and I could feel something inside of me change. I knew that at long last, I had a word to describe what I do.
Since its inception civilization has created a value system of good vs. evil. The concept of good and evil (or the more scientific “right” and “wrong,” seems to permeate so much of our thought, that we have projected it onto indigenous mythologies as well. “Surely the notion of good and evil comes from human nature, not culture!” Perhaps if we look deeper, we may see that the notion of good and evil live and die with a culture of destruction.
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