Primitivism

2:4 (In »The three dramatic revolutions of the Internet age«)

Philosophy is founded on metaphysics, and metaphysics in turn is founded on theology. However solid the logic in a world view may seem, its logic is nonetheless based on a metaphysical assumption that is a functional but blind faith and definitely not any form of knowing. Under the primitivism of hunting and gathering, the tribe’s presumed primordial father and mother constituted the theological foundation for the collective’s ancestor worship. Primordial fathers are definitely not just any people at all, since unlike all others they lack parents – accordingly they must be a form of primitive god with extraordinary power. Under feudalism, God took over the role of the metaphysical foundation. God is the common primordial father of all tribes, the primordial father of primordial fathers. In this way, the particular stories of small tribes are bound up with the universal stories concerning human beings of larger regions and the forces that wreak havoc in their lifeworld. Monotheism is born.

3:12 (In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

Primitivism is the first paradigm; it is based on the revolutionising emergence of spoken language and is characterised by nomadism, hunting, fishing and gathering. Primitivist metaphysics is based on reverence for one’s ancestors and respect for the tribe’s oldest members, since these are the collective’s most reliable and resource-rich knowledge bank, and thus also the key to survival, the engine of primitivist metaphysics. The narrative of nomadism revolves around the concept of history as circular with the regular return of the seasons as its dominant symbol. Existence is not linear, has no direction, time instead runs in recurring cycles; there is no development, everything is instead repeated ad infinitum. To be a human being is to be a member of a tribe, and within the limits of the tribe’s structures, to take responsibility for ensuring that this perpetual repetition is maintained. Strangers constitute competitors for the tribe’s resources, wherefore one either flees from them or beats them to death when one happens upon them. The human being who does not belong to the tribe is therefore not a human being at all, but an animal that can basically be treated as nonchalantly or brutally as one pleases.

3:37 (In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

With the advent of informationalism, a freedom arises to organise the rapidly-growing, expanding social networks in accordance with the long-neglected desires of our genes. The optimal size of a tribe of nomads or the newly-established, permanent settlement of around 150 adult members as a genetically determined ideal resurfaces constantly as the ideal size for these virtual networks. When this ideal can be reproduced without costly opposition over and over again from the advent of the network society and onwards, what musician Brian Eno calls technological primitivism arises, a kind of high-tech return to the primitivist tribe community. The virtual subcultures on the Internet replace the Church’s and nation’s identity-bearing functions from the previous paradigms (see The Netocrats). The Internet is a digital jungle filled with dividual-driven subcultures in vast quantities.

3:54 (In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

Zoroaster wants to see his followers as hedonists and self-affirming Mazdayasni with a deep ethics constructed on the basis of their intentions, instead of terrified and submissive Ahurayasni with their morality constructed on the basis of the consequences of their actions. Zoroaster thereby turns his back on primitivism’s consequentialism and instead develops the first intentionalism in the history of ideas; his religion is the first that happens inside the minds of people rather than out there in the endless cosmos. Ironically it is the Arabic neighbour Islam that later develops and consummates the opposite idea – of Ahurayasna as its own, radically moralist religion (the term Islam itself means submission in Arabic).

Last modified 7. August 2016 at 00:05:58