The new primitives

Among utopian ideas, primitivism is distinctive for its reverse teleology. Marx's communist society or the techno-utopias of Silicon Valley are premised on transcendence. When workers own the factories or robots do the menial labor, humans will be free to pursue their inmost desires. For primitivists, humans have previously achieved this state, and our urgent project is to restore it. We are to move forward into our past; or, equally, backward into our future. Primitivists thus spend a lot of time seeking out and heralding the evidence of the societies which they suppose lived (or live) in this state of grace. These might be lodged in religious mythology, the archaeological record beneath our feet, or some notional society beyond the frontier of civilization that hasn't made the same grave errors that we have.