If you have ever watched a show based in pre-Christian Europe, or some other setting where people are living off the land in pre-feudal organizations such as tribes or clans and thought, “This is how people should be living. Why did we abandon this?” then you might be drawn to primitive living. It may sound insane, but so many forms of entertainment such as games, movies, or books have themes of surviving off the land in various settings. Games about farming, building bases in forests to survive monsters during the night, or even games about surviving in a destroyed world after an apocalypse. There is clearly a type of allure for that kind of existence.

I should clarify that I am not advocating a return to pre-industrial society. I think the Unabomber may have had some ideas that touched on how humans benefit from primitive and pre-industrial living, but his ideology was engendered by rightism and fundamentally incompatible with Marxism, so I have no option but to reject most of it. Instead, I think I should point out the specific benefits of primitive societies while not overlooking the hardships of such a lifestyle.

Modern people work in jobs that would seem pointless to our ancestors. Being on computers all day, working in retail shops or stores, or even banking would be foreign concepts to hunter-gatherer ancestors who bartered and mostly cooperated with each other for survival. They might have spent a lot of time hunting or gathering for food, but when they were finished they would literally consume the fruits of their labor. The most basic comforts such as pillows, clothing, light, and entertainment would be laborious to produce, but they were made by hand by the person themself or members of their community. Similar to a commune, everything was a product of labor from individuals the person knew and they had good relationships with the objects they owned relative to modern people, who constantly buy useless things and see them as soulless, replaceable objects if not junk. Primitive people did not have junk, and everything had a use.

To add to the last point, their food was not processed and they most likely ate food prepared with better quality ingredients than what we would eat now. A lifestyle centered around schedules, deadlines, and lunch breaks means we are eating heavily processed food that would feel completely fake to our ancestors who prepared everything with natural ingredients. Diabetes was unheard of, obesity was rare, and sugar was not the main ingredient in everything they ate.

The best part about the whole situation is probably the environmental sustainability and their ability to live in nature without destroying it. The world was heavily forested during most of humanity’s existence and this meant they did not suffer the effects of a changing climate. If there is any part of primitive living we should emulate, it is definitely learning to live with renewable resources, without harm to the flora and fauna of the places we live, and without polluting our environments.

  • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
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    7 months ago

    The most basic comforts such as pillows, clothing, light, and entertainment would be laborious to produce, but they were made by hand by the person themself or members of their community.

    This was true up until industrialisation in the early to mid 19th century.

    their food was not processed and they most likely ate food prepared with better quality ingredients than what we would eat now.

    In most areas there was also less variety, people relied on a few staple foods.

    the environmental sustainability and their ability to live in nature without destroying it

    This is a myth. People have been destroying “nature” for our whole existence: irrigation, deforestation, and so on. For example, Easter Island used to be covered in forests until it was all cut.

    You have a romantic view of the past that doesn’t correspond to reality.

    • Charming Owl@lemmy.mlOP
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      7 months ago

      I do admit that people were destroying environments and things, but I think it must be noted that the scale of destruction would be comparitively less than modern times. Neolibs in Brazil are burning the Amazon rainforest in order to produce beef to send to America which is something that would be unheard of in previous eras.

  • vehicom@lemmygrad.ml
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    7 months ago

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311811471_An_Introduction_to_Generative_Justice

    I was reading this paper a while ago and this is Marx’s theory of alienation. When we are so alienated from the products of our labor it seems to pointless often.

    The paper talks about how even under socialist economies labor is alienated to be redistributed by the state. An improvement on capitalism, but nonetheless alienated

    Another way capitalism alienates us, while not directly marx’s analysis on labor, is from community. It’s so hard to have community under capitalism.

    • vehicom@lemmygrad.ml
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      7 months ago

      Also relating to the comment below my multitotal and your response, i agree with multitotal that it’s a bit of a romanticization but also i think this can viewed as a negation of the negation. Negation of the primitive structure and the modern alienated structures for a synthesis into hopefully a better society.

      That felt a bit incoherent but i’m too lazy to reword that so hopefully it’s at least somewhat understandable.