Welcome to Issue #2

We've made the conscious choice to produce a print-only newspaper in an era where much of anarchist dialogue occurs over the Internet. We hope that our choice of a print medium allows time for slowness and reflection, both as a challenge to the immediacy of the Internet as well as to deepen the dialogue. Whereas so much of Internet anarchist discourse is based on quick dismissals and ideological echo chambers, we hope to foster face-to-face conversations based on reflective of specific articles we publish and the larger questions they address. Black Seed has already helped further conversations surrounding the roles of anthropology and resistance.

Despite these successes, we were reminded that this project and these conversations are very much a process. Professing to not have any answers, yet asking questions, has put us editors in a position of vulnerability. Holding everything in question, even the idea of green anarchy itself, provides a certain kind of provocation for those who have a stake in advocating for or defending their ideological positions and tendencies. When one makes grandiose claims about how an ideology must or must not behave a certain way, the only room for a response remains that of a statement of allegiance or opposition to those claims. By honestly opening up the conversation with a series of questions, we’ve begun an experiment in life and thought.

How do we pay homage and respect to those who came before, living against civilization and with wildness, without holding hands with racist anthropological practices and appropriating cultures that are not ours? How do we begin to discuss that the very way we live our lives is out of sync with so many basic needs for living (not just surviving) without fetishizing lifestyles? What will it look like to illuminate the horrors that have been wreaked on the wild worlds of all species without laying out a program for revolution or life? It is our aim to explore these questions and their implications on our lives, not to answer them. Lived anarchy is a process with no end in sight. It’s our belief that green anarchy helps us to think about these larger questions.

Looking back at the first issue, the conversation was somewhat scattered, just as we were. We put forth a lot of energy trying to make Issue One everything we’ve ever wanted a publication to be: personal, defiant, studious, news-worthy, convincing, and hilarious. We didn’t deliver on all those fronts, as some critics have pointed out. Of course, no publication can grab everyone, but we aim to constantly improve the project. One of the more substantive criticisms we received was in the form of a question: Who is this for? On the one hand, it’s a fair question. Who do we expect to read this newspaper? What we do hope they get out of it? On the other hand, we realize that there is no typical reader. For a publication with a print run in the thousands, readership and distribution are constantly evolving. Though we asked specific questions in our calls for submissions, the paper is subject to the content submitted. This is consistent with our goal of creating a space for conversation rather than an ideological box. Black Seed is clearly an anarchist project aimed at the anarchist space that nonetheless hopes to spill out beyond the milieu. We started this project to contribute something to the void of green anarchist publishing, a forum for dialogue, and dialogue is indeed happening. At the same time, there are questions about the limitations of this orientation: are we writing to some perceived mythical “green anarchist” audience? Are we just writing to our friends? What is the point? These are larger questions that will be answered over time; other criticisms of the first issue are addressed by the articles curated within.

In light of all this, we’re excited to present this second issue. We’re continuing several specific conversations about green anarchy and indigeneity integral to this project as a whole; related is the topic of anthropology and its relationship to green anarchy. Dialogues growing away from violence/non-violence debates into deeper and reflective questioning regarding eco-defense are raised in the responsive “Two Steps Nowhere” submission. The “Green Anarchy panel discussion” dives into anthropology critique and the green anarchist/anti-civ anarchist distinction, while also touching on the trendy topic of “hope.” “Anarchy in Flight,” takes a completely different approach altogether by pushing aside the usual jargon but bringing in something very new and inspiring. We are also excited to print continuations of two pieces, “An Interview with Klee Benally” and “A Voice from the Grave,” begun in the first issue.

As the days get shorter and the acorns begin to fall, we hope to provide fodder for late night talks ‘round the fire and letters sent over the miles that come between us. And when those conversations lead you to think you’ve got it, know that you haven’t, none of us do, but know that we want to hear what you’re thinking, what small ways you’re finding to get free.

The Editors,

-Scealai

-Cedar Leighlais

-Pietje

-Zdereva Itvaryn

-Aragorn!





A Discussion on Green Anarchy

At the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair this year in late August, a roundtable discussion on green anarchy was held as one of the workshops. The speakers included Ian Smith (the moderator for uncivilizedanimals.wordpress.com), Kathan Zerzan (who co-hosts John Zerzan’s Anarchy Radio show once a month), Aragorn! (publisher of Black Seed) and Cedar Leighlais (an editor of Black Seed). What follows is the transcription of the discussion, not including the last half-hour of Q&A. The transcription has been edited for clarity.

Kathan: Well, I’ve just been elected the MC up here of this discussion that we’re going to have up here. We’ve got some questions that I’ll put out that I think are the basis of what we’re going to talk about. and then people will introduce themselves. The questions we’ll be discussing are: A) What is green anarchy? B) How did you come to a green anarchist perspective? C) Are green anarchy, primitivism, and anti-civilization synonymous terms? And then two kind of topical terms: anthropology—how can anarchists interact with it? And hope: what is the role of hope when we can see that the world has been so fucked by civilization?

What Is Green Anarchy?

K: I’m not going to just repeat the term. I participate in a radio show with John Zerzan, I have since 2007, I’m certainly aware of ongoing discussions and hear phrases and terms of tendencies that over the years seem to be developing into positions... so for myself I have the question: green anarchy, anarcho-primitivism, anti-civilization, are these the same thing? I think there are probably different opinions here that we will flesh out. I tend to think they are pretty much synonymous. I think that there is developing theory about the world we live in and how to interact with it, and that there might be specific, debatable, kind of academic differences that to me are somewhat irrelevant. Then there are practical-based differences in organizations like Deep Green Resistance or say Ted Kaczynski’s writings, that there does seem to be some pull towards military-style, hierarchical, centralized organization; when you get into the topic of armed struggle, you’re probably going to have centralized organizations, so that feels to me (and I’m no expert, I’m just saying what I see) that that’s one thing where I think there are major disagreements. But in terms of anti-civ, and green anarchy, I think there are way more similarities than disagreements.

Cedar: My name is Cedar. I’m appearing on this panel as one of the editors of Black Seed. To me green anarchy is a political tendency within the larger umbrella of anarchy that doesn’t stop at anything. It holds the entire world ready for critique and attack. That is very attractive to me, since I found that most of a lot of other niches within anarchy stop short of going all the way to the root of where these systems of oppression (to use a buzzword) come from. Often times that what is lacking from anarchist analysis is a deep historical understanding of where these things come from. The most important thing to me about green anarchy is that everything in our lives that fucks with us, holds us down, keeps us from being free, can be tied back to civilization; everything goes back to this complete onslaught and domestication, turning everything into a commodity. To me green anarchy is the analysis of this world, not just looking at things in terms of ecology or the environment with an anarchist lens; it’s not just about rewilding or hunting and harvesting berries, for me that’s not even part of green anarchy. For me that stuff is personal interest, and I’m also excited about it… Green anarchy also takes into consideration ongoing violent clashes in city centers and suburbs - some people would call that class war. Green anarchy is calling into question everything that we know.

Aragorn!: I was a columnist for Green Anarchy magazine, I also wrote essays for the magazine. So I’ve been involved with public green anarchist projects for a long time. I’m the publisher of Black Seed, which means that eventually I will not be involved that much in providing content, but as part of Little Black Cart, I pay for it and make sure that people can get it into their hands. That’s my involvement with Black Seed.

So, anarchism as a beautiful idea, both a sort of impossible conversation to have, and a conversation that becomes one of preferences - meaning all of us. And I believe that most people we meet on the streets agree with us when we say, “I want freedom, and I want to be with people in interesting constellations of freedom,” rather than “I want to be oppressed and I want to be in uninteresting relationships of oppression or hierarchy.” The traditional forms of anarchism - which happened at the same time as the rise of the workers’ movements in the 19th and early 20th centuries - reflected the moment that it lived in, which looked like a progressive, historical, abstract, and Manichean political philosophy. In the 1980s and 1990s, then, it began to be common to differentiate between red and green anarchism. That, progressive, historical, abstract, and Manichean, that is red anarchism. Green anarchism is everything else. So, for me, green anarchism is an umbrella term, that we can now talk about as having distinct interests underneath it, that are usually not progressive, historical, abstract, or Manichean. Green anarchism, obviously, in the way it factionalized out in the past 30 years, has taken on a variety of different nuances, has become influenced by different people who have dogs in the fight. I think it’s worth mentioning some of them, who are not usually mentioned in the anti-civilization part of this conversation.

There are people who want to reconcile Hegelian thought with a conversation about ecology; they’re called Bookchinites. Those people still exist, they still have journals and people who follow their ideas. There are people who think that instead of talking about destroying civilization, that we should be talking about post-civilization. There’s the anti-civilization discourse that includes a variety of perspectives. Here we’re talking about taxonomy, rather than green anarchism in particular, so we can talk about those distinctions later on. But for me, the main point is that green anarchy is not the anarchism that came before, which is progressive, historical, abstract, Manichean.

Ian Smith: I write a blog called Uncivilized Animals, which is probably the vehicle that connected me with some of the people here. I think Cedar’s idea of green anarchy being the largest frame that everything’s up for grabs is a good way of framing it. Personally I’ve always used these terms interchangeably, but I’ve done that unthinkingly, so this is the question that we brought to this and I was interested to hear other people’s thoughts. When I first thought about it and tried to think about it more, it was that anti-civilization is a negative term, it kind of leaves the floor open for something positive. Moving on to the next question, which is...

How Did You Come To A Green Anarchist Perspective?

I: On a personal note, my step onto this floor was mainstream, consumer veganism, and taking the next step out and then the next... thinking about what does it mean to respect animals? And how radically different the world as a whole would have to be if we genuinely respected other animals. I think that ripples out to the furthest periphery of what that means.

C: I would say mine goes back, like Ian I’ve been thinking about this all week, I can trace it back to my childhood. Everything previously in my life has had something to do with where I’m at now. Part of growing up outside of a small town, running around in the woods, I mean it’s cheesy American youth bullshit but it’s real too. Running around in the woods with total abandon for the rest of the world. In high school I was incredibly anti-social and found a place within the more anarcho-punk hardcore scene. The lyrics in those bands really resonated with me and I found importance in that. Eventually I was vegan and looked at it in a larger context. But when I did away with veganism, that happened at the same time that I started to accept a much more negative view of the world, and to see that even the small, non-profit, organic farm I worked on was bullshit, even that was “domestication.” Taking wild and free places and manipulating them for money or surplus or whatever. Even these small things that I had found solace in as a late teenager turned out to be part of an entire system. As I realized that everything is worth pointing a finger at, that was also when I put down veganism, and came to have a very staunch position against everything else. This had a lot to do with understanding that there was an importance outside of civilization, and also being incredibly aware of this relentless anger I have at the forces that control my life and the lives of those around me, and that consistently put down struggles for freedom.

A!: I have always been a green anarchist, but I have yet to figure out exactly what that means. One of the problems with labels and especially labels that are wrapped up with politics is the way that they’re very confusing, because they seem to be used much more as weapons than they are as clarifying statements. So the reason I embrace the term green anarchism is because of how open the term is. In other words, green anarchism to me is a set of ideas that desire freedom, and that do not accept that a clockwork universe exists. For me, there’s much more to figure out, and one of my goals for Black Seed, one of the reasons I’m helping to make it happen, is that I really want help figuring out what it means to not live in a clockwork universe together, and the way these conversations have happened up until now have felt very troubling and I am very uncomfortable about them. That said, I do find the work of Fredy Perlman and an U.K. author named John Moore to be very inspirational.

I: I guess I jumped ahead in my first statement. The only thing I would add is that a key component of this transition is shedding old identities that you’re given, whether that’s as worker or consumer (or whatever the case might be) to an identity as animal, and trying to be humble enough to look to other animals for solutions to problems and to learn from others in that way. Grappling with these things I often feel that in a different time and place people would have learned just by breathing the air when they’re growing up and now we’re struggling to learn these things with the clunky brain of an adult at whatever age you are and it’s really not feasible, but you know, maybe some progress can be made, so...

K: And I have the longest history, so I’ll be abbreviating a lot. I appreciate very much Aragorn!’s distinction between red anarchism and green anarchism, because I would say that kind of encompasses my trajectory. So I was born in 1950, female, United States of America, my father was military. I grew up moving throughout my childhood... I think I attended twelve schools or something. I was in Puerto Rico before Cuba, stopped in Guantanamo of all things on my way to Puerto Rico with my family to be a good child of a colonialist in Puerto Rico for three years. Came back to the U.S.; was in Georgia’s civil rights movement; where we were considered northerners and federal-agents because the military was integrating. So I started having contradictions with the society I lived in, and being an outsider... my last high school was in Colorado Spring, CO; the Vietnam War was raging, it was ‘68. I was a good military girl and believed in America and freedom, the communists were the enemies and that kind of thing. I had two older brothers, one ended up in Berkeley, the other in Milwaukee marching with Father Graupee against the war. I went to Oregon University of Portland, started questioning the war, went from doing draft resistance and legal activity to helping people get out of the country, to joining an autonomous Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) that was probably my first experience with working with other people in an anarchist fashion. We didn’t have connections to national S.D.S., they’d had the split with Weather Underground then. Anyways, it’s a long history. At University of Oregon I was arrested, and the lovely government that I believed in... it was really in my face, the contradiction was really in my face: the good Catholic girl was looking at 25 years in prison for inciting to riot. And I felt like I was being a good girl, I was doing the right thing. S.D.S. was a local group at University of Oregon, not connected with the national group. In 1970 I was arrested. There was a centralized organization in the Bay Area that was Maoist and expanded to Eugene, O.R., and my lovely group of people I trusted and who I had worked with all year, we all became secret members of R.U. and became very interested in armed struggle and the repression that was taking place and we got more secretive and more ingrown and that kind of stuff. Life went on, the war allegedly ended, the central committee in California was talking about assigning people to ... “well maybe we won’t fight the charges, maybe you need to go to prison and organize in the prisons.” I always had trouble with authority, never respected authority, but... when the central committee in CA, when... I don’t even know who these people are, are apparently deciding where I’m going to go spend the next 25 years of my life to organize a revolution that doesn’t seem to be taking place in Eugene, Oregon, so I decided to get the hell out of Oregon and go to the belly of the monster, which was Chicago. In Chicago I got involved with left organizations that split with RU into Sojourner Truth Organization (S.T.O.), which was probably the transitional organization. We were accused of being anarcho-syndicalist, that was very unpopular; any reference to anarchist, anarcho-, it was like “Pfft, you’re a bad person.” 1970s became the 1980s, Reagan got elected; the group I was with also became in-focused; revolution was not happening. A vanguard of white, theory-centric males began to develop theory that was hierarchical again. Even though we were anarcho-syndicalist and the majority of people were very opposed to the idea of any kind of vanguard party. So I was part of leading a split. Then I moved back to Oregon with my three girls to where my parents lived. Any hope of a new world that I had was fading. Then I became familiar with my cousin’s writings through a patient I met as a nurse practitioner. He asked me if I knew John’s writings. I got John’s books Elements of Refusal, which is a good book. I encourage people to read it. And I began discussions with him, became familiar with the Situationists, Adorno, more theoretical thought that had taken place since I’d left academia; and the 1990s began to see young people on the streets, and anarchy being a developing body of thought. Very unrelated to the Marxism, Leninism and Maoism that I’d experienced before. And as the female voice in all this, you know I’ve been a female player in many different groups that have largely been male-dominated. and the anti-civilization perspective, and the understanding of where domination comes from and what it means to be domesticated, to be conquered, paralleled very much with ideas I was beginning to think about. So that’s too long, but it’s a long history.

Are Green Anarchism, Anarcho-Primitivism, And Anti-Civilization Synonymous Terms?

A!: So this is probably where things will get a bit more controversial. Absolutely not. As I think we generally agree, that green anarchy is a sort of umbrella term that encompasses a variety of terms within it. Anti-civ is also a general term, a general critique of civilization. From my perspective, anti-civ shares similarities with Marxism, with any other -ism, because it provides an abstract solution to a variety of problems, in this case the problem that it provides an answer to is civilization, which is a very big and abstract idea that we may or may not agree with all the specific details of, and it says “be against this big abstract thing”. As far as I’m concerned, this world filled with abstractions is a horror show from beginning to end, and the particular terminology we use to describe that horror show, whether it’s patriarchy, capitalism, civilization, is much more a matter of aesthetics than it is of anything else. I’m happy to have further conversations about why people prefer to believe in one religion vs. another, but there’s a certain way in which anti-civilization has become a religious term. Anarcho-primitivism is an even more narrow term that builds from the idea, the common sense idea that 90% of human history - if humans have been around for a hundred thousand years it’s only been the last ten thousand that civilization has come into being - so using that common sense idea it uses the science of anthropology to pull back time, and ends the story of freedom with the story of civilization. Anarcho-primitivism is a fine story and I encourage people to read good stories, but I highly dispute using anthropology to make truth claims about the world, and about the past, and particular the way that primitivism has become a set of ideas that are written about by a very small set of authors and has become a sort of cult around those authors, which feels very antithetical to why I am an anarchist.

I: I think we all touched on this a little bit, but I said earlier I have used these terms synonymously but not for any deliberately thought-out reason, so I am interested to hear how other people answer this question. Maybe anti-civ being a negative term can clear the decks of certain problems that Aragorn! sort of spelled out, but then leaves it open for different positive solutions, which might be why anarcho-primitivism purports to be a more positive vision, something to look to, to fill in those gaps. Not a lot to contribute to that one, I guess.

K: I went with John on a speaking tour in 2007, to some Eastern European countries, and I was asking myself at the time what label, what am I? And the important thing to me is the understanding of civilization as a problem; what makes up civilization, domestication, domination, and how you apply an understanding of existence of humanity and the way of life that happened before civilization to the present era was what I wanted the term to encompass. Anti-civilization seemed like a good one. Primitivism, I thought “that’s an art movement, that’s fancy painting.” It was not a provocative term... “Ohhh I’m a primtivist.” Like, what does that mean? [laughter] I kind of liked anarcho-primitivism ‘cause it ties primitivism to a political body of thought, anarchism. I don’t see it as one of these is better than the other. There’s a lot to be said... in the 90s… maybe I’m overplaying what was happening in the 90s and before the “War On Terror,” but I think there was more.. you could get more conversation going, there was more understanding, talking about anarchists, anarchy... There was a presence in the general public, that I don’t feel is as much there any more. Like, outside of this room, if we just went out and started talking to the people out there, people know what civilization is, but do they know how and why it might be problematic, that’s a further conversation.

C: As with Kathan, I remember a very specific period of my life where I was questioning a lot of labels I was putting on myself about political ideas about the world, specifically there was a time where I was questioning whether or not I would identify as an anarchist. Looking back now, what I realize about what was going through my head at the time was what felt uncomfortable to me was the label “anarchist” seemed to posit a forward, positive momentum in the world, which was something I have always been unsure of, the idea that there is a pie in the sky that we’re marching endlessly towards; I have always been that way, hating everything. Can’t really help it. So, for me anarcho-primitivism, anti-civilization, and green anarchy are not synonymous terms. I think that anarcho-primitivism and anti-civilization are two very separate tenets of what could be maybe seen as an over-arching green anarchy. Anarcho-primitivism is very much this anthropological, anarchist look and analysis on how things got to be how they are now - as Aragorn! and Kathan said - about how some thousand odd years ago, civilization came in and took over and that’s when everything got bad. The way that I want to interact with critiquing things is a lot deeper than that, and also realizing that freedom has happened inside of civilization, since domestication, agriculture, and so on. I think the thing that irks me the most about primitivism is this assertion that there is a positive momentum forward that we can take. It does not seem much different from a Maoist program for revolution, or the church telling you how to get to heaven, or the anarchist telling you how to start a revolution. It all seems much the same and I think that green anarchy is a larger, more encompassing thing. If we were to posit these into opposite things: anti-civilization being the negative critique of the world, anarcho-primitivism being the positive place we can go. And my interest in being part of the green anarchy dialogue is to talk about that, and also talk about the idea of abandoning hope, and that there is a lot to lose when we hope for things... but that’s another question, so I won’t go into that now. The next topic we wanted to cover was of anthropology....

As An Academic Practice, What Role Does Anthropology Have In Green Anarchy?

C: It has a really heavy presence within green anarchy, specifically anarcho-primitivism, often times used as a historical backbone, to back up assertions that, like, “Oh, hunter-gatherer good, everything else bad. Agriculture definitely bad too, the beginning of the end of hunter-gatherer.” Oh, I lost my train of thought and I’m answering the question instead of asking it... This is another thing that I am excited about in facilitating with Black Seed, is the conversation about anthropology: does it have a place in green anarchy, where are the contradictions, and what are the positive things that people do get from anthropology...

I: I’m thinking of it as parallel to how do people of this persuasion interact with technology that we might find problematic, that we know has a concrete harm toward others. As a discipline it’s had this exploitative history, that is a reason to be skeptical of it. And it’s not something that we can necessarily hold on to if we think that we’re getting somewhere different. So how do we interact with it: it isn’t necessarily true that it has no place? We may need to employ it in the same way we use problematic technologies right now. The other point I want to make is that we recognize that getting to where we may want to go, to keep this from being completely utopian, we have to acknowledge the benefits and the positive things that will be lost. So there are certain ways of knowing about the world that might be powerful that won’t exist, that wouldn’t exist, in a world that most green anarchists would see as a goal. There are certain ways that we know about the world today that we wouldn’t have access to at some point in the future that we desire. Acknowledging that certain benefits are going to be lost is important to have any credibility. We can’t just say that “right now it’s this parade of horrors with no redeeming virtue and that at some point it will be completely utopian.” So continue the parallel of anthropology with problematic technologies, every technology, no matter how destructive it is, no matter how alienating it is, it’s sold because it has some sort of benefit to us. We’re complicit in it, and we might have to muddle along with it for the time being, but recognizing the pros and cons, and figuring out where the preponderance of consequences lie.

K: Whether it’s anthropology or history, and I’m not disagreeing, there is danger in cults and religion and this missionary kind of thing, but I think we’re all living in a present that is rather dissatisfying, to put it mildly. You try and construct from where you’re at: how can I live day to day, what can I eat, it’s not some future-oriented, come to find Jesus, we’ll all be hunter-gatherers... but it’s that if you look at what happens with language, what happens with writing, that was one of the early things I read, kind of a popular book about before written language... the whole dark ages, as they’re called, when civilization collapsed after the Romans, when in fact there wasn’t writing, there wasn’t history, people were just living for about 900 years, and then civilization rebuilt itself, whatever. So anthropology, history, whatever you have, you use what you have, and sure there might be a real danger of this stupid Fred Flinstone idea, of oh some future, we’re gonna be this and that, but the reality is that the resources aren’t there for the Chinese who want ‘em, to say it crudely. The whole devastation that’s happening right now with food resources, this kind of stuff, something is giving as we sit here, it’s not sustainable, it’s not going to go on... so it’s not some big future “things are gonna change” it’s the reality; food shortages, water... So anthropology has studies that give you some clues on other ways of being and living.

C: Well I kind of already put out my answer... it’s interesting because I feel... I’m constantly trying to figure this out for myself because... while I feel highly critical of anthropology, history is also something I’m very excited about and I think that where I have most often seen anthropology come into contact with anarchy, is when anthropology is used to posit a way of life that we could potentially have like after the collapse or the insurrection or the revolution - however it’s put. I think that’s very problematic, because time spent on fantasizing about how we might live one day, well like that can be a fun thought project if I’m at work and I have nothing better to do, it’s not something that adds constructively to my life project, of trying to create some kind of agitation against things that keep me from being free. Anthropology within anarcho-primitivism creates space for that to happen, it encourages it, and if anything, it limits the greater anarchist discourse from stepping outside of rewilding convergences and... Also ends up creating space for people to inappropriately adopt native and indigenous cultures. Which is interesting because there’s been a lot ... As soon as I start to talk about that I often get a lot of resistance from anarcho-primitivists who want to immediately write off that I’m critiquing them from a leftist position. Where I’m coming from is a position of wanting to focus on destruction and negativity, less on “this is how it will be someday.” So that’s why I find it a problem that anthropology has found a place within green anarchist thought.

A!: I’m thinking about this a lot right now because I’m writing an article for the next issue of Black Seed on this topic. And at the heart of what i’m trying to tease out is that anthropology exposes a problem that’s actually not about the particular discipline of anthropology, but is about sociology, history, anthropology, and the humanities in general. So really it’s a question about how do we think. To distill a big conversation into a small one, I would like to propose a new way of anarchist thinking that is distinct from what I’ll call critique. Critique is something that anarchists have pretty much borrowed from Marxists: the idea that the things that you despise, you enter into a dialectical relationship with, so instead of just despising these things, you become the person who fixes those things. So a lot of our friends who we call liberals end up in a critical relationship with the urban planning institutions, with the non-profit complex... with the variety of institutions that exist in the world, and throw their bodies into what turns out to be fixing those things. Many people, and one of the interesting responses to the hostility that Black Seed has expressed about anthropology, has been how many people have responded “since Man The Hunter, so many people have entered into anthropological fields and they’re doing the good work of repairing it, of fixing it!” There is a person in the Bay Area who’s probably one of the most tortured anarchists in North America. He is a desperate fan of the Spanish Civil War. He knows more about it than any other living person. I’m not exaggerating; he knows more about the Spanish Civil War than any other person and yet is a post-left anarchist. That position, the post-left position, begins when we failed in Spain. The reason I mention him is because I love him; it’s adorable that this thing that happened in history is so alive for him. And the reason I can be tolerant of his relationship to the Spanish Civil War is because it’s just the story of where he’d rather be. And I’m the last person to judge other people’s stories. I love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That’s where I’d rather be. [laughter] A world of imagination... that sounds fucking awesome, and it will involve candy. So for me what I propose is that, rather than critique, and rather than engaging in dialectics, and rather than improving our enemies to make them more powerful and more effective, that anarchists continue to be incredibly curious, that we attack the things that we have curiosity about, that we do it with hostility, that we do not fix them, we do not embrace these things, that instead we stand apart. So in the context of history and anthropology, we do not become historians and anthropologists, we become story tellers. We do not get paid for our work, we share it with each other. That’s it.

As Green Anarchists, We Can Easily See How Fucked The World Is. Is There A Place For Hope?

K: I’ll shoot off the top of my head: yes there is - knowing full well I’m gonna get shot down... [laughter], that nihilism, and no hope is the way to go, that these are all Marxist-Leninist ideas, morals…I’m a moralist, morality, [laughter]. I know on a theoretical level... there are fine, theoretical considerations, I say a lot of things are open questions... I shoot from the hip. Yea, the world’s fucked. When I listen to you talk, it reminds me of being 18 [looks at Cedar - howls of laughter] . I was into Nietzsche, I was into Dostoyevsky, I was into Sartre, how do I make sense of this fucked world I’m in? I was looking at kids my age, young men, who... half their body parts were gone, and I was coming from a very visceral place. Army hospital, half-bodied men my age, who... there is something seriously wrong here. What does that mean to me? Should I go jump off a railroad bridge? It’s not a joke, my point about figuring things out at 18. And if something in philosophy, or maybe anthropology for some people, just looking at what Western Civilization has provided for me, reading other angsty writers and trying to use my own problem-solving, how do I live my life? I would say there was a certain amount of freedom in existential thought that, it doesn’t matter, so you are free. What you do doesn’t matter, good, bad, whatever, that’s the ultimate freedom. That’s the context I take this discussion in, like yea, if you don’t have hope you go off the railroad bridge. And more intellectual thinkers can certainly provoke me to question the philosophy of hope and what that means for the future, and that gives me pause for thought and I respect it, and to me that is the bottom line of this panel and this discussion, that this is a growing type thing, there is a ... hope.

C: The way I first started grappling with the idea of hope was kind of a tactical mindset, looking at actions of groups and autonomous individuals, radicals, anarchists, generally the illegalists, and over the last 30 years or so there being a general trend of actions that have certain kinds of themes... whether they’re legal to try to convince political entities to do this or that, or actions where the communique about them speaks to gentrification and the mistreatment of poor people, kind of seeing a train of thought that says if we act or do these kinds of things, if we drop a banner that speaks a certain kind of message, we will get our desired outcome. Where I applied the brakes on that was the idea that there was a desired outcome that could be perceived, outside of the destruction of everything we know. What I mean by that, to be more specific, often times people are like, “So you say no hope. Are you advocating for doing nothing, because you’re arguing that nothing is going to happen, we’re never going to win.” That’s not the point that I’m trying to get across. I think there is a heightened sense of intentionality and integrity and intensity that come out of acting without hope. I think that when we step to this world without any preconceptions about winning, but when we fight like we’re going to lose can make what we do more ferocious and unmanageable. It keeps our actions farther out of the reach of recuperation, which is consistently the thing that happens to mass uprisings. Abandoning hope is one of the soundest weapons that anarchists can pick up when it comes to engaging in this world with action.

A!: I don’t think you can talk about hope without talking about faith. And in general because radicals eschew religious language, what they put their faith in tends to be something that ... it’s a sloppy term but I think generally fits... is humanism. The idea that humans equal good, an ugly corollary is that more humans are better, and most humans is best. So when someone says hope, in general, they’re speaking to their analysis of human nature, which makes me very nervous, and what they tend to be implying is that they have faith that human conscious activity is going to result in good things. and I just... I guess when we talk about hope we’re being challenged to prove that we should be hopeless, and my turnaround is “prove why I should have faith in conscious human activity as a source of good.” I don’t see that when I open my eyes in the morning. But everything that Kathan and Cedar said is totally appropriate; Kathan made the nihilist argument, and Cedar kicked it with some insurrectionary flair. So all I need to say is that human conscious activity isn’t the magic bullet to solve much of anything.

I: My thinking is that Cedar’s thinking was one thought too many. [laughter] Seems like what he was saying is that if people abandon hope, then we might pull this thing off. [laughter] If we abandon hope, our odds are better. That’s kind of a hopeful perspective. [laughter] The odds are increased, but we can’t in good conscience think that way. So, when I hear these discussion I end up agreeing with whoever is speaking. because the definition being used is self-serving, it all depends on what you mean by “hope.” There’s the Derrick Jensen line that when you don’t have any agency, that’s when hope comes into play... Well, if you look at it that way, then yea. But it gets parsed in lots of ways. I’m thinking of it as something on par with cheerfulness [laughter]. The way that… cheerfulness is a virtue because it makes you pleasant to be around [laughter] and I think that hopeful people are more pleasant to be around [laughter], although Cedar’s company has been delightful, so... [laughter] so present company excluded. I think it could be considered a moral virtue in that sense of the word, as a disposition; the important thing to say I suppose is that whether we’re hopeful or not, we’re not making any sort of truth claim. When you say you’re hopeful or not, you’re saying you think the odds are more likely than not that this will work or not, it’s not a claim about the world. It’s neither true nor false, more of a disposition, a personality trait.





Interview with Klee Benally

Editor's Note: The entirey of this interview has been posted here, although it originally appeared as two parts in Issues 1 & 2.

Klee Benally is originally from Black Mesa and has worked most of his life at the front lines in struggles to protect Indigenous sacred lands. Klee doesn’t believe the current dominant social order (read “colonial system”) can be fixed but should (and will be) smashed to pieces. When asked about his politics he says, “I maintain Diné traditionalism as my way of being in this world. I have affinity with Anarchism and identify myself as an Indigenous Anarchist.” Klee performed with the rock group Blackfire for 20 years and performs solo today. http://kleebenally.com/

Aragorn! - What would it look like for someone who has no spiritual practice to develop one?

Klee -That’s a very personal question and I think what ends up happening is that people start these centers like the ones in Sedona, or start these new age centers. They are seeking that answer from other people (as opposed to within or from within their own roots or asking the land what developing a spiritual practice means). To me that is what it looks like when people start appropriating from all these other sources. Or they go to the usual suspects who are exploiting their own cultures or just selling them or--even if it’s not for sale, even if there is no monetary exchange--sometimes these people have been kicked out of their own communities and are pimping out their own culture for their own gratification. People are seeking from other sources, and forget that mother earth is THE source. Ya know there is this sort of this cliché that mother earth is not a resource it is THE source. It’s actually very true though. I think it is part of like, almost all indigenous cultures that I know, they don’t fucking missionize; they don’t go out and try to convert people. When people start asking that question, it’s like.... Is that an answer we can give? Because then we assume some kind of responsibility in that relationship. I think where people expect it, you know just different expectations about that. I can maybe speak from experience to people I have known who have come to some kind of spiritual understanding but again that’s deeply personal on some levels. Of course we have culture, it’s a social cohesion; how we understand our relationship to each other and relationship to the land. There’s an anthropological definition of “culture” and there’s our own definition or understanding of that, what that term means and how we again understand our relationship to each other and the land. The discussion about spirituality can’t happen without a discussion about culture and what that means and there is context to that. I think there is a violent context that we have to come terms with when we start talking about those things. There is a lot of trauma that we have to address through that discussion as well. In the past when I would answer that question, when I think I was in a different place than today, for Diné people we have Hózhó’ji which is “beauty-way” or more well defined Hózhó’ji is a way of health and harmony. Beauty is this sort of fetish as well, that anthropologists are like “here is a great definition.” They sort of latched on to but it’s deeper than that. You know when we as Diné people understand that foundation and philosophy, for our identity and our relation to each other through K’é or through our clan system, our relationship systems that extend not just to people but to our natural environment, to other beings. It’s not something that you can just say “here’s what this spirituality means and I’ll give it you.” There is this whole deeper understanding of what our ceremonial practices are, for us to restore health and harmony with our mind, our body, our spirit, and our soul, even within that. So the problem that we face a lot is when we say that to people, it seems rather convenient just to take it, and just to do what they want and that’s exploitation. To me it just an abuse, the process that we carried forward. There’s a lot of indigenous people who don’t want to share their cultural knowledge of course, for good reason, ‘cause it has just been exploited and abused and people just misuse it or they just distort it, and they take different parts that are rather convenient for them when they have an answer that resonates for them at the time. And then they...

A! – “picking and choosing”

K- ... I think through my experience (this is why I picked on Sedona really quickly) we have people like James Arthur Ray who was selling Sun Dances for like $10,000 and you know people who were ultimately killed by his hand through his application, interpretation of sweat lodge, who were there for the “Spiritual Warrior Retreat” in very clear quotation marks and that’s an extreme but that is what we see. This exploitation continues, so, yeah maybe sometime along the way he asked those questions and people gave him answers. I don’t know but that is his application.

A- What I identify with that (I guess I want to talk through why it’s impossible) is that basically you are saying that anyone who wants to take this project seriously basically has to commit to multi-generations. In other words, indigeneity, whatever that means, will require that kind of time span. It’s not going to happen in your lifetime. So of course why that’s impossible is the american consumer is not going to accept that this is something they can’t buy. Even if the consumption we’re talking about is of an ideology.

K – For some reason what you are saying reminds of this discussion around the apocalypse that I have been having with friends (you know because things seem very apocalyptic and so forth). Through my research it became clear, and this is even Christians saying this, that Christianity is linear, with this Genesis, with the Christ sacrifice or whatever, coming of Christ’s sacrifice and then judgment day. Ultimately the logical conclusion of Christianity is apocalypse, or judgment day ya know, as opposed to looking at it from an indigenous perspective--which is cyclical, you know; we are part of an ongoing process. So I don’t see a beginning and end to it, I see it as an ongoing process.. I don’t see it like, “oh here’s victory over here, here’s a goal, I can see a way to achieve something that we want to accomplish which is liberation of our lands, the thriving, the cultural vitality of our people and hopefully abolishing these systems of oppression that are built up and reinforced through colonization.” But at this point, and I don’t want it to be interpreted as being abstract, ‘cause it’s not, it’s anything but abstract, it’s very clear in relation to the system, it’s is an ongoing process. To some degree I think that is part of the western mentality; it’s like linear thought, how change is gonna come about. When we look at the multi-generational projects, with the seven generation concepts (even from other indigenous nations, certainly it’s pan-indigenous right now that it can be interpreted very easily with other indigenous nations) in relation to the core of our practices is to ensure that cultural knowledge is transmitted and maintains its relevance or vitality. So for me that’s part of it, thinking in that way that we are part of a cyclical way of being. It’s not saying we are going to sit on our hands and wait for shit to change, it’s about doing the best we can now.

A! - Did you see that article on indigenous egoism?

K - Yeah yeah, I read that.

A! - Fascinating!

K – Yeah, I, well, it’s not fresh in my mind but part of the issue I had with it was, just this sort of like over focus on individualism and which to me is again is this extremely western concept, which is interesting I think because in Diné culture we have a very strong sense of the individual. Children are taught or treated as individuals when they are young, but in relation to each other, there is this sort of like separation of the sense of “community”. That’s what I wanted to ask the author, what was her upbringing, what was her experience. How can I take what they said about egoism and apply it to my community? I don’t think it connects. It is part of the reason I am guarded with my words or I am fairly choosy sometimes. I don’t want to speak in these generalities, because that is what people expect. It’s just like when talking to indigenous people, oh you speak for everybody. And people want some pan-indigenous solution. Even part of the whole Zapatismo fed into that to some degree; they were very smart about using that to their tactical advantage to some degree. But it’s, I’m at the point right now where I am still playing with all of these concepts ideologically and trying to reconcile how they work from a cultural perspective and then apply them, ‘cause I don’t want to ever get caught in that trap of the theory and shit. It’s always on the ground for me. .. I would like to talk to the author more just to get a sense of what their experiences have been. And I need to read it again. Like I said it’s not fresh in my mind. But that was like the first thing. It was just like oh great, another voice that’s like, for the egoists and reinforcing the hyper-individualism and wait there is like this stretch and connection to indigeneity and I am just like, I’ve never seen that. In every community I have visited and traveled to and

A! - Well you have given me a couple of things to think about. I think that this decolonize, anti-decolonization differentiation... I think there is something interesting there. First of all it is a fantastic way to break away from the decolonization, the way it is being framed right now is not quite toxic, but...

K – I think it’s highly toxic, cause from what I see from a non-indigenous perspective to these areas, patently white--for the most part--perspective. It becomes a personal project and we don’t need more people just running around with these...

A! - By which you mean a process of personal self-revelation?

K – Yes. And ultimate gratification.

A! - My question for you, and I will frame it in the form of advice. So this new project: my goal is to be the editor emeritus of this project. In other words, I make it happen from the perspective of resources and I open my rolodex to make sure good writers and people find the project, but I am very serious about this. I really want a transformation along lines that we have already discussed, specifically along the line of talking about Native stuff in a different way, in a not fetishizing way and having voices, varied voices...

K – Beyond the usual suspects..?

A! – Yeah, so my suspicion is that what that is going to have to look like is me doing a lot of interviews. We are talking about a green anarchist publication, but I really would like it to look like the Green Anarchism that I would like to create... I think you and I have a bit of a sense as to what that would look like, so how to do this correctly? Because first of all, I have to say, if you look at today vs. ten years ago there’s a hell of a lot more people to talk to. I mean it’s unbelievable. It’s really unbelievable how many more people there are that have come into anarchism. How would you do it if you were me?

K – I know how I wouldn’t do it, unfortunately that is a lot of my initial response. I think part of it is just being on the ground with folks and connecting with folks who are on the front lines and being open to a sense that not everybody’s gonna have the articulate academic voice and just making sure that people feel comfortable engaging and that it’s not just gonna be some type of hostile place for them. When I started doing media work it was partly out of just the frustration with folks just sticking this lens and exotifying, essentializing, and picking off the things they felt were sexy for other people to pay attention to without dealing with the full range of who we are in all our contradictions and conflicts as indigenous folks. Maybe establishing this sense doesn’t have to be that explicit but trying to develop that relationship. You want to dissuade the cultural pimps to some degree and you want to get the heart of this discourse/discussion cause it sounds like part of the objective is to amplify indigenous voices in to the larger anarchist milieu, to assert another direction or ya know just another option for folks to embrace their fights. I guess that’s like my initial reaction when I heard. What is indigeneity mean for other folks who are not indigenous to this area. There might be some people who want to engage in that discussion. Like I said before, I don’t know how interested I am in focusing on that as much as just drawing some boundaries, and saying “hey maybe this is a good place for you all to focus your fight” and making sure people aren’t just (for lack of better terms) Zapatista-fying all these external struggles without saying “oh wait, right, here we are on Tongvan (Indigenous folks of LA area) land, maybe we should build a relationship with them and maybe it is going to take a lot longer than we want and maybe they don’t have the articulated position that’s convenient for us to just transpose their politics and our politics interchangeably.”

A! - But I guess, that’s talking about fighting a fight with people on the ground. You’re answering that question already with what you’re doing here. It’s not exactly what I am asking. How many people do you know are confident to say something challenging, how many of those people could say it in print vs face to face, how many of those people would it take days to develop a relationship before they would say it? Cause if that is the only option then if you point me to the right person I am willing to do it.

K – Yeah, so how it could be done is establishing a network. But folks need to have a demonstrated sense that it’s not just some exploitative work or something that’s hostile. ‘Cause like I said. We have a lot of shit lessons. It’s part of the reason a lot of native folks don’t go to the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair. We have a lot of shit lessons. It’s part of the reason why a lot of O’odham folks outside of Phoenix don’t engage with radical folks. I know some communities where people have only gotten hostility. So there is not a good relationship. Starting in the Southwest, like you said there is this strong cultural base, and part of the history of that unfortunately is because a lot of the colonizers, I mean we fought off the Spanish for 350 years but a lot of the colonizers rushed past us for the gold in California. Honestly, looking at some of the sacred sites areas... Like I said, part of the reason people are so aggressively fighting for sacred sites and a lot of young people is because one, they are in areas where there is still an intact relationship so it meets some of the criteria that you established before. And those folks understand the risk and they are engaging on multiple fronts. I think maybe hitting some of those places or just reaching out to people.... Just focusing on the project first, your audience, again. Just to hear it a little more clearly.

A! -.. That’s a great question. I assume that the audience is the audience of the last magazine but perhaps that’s sloppy. So the provocation is how to make it better, how to reach a different set of people, and I would say in general that I have not done a particularly good job of... the term we use is marketing. This is a marketing problem. How do you find, especially since I am, like most anarchists, by and large isolated from the rest of the world, by the wall of them not caring about the way we put things and us being fine with that. So if I break out of that for a second and think, the problem with green discourse is that it’s, to use a loaded word, apocalyptic, and the influence of anthropology, green capitalism, and christianity.

K – I guess when I ask that question, part of it is about when you were talking about wanting to reach out to different contributors, find a range of voices. Part of that question is, what relevance is this to my community. It’s a question of distribution and dissemination and “Indian Country” too, maybe just looking at how that will work out and how that could look. There has been a range of different projects, the good ones being in Canada, the more a-political and more arts-focused ones here in the US and even them being somewhat limited and being a question. I don’t feel as well versed in bridging indegeneity (which to me feels still more like an academic term) and anarchism; you have a lot of interesting writings that explore that. More just your perspectives and what you have come to understand. Last time we talked you said you were an anarchist without adjectives. I don’t feel uneasy about saying I am an indigenous anarchist but indigenous always comes first; this is what I have to preface the discussion with. And my affinity with anarchism is through direct action, acting without mediation in the range of values, like mutual aid. Which sometimes reinforces that sense of community. To me it doesn’t have to be beyond the mutual here, but to me it connotates that to some degree. The range of other basic qualifications for anarchism. But I’m curious ‘cause you obviously dig deep, very deep. What’s your expression? I read something a while back, that I am pretty sure was written by you that was about Locating An Indigenous Anarchism and I went back and read that some time ago. It was more or less, it almost felt like it was a longing for something as opposed to identifying as much. Which I appreciated.

A! - It is also the nature of being an urban, mixed Indian. It’s a very different experience than yours. But, I think that where I begin, is probably in this space of having a suspicion that my own internal conflict is... on the one hand, I think that using the word “anarchist” has magic powers. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand I think that the anarchistic instincts are generalizable. The interesting part is in the specifics, but that many of the 500 had anarchistic sensibilities. So I’m not excited about the Iroquois (which some anarchists have become excited about cause they model after them their idealized organizational configuration or whatever). For me I am much more interested in the small stories of how one’s elders communicate ideas of how to behave and I think somewhere in those stories is something really different. I feel like I am not even a good enough storyteller; the older people in my life have been fantastic storytellers. It took me years to figure out what they were driving at. So for me the challenge to anarchists is, what does anarchism look like if it doesn’t use the word? The other part of this is that I have more influence than many people in the anarchist space. If I want to do a green anarchist publication I can and people are going to read it. So the political motivation here is that I want this story to be what the future of anarchism looks like. And the story is going to be a long one. It is going to be drawn out, and it’s not gonna be question then answer. I’m enough of a strategy person, up to now I have been able to fit pieces out, thinking a couple years out. This is more like a ten year fitting things together. And it involves a lot of strangers and a lot of suspicions but I’m not sure. ..The flip side in terms of the audience question is what do the people I am talking to get out of it. And that’s important. It’s not just important it’s a problem I don’t have an answer to. What I’m talking about would benefit anarchists, because they need it. So what is it that anarchists have that could actually benefit strangers? And the answer is the same that it always is. Ridiculous enthusiasm, a lot of laughter, but then, danger. So yeah I am going to have to think about that some more.

K – Yeah, that’s where we like Drew and Brian’s statements about wanting accomplices not allies. They’ve done a great job of deconstructing f ally-ship. Cause that’s part of what I hope gets sorted up front. It’s interesting with this current wave of liberal disillusionment, with the Obama administration, and Idle No more, the Keystone XL pipeline, that people are paying attention to native struggles and that there is a bit of a spotlight. And of course the non-profits are flocking, like the moths that they are, rather blind. Fitting the metaphor very well unfortunately. Yeah it will be interesting to see how that plays. ‘Cause there have been other times when indigenous struggles have been sexy, and then people just move on to the next interesting spectacle. And that’s what I would hope this base has some aversion to. So one question I had for you, I guess I’m still trying to extract some of your politics. So what is your reaction to the statement, we belong to the earth? Do you have an affinity for that?

A! - I do but it doesn’t have the sort of specificity that it does for you. A little bit about my story; so while my mother’s family is all registered Native people, my maternal grandfather was actually a Canadian, therefore his quantum did not count. So I’m not registered myself. But my father, a white man, loved Indians. Like he really really like Indians like he read all of Carlos Casteñada, he knows all the pipe ceremonies. I mean there is nothing about the western plains indians that he doesn’t know. That’s why he found my mother. So while I was raised by my mom, I spent plenty of time with this guy who very much fetishized this whole aspect of my life. So my mother’s spirituality was very quiet and not specific. And her mother was a catholic and pretty much everyone else was a catholic. I have one traditional relative, and she is still alive. She is actually why I am going to michigan, and she was raised by Catholics, so all this is very different from your experience. So it is much more on the level of platitudes than places.[?] Even though I can go to this Indian village, which is this shanty town outside of Traverse City, where generations of my people were. But that was a village of timber houses. Not what was there before. So my experience is post genocide. This is my language of course. You might not accept it but to me, my struggle, what does life look like, what does spirituality look like, my language is a couple words and my great great grandfather who died when I was six, who was the last fluent non english speaker that anyone in my family knows. So to me, the question is what does life look like in these sort of ruins. Which is kind of why I don’t talk about it so much, ‘cause that is what life in the ruins is like. But I know that something in here is very important and I know that something is missing. And I was raised with all the urban indian problems. Alcoholism, violence, etc. But those are the problems of urban people of color. Obviously natives have got a spin. But this isn’t a triumphant story. I don’t have a good to reflect against the bad. So while I am willing to go out and say spirituality is possible and I can even say there was a place where I spent a lot of my youth that was particularly important, I can’t bridge this sort of existential gap. I point to that gap as being the genocide gap. My language is harsh but that is the way that I would put it.

K – Yeah, that makes sense. It’s a lot to think about for sure. Thanks for sharing, appreciate it. Yeah I guess that part of it is what’s worth fighting for. When you talk about fatalism, that is part of the question for me.

A! - Of course, right. At certain points in my life, I absolutely thought there were things worth fighting for and over time I saw how thin and shadowy they were. So I fought against nazi-skinheads when I was a kid. I did a whole variety of irresponsible things in the belief that it had this certain resonance that it didn’t actually have or that it had for me only at that time . I’m not trying to demean my own experiences but what you’re talking about is different. Because of the three things or whatever.

K - I know you have challenged me with that question, of how unique intact indigenous cultures who meet those three criteria are. So you are engaging in this project and you put out some analyses sometime or just stories you share regarding indigeneity. I want to see what the chance is, ‘cause you put in my face a little bit about what can be done on a practical level. What are we asking or urging people to do or move towards, what are we inspiring. I guess that’s maybe in some way, shape, or form to just put that ball in your court and maybe hear your thoughts about that. Cause if we talk about how few indigenous nations maintain, that keep that fire burning...

A! - Have the capacity to.

K – Cause we look at some of the indigenous nations in California who have gotten just disturbingly rich off of casinos, completely removed from their language, spiritual practice, and so forth, not necessarily their land base, and so there are a couple of tribes that we met, or indigenous nations that we met that are just traveling to other indigenous nations and through a process that they just sort of developed, basically sharing and learning from other neighboring tribes but other tribes from other areas. And it was quite interesting cause they were just collecting to establish a culture, which is being done in a way, because they were up front with other nations people were sharing. And they’re doing in a way that wasn’t just constructing something false necessarily, because they are doing with a sense of--not necessarily restoring their connection but--restoring a connection to the land. I’m sure that from an anthropological perspective there is some kind of name for it or whatever. You know that’s just what they are doing to heal.

A! - That’s what they got. But the complication of course is that by and large this is part of the process they have to go through to get government recognition. Which in some occasions has been connected to casinos and other commercial enterprise... In Michigan it is about fishing rights. Fishing rights is big.

K - Yeah, it’s like, I guess you were asking, Where do you see things in 100 years or ten years or whatever. That’s part of it too I guess, just putting part of that discussion back in the mix.

A! - The way I approach this problem is somewhat different, and perhaps it is because I have read too much philosophy. Western philosophers have done a lot of good thinking about their enemies. I’m sure that there is someone who is waiting in the shadows against every argument that I could possibly have against them. But I basically desire the dismantling of the western project in all of its sundry forms and so specifically in this case what I am about to talk about, my language, is the causal chain that people create between action and spirit.

K- Causal alluding to causality?

A! - Right, cause and effect is one part of it, but also this idea that ethics is why I chose to sit here and talk to you rather than walk over to you and punch you in the face. I feel like all of this is... wrong is too simple, but there’s something in the way that all of these are constructed that I have a visceral revulsion to, and I’m not just going to pull it out and say that there is something just spiritual, but I could. But what I’ll say is that, a lot of questions that the western mind thinks are answered, for me are mysteries, and they are only satisfying and I can only be satisfied by them as long as they stay mysteries. And the extent to which one wants to answer them, I usually consider that person to be someone I am hostile towards. That make sense?

K – Absolutely.

A! - So, by and large when someone asks me the question, why are you doing what you are doing, my answer is fuck you. So I am a deep pessimist who puts out a book a month. Many of these books are about actions that happen on the street. Like one of our newest books is about street tactics. But I don’t believe in fighting on the street. But I put out a book a month. So there isn’t an answer to your question other than this mystery that is definitely my preferred mode. Yesterday I was talking with someone about the difference between social and anti-social activities and I more or less identified as being for anti-social activities. I was basically asked, “How can you be for infrastructure and anti-social activities?” And the answer that I gave them, different context, but whatever, spun my little story in a different way, but basically I said, I believe in the power of seduction. [both laugh] So. Yeah. [pause]

K – I wasn’t trying to ask you why you are doing what you are doing at all. I questioned earlier “what’s worth fighting for.” Is it in relation to just looking at some of the core values behind your thought. Sometimes that question about belonging to the earth irritates egoists. I don’t’ think they like to belong to anything, which is quite interesting. I like to concern myself with not just outputting or making lots of things but thinking about what the outcomes are. It’s like the strategic or tactical thing that’s been ingrained in me. Just like doing lots of ineffective things for so long, you just gotta try to consider other options. So sometimes you just gotta think about the project that you are working on and how I can put energy into that too, apply it to these areas and move my agenda, my project along, which I identify as essentially indigenous liberation, ya know, reinforcing resistance and ultimately liberation.

A! - I just don’t put things like that at all. There is something in that kind of triumphalism. I recognize how it’s a good communication skill to be able to talk like that. [laughs] I prefer to not be understood as far as that goes.

K – Yea, it’s interesting. I guess that’s why I keep revisiting some stuff cause it’s interesting and I’m trying to elicit a bit more understanding for myself and I appreciate your response of seduction and I appreciate reading stuff from the folks in Italy who are torching shit and talking about desire. I don’t like to fall into the trope traps and sometimes feel myself, like I said earlier, feeding into them. And I do need to have more discussions and read more about some of these things to some degree because I feel...

A! - Let me, I will maybe say what you are trying to get at from a very different place, maybe from a perspective you won’t appreciate. There is a reason why people are turning to you to talk as a spokesperson, and it’s because you know how to talk as a spokesperson.

K – Thanks for the insult, but yes, point taken.... I think that it is really interesting to see the tendencies in radical circles in relation to the anti-politic, and privilege theory, and identity politics stuff.

A! - When you refer to privilege theory what do you mean?

K – Well, primarily I am referring to folks addressing identity politics in relation to saying “we need to deconstruct this discourse around privilege” and just go beyond that and just focus on collective liberation. Essentially that, like Andrea Smith just wrote an essay that was talking about... essentially just arguing for collective liberation to occur, we need to stop having these discussions that turn into confessionals about each other’s privileges and people sort of atoning for their sins of privilege and just move beyond that. Part of what other folks have discussed too is just ensuring that folks are taking initiative and not just objectifying indigenous people or just objectifying even their senses of what the oppression is. ... I think the bottom line is that this theory based around “if we all come to terms with and own our own privilege and deconstruct it then we are going to get to wherever we need to be,” and ultimately that just turns in on itself and neutralizes people and ultimately the result is that whoever are the oppressed group are still objectified. We are just trying to move beyond that. That is my understanding, I think there is more to it.

A! - Yeah, I guess I am curious as to why you care about this?

K – I guess a lot of other people care about it and it seems like the terms to engage in allyship and support... The bottom line is that we can’t do this alone. Collective liberation means something else when I talk to other Diné people or other indigenous people and certainly when I talk about resistance and liberation struggles with the white folks we interface with here, or other folks of color, especially in the migrants rights struggle, the so-called migrant rights struggle. Especially in Phoenix, I think we see the problematic dynamics even worse with organizations like Puente perpetuating this invisiblization of O’odham folks whose lands they are occupying but also asserting this sort of indigeneity as well, recolonization as some people call it. This example should be built out more: Large budget non-profit migrant rights organizations like Puente are working for comprehensive immigration reform. Comprehensive immigration reform means increased militarism and “border security” in the form of drone flights, increased checkpoints, armed troops, the border wall, and more. Indigenous Peoples lands such as the Tohono’odham are bisected by the so-called US and so-called Mexican border. Some O’odham resist immigration reform as it means destroying Indigenous communities. Migrant rights organization and their “allies” invisibilize Tohono’odham and continue to rally for immigration reform perpetuating the destruction of their communities. Part of the basis of this intersectionality of oppression is tackling these issues and finding ways to make sure we are engaging people who can provide material support, cause our folks usually don’t have it at all... With the infoshop for example, from the get go we knew that the folks who have the time to volunteer are white folks with “privileged backgrounds”--they have a lot of resources and a sense of volunteerism as part of their social understandings. But for indigenous people it is just like, usually with families with young ages, and school and work and all these other things, it is a hard thing, to find a way to engage on a sustained level. That’s part of it; we have been forced to interface with folks who just show up. Then we assert our anti-colonial politic and then they don’t know how to navigate, so then we end up going through a bit of a process of orientation. Sometimes there’s static, sometimes there’s problematic dynamics, especially if there’s more white folks that are getting involved. So we have had a lot of growing pains with trying to process all this shit. And people have done it other places where it’s like everybody grew out of the identity oppression olympic games and shit, where the challenge has been to find a way to have each other’s backs.

A! - But you see, for me, that’s simple. And what you are talking about, you are willing to use a whole ton of jargon or discourses, and I know where those things come from... personally I would refer to it as “who I am willing to negotiate with, and on what terms” and that’s a pretty different conceptual space than kind of accepting the premise.

K – Yeah, and I think I have to give it more thought. Part of my initial response is that I’m not sure how much negotiation--as far as it is affirming and asserting like who we are and ensuring that other folks understand--and that’s establishing the terms and just proceeding, ya know? And certainly there has to be communication. We are not just gonna impose. I don’t think it has ever been the nature of the relationship, even though we have been imposed upon for so long... but I mean if we are going to have a discussion about indigeneity and what that means, there are certain terms that can’t be negotiated. That’s why I talked about the natural law before, there are things that... I guess it’s something I have to think about a little bit more. But yeah, I agree. I do get sucked in o the academic establishment sometimes. I get sucked into at least the periphery of the non-profit industry even thought I try to dismantle it at every turn and part of it is just navigating to survive. I am trying to find a way to be as effective as possible and sometimes that means asserting myself in a different way. When I first got involved in the peaks issue I had no idea what the National Environmental Policy Act process was or what an environmental impact study was or anything about The Forest Service decision-making framework, but I had to learn, to be able to navigate and understand. I always really deeply respect my brothers and sisters in the Native Youth movement when that was a really fiery movement, because they were fierce, no fucking question. And they wouldn’t have this conversation with white “allies”, there’s no point and I’m not gonna have this conversation with my elders cause there’s no point, and I say that not to dismiss their intellect, ‘cause their intellect is beyond this., I would offer them the respect to have a better conversation that’s direct on that level. I think part of it is a survival mechanism to some degree. Maybe I’ll grow out of it.

A! - I mean you’re not gonna be able to keep this space unless you are willing to do it and there is something there that is a realpolitic, that is something that I don’t accept but I get it... [laughs] Usually when I hear people say these things I don’t like them very much.

K – No, no it’s interesting. It’s part of a discussion I have had with other Native folks, ‘cause one, everyone on the outside presumes that Native people have all the same politics, which is the first fucked up assumption. Two, we do the same thing; we presume we are all on the same page too and I had this... I mean I’ve had tons of horrible experiences that have led people to either decide not to work with me or whatever, just because I can be really critical sometimes. And people are like “let’s start a campaign to get out the vote” and I’m just like “you’re presuming we are all on the same page politically and you just told me we didn’t have to have a discussion about politics before we talked about tactics that we wanted to use in a campaign.” There is definitely some deep things that we need to tackle. Yeah, sometimes I find myself dislocating myself from what I feel should be authenticity, who I am and the expression of who I want to be and honestly I think that’s part of the expression... Out of frustration is the differentiation between de-colonization and anti-colonial... I don’t think people are gonna get it otherwise. Unless there is a strong enough differentiation where people understand how to engage and how to not. I’ve told people through music, through work over the years, if they ask, things they can do to engage or not. I am just tired of doing that, I AM tired of sitting in those circles and trying to hold hands. And basically just getting frustrated with people who need that time to figure things out. Sometimes it’s easy to subscribe to that, what is it? It’s not a treadmill, it’s a hamster wheel or... (Sorry hamsters) of discourse and the jargon that goes along with it.

A! - Yeah. Ok let’s talk about some anarchist stuff. Weasel words, consensus, accountability.

K – Yeah ‘cause I do want to ask you more things.. Early on I had some issues with collective process; the quick response is just noting how people fetishize things easily. It’s just like the term “community.” What does that mean?

A! - Right. It’s a weasel word.

K - I mean we could have a long discussion about it. Yeah, people focus more on the process than the outcome sometimes and that’s the issue. Just like you can sit for fucking hours in a meeting or you can try to focus on getting shit done and doing the work, and sometimes that is the process. There’s that zine Fetishizing Process, which I think does a great job of sharing some anecdotes about how badly and how easily consensus process can be manipulated. We’ve had some great discussions... It’s the same thing with the word “accountability.” It’s still somewhat prevalent to fetishize accountability processes in communities and sometimes it is just as easily manipulated as consensus. To the point where we have seen people attacked through accountability processes. So here we have adopted a pairing of accountability and responsibility. There has always gotta be an element of that through whatever process. I think it’s great just anytime to throw out words sometimes, but there is also a danger in just deconstructing everything. Where do we stop? For me I have this point of reference, or points of reference which are always culturally based, which is sort of grounding for lack of a better term. Right now, you know like keh being our familial clan-based relationships, which to me I see, I use that interpretation of collective interchangeably, to varying degrees. One of the lessons I learned early on with the big mountain resistance was that everybody was just frustrated after the late 80s and early 90s. The fragmentation of some of the families in the resistance was just like, “Whoa, if we just had unity we would be effective and successful and have victory.” And I had some of my elders, some of my relatives, say, “Well if we were unified it might be easier for them to break us and sometimes we just need to be in our own camps, doing our things.”

A! - Forcing them to negotiate separate deals.

K- Yeah, and so I always took that with me and used it as a frame of reference when I thought about any joint or collaborative or collective effort. Just thinking about what are the terms of unity and what are the terms for working together, ‘cause sometimes people focus too much on the process and we forget about the outcomes that can be achieved in different ways. I really like having discussions like that... We just like the sense of experimentation and we like to take risks here sometimes, see what we can do based upon shitty experiences we have had everywhere else. Just having discussions with other people, looking at some of the methods that they have used and just being like, “yeah, fuck that, let’s try something else because it’s not working.” For years, every time I would get involved in any type of collective, one of the first things we talked about was modifying consensus if it’s necessary. There’s something to be said about over-focusing on the process and forgetting about what the actual desired outcomes are. So I agree with you on that. Obviously we’ve come to some conclusions from different perspectives. I would like to hear more from you about that though. I’m sure you have different experiences.

A! - Well I think I stopped... I mean, I was pretty into the process around consensus for a great number of years. I feel like every group I came into that had people less-experienced in these topics, I really walked people down the country road. Oh and partially that’s because I was in the Che Cafe (in San Diego), for a couple years and part of the process of becoming a core member was being educated... The Che Cafe is actually at the UC San Diego, and there were four other worker cooperatives at UC San Diego. One of them was a bookstore, they were the smart ones, and they actually, you had to go through a class where they taught you how to think about consensus and there’s a book called the “Red Doc”, it was a very thick binder and you had to go through the whole thing. I learned afterwards that those people were Maoists, but they were definitely teaching the Anarchists how to do consensus. So that was actually why, I mean I got the hard lesson, [Klee laughs] I got the full nine yards; they had very clear flow charts and the whole thing. They had created it out of a process of decades of big fighting. They did one thing that we actually replicated through my entire time in collectives, which was crit, self-crit. Do you know about this, from the 70s? It actually comes from China. I mean crit, self-crit is basically, we are in a collective together and you do something that is politically inappropriate, crit, self-crit is the process of you being thrashed over it, in public, within the group, within the central committee. To the point to you having to confess your mistake. This was seen as a way to even out power relationships. So in the context of the Che Cafe, every three months the fifteen of us would sit together and block out the whole day--with no one coming in or going out--to criticize each other. It was, I mean especially for me, this really was my, like, becoming an adult sort of thing. Prior to that happening, I threw temper tantrums. A part of my personality and my rage issues and all the rest. I threw temper tantrums. And boy after like two crit, self-crits I was cured. But of course, as you can imagine, there were maybe one or two other people who came from like a poor background. Everyone else... these were the children of rich people. I wasn’t a student, they were all UC San Diego students. It was a crazy thing for me to do, but that was... Whatever, that was part of my process; it was part of how I came to understand this stuff. And five years later I never worked with another group that did that because, actually that’s not fair. I have become increasingly critical of this over time. And especially what I feel is the sloppy use of language. Every anarchist group is not a collective. Anytime an anarchist decides to do something with another anarchist is not an example of consensus. But that’s, it’s kind of like a pet peeve, like when people say “very unique”, another pet peeve, but um... So I guess what it comes to is this point where there has become an obsession with process because anarchists don’t have particularly good answers to the questions “what does that mean?” Americans, by and large, are Protestants and the Protestants, they care about work a lot. It is part of their religion that they’re gonna work. As a matter of fact I grew up in Western Michigan; the neighborhoods in western Michigan were Black people, Poles (as the poorest of the white people they got their own ghetto), Indians, the Dutch. And the Dutch brought their type of Lutheranism to western Michigan, and they believe in pre-destination, so they work hard because they aren’t sure which way it is going to go [heaven or hell] but it’s already been decided. Anyways, big long story. The point is that...

K – I’m always interested in the long parts of the short stories.

A! - Yeah, of course. That’s where the flavor is! So the point is Americans by and large think very functionally. Anytime you share your crazy idea, the first question is always “How you gonna do it?” So the response that has really come through the peace movement of the 70s , but really of the 80s and the--not clamshell alliance but whatever it was called [the abalone alliance]--that was in the bay area. They are the people who brought consensus into the anarchist discourse. It wasn’t part of it at all before then. So that happened in the 80s and we have been burdened with it ever since. Basically I would like to have you join me in the resistance to it , but really it is joining the resistance to weasel words, ‘cause what has happened is that we just use these words to describe everything even if they aren’t necessarily particularly accurate.

K – Yeah absolutely.

A! - ‘Cause a group of people sitting around a table and more or less agreeing on doing something together, that still feels like a pretty good way to do things.

K – Yeah. Certainly the will of the majority or impositions are very challenging, but I think that is part of... at least the approach needs to be mindful of... I mean, indigenous organizing with the NGO non-profit world on an international level is focused on free prior informed consent, which I think makes sense to people. And it’s applicable I think. Right now there’s a bit of a monopoly on that term, in the international indigenous organizing spheres, but I think there’s different ways we can apply it beyond so-called human-rights struggles. There is something to be said about free, prior, and informed consent.

A! - The free part is the deception.

K – Yeah, right. Especially when defined by international institutions.

A! - ...and the violence all over the place there. Just because violence doesn’t look like violence any more.

K – That’s the thing. More recently I have been really fascinated with talking about legitimacy too, and just thinking about what that means in relation to... and I think it came out of one of the Rolling Thunders, there was a really good essay about legitimacy and I just took the word out of context. I don’t even remember what they were talking about but it was interesting. I think that sometimes if you have these terms and then you apply them you are legitimate, within these circles. And if you don’t have them, “What are you doing here?”

A! - Actually I was going to mention this earlier, I was always struck by the land bridge discussion.

K – Yeah, the Bering Strait.

A! - Specifically the idea of how, like I have challenged people a couple different times on the idea that... perhaps I accept that there were people who came out of the heart of Africa, the Euphrates and Tigris, the Euphrates Basin? I’m willing to accept that “POP!” People came. But you’re not willing to accept any other point of origin? In other words most people who are scientifically-minded and believe in evolution are very clear that everyone walked from there. It blows my mind.

K – Yeah. We did a tour with our traditional dance group and took our music up into those areas ‘cause there is an Athabaskan dialect, as it’s called, has always fascinated anthropologists and we were talking to them, and... You would have a much better conversation with my dad to some degree ‘cause he doesn’t... Like, he gets straight to the point. So it’s what we asked them up there, my dad was talking to them too and we were just asking them what they thought about this and my dad was saying, “Hey we’re relatives, in some way, shape, or form we know that in our history this is what we say. That there was a time of conflict here and some of our folks migrated up north and some folks came down and we have words or names for them,” and one of the things that folks up there, Dine said was that, if there’s a bridge, traffic goes both ways. And we were just laughing about it, because of their interpretation. I think the important thing for me, the main point I mentioned earlier, we have our origin story, our traditional history which is, that’s how we know ourselves in this world. It’s a challenging discussion when you have people dislocating that and taking that from us and calling it myths.•





Anarchy and Anthropology

by Kevin Tucker

One from the archives. The following is an article that we unearthed by Kevin Tucker which was featured in Species Traitor: An Insurrectionary Anarcho-primitivist Journal, Issue 3 (Spring 2003). The author looks at anthropology with a skeptical and sobering (no pun intended) gaze that offers many insights that we hope can spur further discussions on this particular school of “truth”, and maybe lay others to rest. The discussion of anthropology’s relationship to science and reason, and the author’s asking of whether or not anthropology is a tool that we can “use” without reproducing that system, were particularly good. Though this article was not submitted, it was certainly worthy of a reprint. If you can get your paws on the issue itself, there are some more gems in there that merit a gander. Perhaps Tucker’s views have changed since this article was first published 11 years ago, but maybe we can leave that question to the archaeologists.

As Theresa Kintz points out in her interview, anthropology (referring here to the general field that consists of biological/physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics), like all sciences, is a tool of the civilized. Radical anthropologist Stanley Diamond has written: “Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home.” The role of science has been to justify and perfect that conquest and repression, and anthropology isn’t an exception. However, through the work of anthropologists (both unintentionally and intentional) we’ve come to a greater understanding of the human-animal and the anarchist state we’ve lived in for over 99% of our existence. We come against the problem of having to work with such tools of the civilizers while trying to destroy the entire mental and physical system that originated it.

Outsiders Looking In and Away

The original anthropologists primarily worked from the accounts of conquistadors, missionaries and travelers bringing back news of the ‘savages’ beyond the realms of civilization. The two options that the conquerors saw for the ‘primitives’ was to wipe them out or assimilate them, though as we have historically seen, both have led to similar outcomes. The assimilation was spearheaded by missionaries and those who found these people had more value alive (as labor) than dead, although the two are hardly separable. The hopes of the missionaries would be to pave the way for a ‘friendly’ relationship and to ‘civilize’ the ‘savages’ through their God.

The work of the time would predominately be self-serving accounts of the rise to civilization from ‘savagery’ and ‘barbarism’. The major turn would be with Franz Boas who focused on the need for direct field work around the turn of the century. Boas, a German immigrant to the United States, saw the natives of this country being slaughtered off and fast. His concern was that all of this knowledge would die off with these people and began the turn of anthropological work to recording the entirety of the knowledge being destroyed.

With Boas came the importance of describing and cataloguing aspects of people. This kind of approach is work of the scientist. Despite what good intentions Boas and his followers had, their work was entirely subjective. By describing everything that one sees, there is no kind of ‘objectivity’. There is only a situation that German philosopher Hans Peter Duerr calls “riding the fence”, meaning that there is a person trying to understand one reality to translate it to those in another reality. That person then is stuck in the middle, always a part of one culture and is therefore only capable of observing the other culture through their perceptions. What Duerr points to is that there is no kind of ‘scientific method’ that can even begin to bring about what it proposes it will . In this case, that is the field of anthropology acting as the study of humans, or as Stanley Diamond says, “the study of men in crisis by men in crisis.”

The process that Boas started was furthered by Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski a few decades later after his work with the Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. Malinowski’s initial fieldwork there ended up lasting longer as he moved onto a remote island to avoid deportation during World War One. Over this period he became immersed in Trobriand culture, defining what he would later call “participant-observation”. Duerr comes to mind as I can see Malinowski the scientist becoming somewhat emerged into this ‘primitive’ society to return to Europe. Knowing his situation wasn’t permanent he always had a foot out the door in some respects.

I don’t feel this wipes all validity from his work, I just feel that when looking at these cases, these are all things we have to consider. This kind of ‘observation’ carries with it the scientism of objectivity, believing that the wholeness of a culture can be observed and understood from neutrality. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss has recognized that while science is still myth, it carries the possibility of finding a ‘factual reality’. He states: “Science will never give us all the answers. What we can try to do is to increase very slowly the number and the quality of the answers we are able to give, and this, I think, we can do only through science.” Through even this rather liberal assessment we are left with the belief in ‘hard facts’, and while Lévi-Strauss has denied ‘scientism’ he has none-the-less carried its underpinnings.

Through this, all of the positive outcomes of anthropology must also be understood in a way that is independent of civilized assertions. What we have seen from the field of anthropology and understanding the problems we face now is that “[f]undamentally we are people of the Pleistocene” , we are gatherer-hunters. The anarcho-primitivist critique takes this understanding very seriously, meaning that civilization is a recent invention and the effects of domestication are just a sign of our urging to return to the way of life that has shaped our being. With this, there is little reason why we shouldn’t uphold this kind of information, because it speaks directly to the repressed gatherer-hunter in all of us civilized peoples. What we should always be wary of is the dry scientism that underlies the specific search that anthropology takes on.

Creating Reality

In his book, Red Earth, White Lies, Sioux scholar Vine Deloria Jr. opens up questions about “the myth of scientific fact”. His drive in this was to debate the well established theory that Native Americans arrived on this continent by crossing the Bering Strait within the last 20,000 years (one of the more modestly accepted estimates). In the eyes of Deloria and other Native Americans (though not all) this theory, established as ‘fact’, is racist. I’m concerned in certain ways about validity of some arguments which may be based on ‘land claim’ issues, which has been an accusation against this particular book. As an anarchist, I feel that nothing makes any specific ‘land’ someone’s ‘property’, although I understand this kind of legal assertion against governments. Regardless of this possibility, I find that a lot of the arguments are worthy of heavy consideration.

What Deloria draws upon in this book are the ways in which anthropology, as a science, will pick and choose what ‘evidence’ it will bring into its ‘factual’ reality (although Deloria is guilty of this as well). This is a serious problem of all scientific understandings, a conception of a kind of ‘absolute truth’ 