The current civilized and globalized model of parenting stems from the model of civilization and its methods of domestication. As Pavlov, the famous Russian animal “psychologist” observed, if you deny dogs access to food, you can train them to do anything you like by promising to give them a little bit. Of course, Pavlov was no revolutionary, for, civilization has been using these dressage methods from the beginning of “totalitarian agriculture”, where in order for it to work, food, forests, land, and water had to be taken away from living beings and their ability to know the world had to be stomped out; i.e. they had to be alienated from their own pain, from the pain of their children and from the suffering of the world and those who couldn’t adapt or be “educated” were exterminated. Today, daycare and school begin this dressing as early as at one month of age and drum it in continuously throughout our lives. Regaining our ability to feel and to empathize with what the others feel is vital for the process of unschooling or undressing ourselves in order to gain the knowledge of what and how the world endures so as to transmit to future generations this ability to know how the other feels so that the world and our children may live
filmed at JesusRadicals Conference, Memphis, Tennessee on 15 Aug ‘09
The current civilized and globalized model of parenting stems from the model of civilization and its methods of domestication. As Pavlov, the famous Russian animal ?psychologist? observed, if you deny dogs access to food, you can train them to do anything you like by promising to give them a little bit. Of course, Pavlov was no revolutionary, for, civilization has been using these dressage methods from the beginning of ?totalitarian agriculture?, where in order for it to work, food, forests, land, and water had to be taken away from living beings and their ability to know the world had to be stomped out; i.e. they had to be alienated from their own pain, from the pain of their children and from the suffering of the world and those who couldn?t adapt or be ?educated? were exterminated. Today, daycare and school begin this dressing as early as at one month of age and drum it in continuously throughout our lives. Regaining our ability to feel and to empathize with what the others feel is vital for the process of unschooling or undressing ourselves in order to gain the knowledge of what and how the world endures so as to transmit to future generations this ability to know how the other feels so that the world and our children may live
John Zerzan is an anarchist and philosopher whose critique of civilization and call for a non-domesticated form of life has been described as ?primitivist.? Zerzan has analyzed agricultural and industrial society in detail and has drawn on anthropological research on prehistoric and other ?primitive? societies in describing egalitarian and non-alienated ways of communal life. Zerzan has contributed to anarchist theory for decades, especially on topics of ecology, anti-technology, post-leftism and postmodernity. He is the author of several books, including Against Civilization, Running On Emptiness and Twilight of the Machines. He has also served as editor of Green Anarchy: A Journal of Anti-Civilization Theory and Practice since 2001.
John Zerzan is an anarchist and philosopher whose critique of civilization and call for a non-domesticated form of life has been described as “primitivist”. Zerzan has analyzed agricultural and industrial society in detail and has drawn on anthropological research on prehistoric and other “primitive” societies in describing egalitarian and non-alienated ways of communal life. Zerzan has contributed to anarchist theory for decades, especially on topics of ecology, anti-technology, post-leftism and postmodernity. He is the author of several books, including Against Civilization, Running On Emptiness and Twilight of the Machines. He has also served as editor of Green Anarchy: A Journal of Anti-Civilization Theory and Practice since 2001.
Anthropologists, such as Jack Goody, or thinkers like John Zerzan or Walter Ong, have traced the development of written language to the beginnings of agricultural civilisation, which, in order to succeed in its premise of killing competition and of using the world and its inhabitants (plants, animals and humans) as resources and belongings, demanded new techniques (and technologies) to realise (i.e. make real and material) socio-economic inequalities. Writing down debts was the first revolutionary technology used to ensure that some will rise in power and riches over others. Literacy was thus imbued with authority to overpower the culture of mutual aid and freedom prevalent in the wild and among “savages” where everything belonged to all persons and species. Today, Ong says, literacy has become a structural element in the foundation of our knowledge, ingrained so deep that it has become impossible to view human relations with each other and the world outside of its prism. Even our relationship with our own children now takes place primarily through books and films (films are also based on the literate aspect of script-writing). Hence, there is an obsession with childhood literacy and the plethora of children’s books. In other words, at its root, literacy contains the seeds of violence and which, Zerzan, says can be traced back to the origins of symbolic thought which is necessarily based on separation or alienation of the subject from the real object and of the real object from its symbol.
I propose to discuss the structural violence of literate culture taking children’s books and their depiction of the “nature” of people and children, pedagogies, and familial relations, for example: in Caillou, Winnie the Pooh, Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, or Harry Potter and propose to examine whether it might be possible to use this, inherently violent, medium of writing and publishing to depict a peaceful world, such as the anarcho-primitivist Moomintroll Valley or a society based on mutual aid and cooperation such as Dunno and Friends.
I gave this talk on 1st October 2009 during the following course:
EDEC 249: Global Education and Social Justice (3 credits)
course description:
Curriculum and Instruction: A cross-curricular, interdisciplinary approach to teaching/creating learning experiences for students. It will foster critical thinking and nurture lifelong global understanding, active engagement and participation in relation to questions of social, economic, and environmental justice, by infusing these issues in the classroom.
Abstract for a paper presented at the Masking and Unmasking interdisciplinary conference, Duke University, 12th September 2008:
Architecture, or the modification of one’s environment to construct shelter, dwelling or home, is contingent on the philosophical position that ultimately reveals and/or conceals the knowledge that generates cultural dispositions. In this paper, I present three literary examples of how architecture can expose the paradigms for the organisation of living beings and space, which can reveal or conceal how a people define themselves and their resources.
Tove Jansson, a Swedish author from Finland, presents a wide range of interaction with the environment and, in the words of anthropologist Tim Ingold, ways of dwelling in the world rather than inhabiting a confined and privatised/divided space. In her Moomin books, architectural practice is not static but, like entropy, is subject to the evolution of living and non-living matter that may use other living or non-living matter to dwell with/in. A Soviet author, Nikolai Nosov, in his trilogy on Mites in a Flower Town, presents architecture as artistic, technological yet organic, which connects the private, social, and natural worlds and reveals their political/economic models: Soviet, capitalist, utopian. On the other hand, A.A.Milne’s use of space in “100 Aker Wood” reveals the underlying monarchical and imperialist social relations, distribution of resources and the organisation of private and public space.
The three examples of architecture point to the basic knowledge underlying the definitions of subject and object that children uncover in their books.
My poem was inspired by Elena Korniakova and Vesta Korniakova’s art. Elena found that the Native American legends on the birth of the world where a woman lands from the sky on a timeless turtle echoed the Ukrainian pagan myths about the birth, Mother Earth (BOGINYA-BEREGINYA), a magic tree, and seeds of life. When I met Lena, she had already meticulously constructed puppets from thread and lace, animated them, and worked out the music. I wrote the poems in Russian and English. Unfortunately, they had to be cut short because of the timeframe of the film. Artem Beketov provided his studio to record my reading of the poems and worked out the final sound editing. The film was chosen at the international film festival, EVORA-2005, in Portugal where it made its debut.
To John Zerzan, whose ability for empathy took him beyond the symbolic of children’s books and propaganda, who even as a child knew the pain endured by Thomas the Tank Engine as he was being domesticated, his will broken - I dedicate this translation to John and to all who have not wasted their spring, summer, or life.
You are welcome to read these works and feel free to quote from the texts, provided that you give full reference and a link to this site. You are NOT to change anything in the texts. For distribution via print or internet, staging, filming or any other projects, please contact the author, Layla AbdelRahim, at: leila_ar @ canada.com
For additional inquiries or to order the texts in book format, please, contact the e-mail address above
We believe that information, knowledge, and art should be accessible for all. Behind every story, film, or essay, there are lives and people who gave their time, effort and resources to share with you ideas and quests. Texts and images are sold for money in the form of journals, books, DVDs, etc. and it is considered legitimate. We invested much of ourselves into this site and hope that it resonated with you. If you enjoyed reading our work, if it brought you something, inspired, enlightened or helped clarify things for you, please, show your appreciation by supporting it.
To make a monetary contribution to miltsov.org via PayPal, credit card, or e-check click the button below:
Warning: This book is not for the weak of heart. If you were everwondering where to invest your old age, how to sue your landlord,which bank, health insurance, or pension fund to bless with yourblood and sweat, this book will shatter all illusions (that is, ifyou still managed to retain any innocence with regard to organisedcrime and society). Even if it was written in the 1970s, the book isas relevant today as it was when it first appeared. Hapgood presentsa brilliant analysis of how bankers, stock- and insurance brokers, lawyers, other professionals, and government screw up your average Homo Sapien. This quote speaks for itself: "Theaverage man has of course always been a loser, at least since theinvention of agriculture made it profitable for one person to exploitanother... Sometime in the late sixties, the average man's domesticeconomy stalled... In 1974 a group of congressmen led by John McFallof California estimated that wealth was being transferred to therichest one fifth of the population from those below them at the rateof $10 billion a year... This divine right of hustlers flourishedfrom the earliest days in America... ".
George Lakoff and Mark JohnsonMetaphors We Live By.
This is an important classic, whose astute analysis of the metaphoric nature of language exposes the process through which language fosters specific belligerent and problematic social relations and values even when one attempts to restructure those relations. The authors raise vital questions about language and reality and, overall, present a convincing case for the role of metaphor in human perception of war and peace, world and self, even if at times they make some problematic interpretations of causal relationships in a few specific examples. I give a more thorough analysis of this book in my second chapter of my doctoral dissertation that will soon appear here (link) and I highly recommend it.
Tayeb Salih Season of Migration to the North / The Wedding of Zein.
This Sudanese author writes about the village life in Northern Sudan with depth yet which sparkles with humour and wit while conveying love and respect for these human characters. The Season of Migration to the North was at one point acclaimed as THE novel of the 20th century Arabic literature. It tells a poignant story of a narrator who returns to his native village in the North of Sudan after several years of higher education in England to meet a mysterious character who reveals to him his own relationship to colonialism, education, racism, and the classical Arabic literary demarcation of reason and madness. A beautiful read that transcends culture and society in our striving for flight towards true human freedom, beyond politics and beyond our social and individual constraints.
Margaret Peterson Haddix, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting contemporary authors, who is unfortunately categorized as a writer for young adults and sometimes children, but whose effective manner of writing with respect for her readers' intelligence and whose fascinating and critically vital themes should, in fact, reach people of all ages - anywhere between 0 and 300 years or more.
Just Ella is a realistic book narrated effectively in first person by Ella who is more commonly known around the world as Cinderella and who tells us what “really” happened when she almost married a prince.
She presents a highly convincing explanation of how her story ended up being interpreted as a tale of magical pumpkins, fairy godmothers, and glass slippers and how she finally learnt from her mistakes. Haddix presents a lively narrative, humorous and thoughtful. An excellent book that raises questions of social injustice and outrageous abuse in a reflective, dignifying and powerful language that never once falls into the trap of pity or resignation.
Escape from Memory. This book is at once far-fetched yet credible in Haddix’ ability to portray human nature as striving for goodness and its constant encounter with greed and power.
The plot of this book revolves around an imaginary village called Crythe. Crythians find themselves torn between two great warring powers: the US and USSR. Both powers don't give a damn about individual lives and human suffering. The Russians are portrayed as brutal and the Americans as greedy. This stereotypical depiction is justified through the narrative because it finally all depends on the specific choices that a people make with regards to their social organization. In this particular plot, we find the main character, an all-American girl from a small town in Ohio, after a game of hypnosis going through a turbulent adventure unveiling dark secrets of human relations, her own relationship with her mother, her encounter with Aunt Memory and discovery of a cruel reality outside her home town. The book ties in the themes of memory, history, community, and war. What is people’s meaning in this world? Is it to preserve memory? What is memory? The Crythians respond with the implementation of a tradition that would ensure the transmission of specific memory. Sounds familiar? Aunt Memory is usually this adult who transmits to her “niece” the meaning of the clan and is an important link between the past and the future. The main point of the book seems to be: So, why don't we write hopeful, beautiful narratives rather than keep repeating useless mythical facts that harbour fear, hatred, and breed violent havoc. Apart from being a story on human choices, love and relationships, this book is also about the relations of children and parents and where the link in memory continues, breaks, should continue or should break.
John Holt: How Children Failand How Children Learnare lively accounts of Holt's observations as a school teacher on exactly what they announce: how children learn or fail.
These books have challenged modern pedagogical theory most of which is based on the assumption that children are either in need of “correctional” methods or are passive receptacles of knowledge to be filled, programmed and modelled into “decent” human beings. Holt argues that authoritarian approach to learning, in fact hinders natural curiosity and blunts the child's thirst for learning, fostering instead passivity and indifference. Holt calls to trust and respect the child's natural striving to learn and be in love with her world and her ability to learn wholesomely without the bribery of professional approval, peer pressure, or grades which are the basis of most of children's “failure”. This is an important foundation for the theory of unschooling and happy childhood.
Elegantly written, these books offer an important yet pleasant read that leaves a deepmark on any one striving to give the best to their children.
JohnTaylor Gatto is an important contemporary critic of pedagogy whom I cite often. A former school teacher, he shocked the pedagogical world of New York when after receiving Best Teacher's Award, he delivered his famous speech, titled The Seven Lesson School Teacher(link) in which he exposes what he “really” “teaches” . In a powerful language, Gatto confesses that he has done an excellent job in fulfilling the schoolmandate teaching kids indifference, passivity, shattering theirself-esteem, cruelty, etc. through the system of bells, grades, constant evaluation and various forms of coercion and punishment that ensure conformity and downright stupidity. This speech served as the basis for a powerful critique of contemporary obligatory schooling titled Dumbing Us Down. I highly recommend it.
The Underground History of American Educationis another important book by John Taylor Gatto in which he explores thehistorical argumentation for and structuring of contemporary schools, a project that has been fostered by the need in hierarchical societies for docile soldiers, workers, consumers, et al, at the service of warring rulers in Europe and industrialist capitalists inthe US. An extremeley important critique of culture and pedagogy.
You can also access some of his books on-line at:http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/or at the public library.
Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society.
This is one of the most important books that at once offers acritique of culture and social institutions and offers feasible waysfor de-institutionalising society and most import deschooling it.Already in 1971, the book already made reference to popularising knowledge and information through libraries and technologies of thetext, such as web nets. Ivan Illich was a brilliant philosopher andany of his books are, in fact, a must to read. If you haven't yet, I'd recommend you start with this book.
Taha Hussein: The Days. A trilogy that beautifully renders the reality of a blind boy growingup in rural Egypt.
It is a rare account of the details of an experience of life through senses excluding our most taken forgranted sense of sight. This autobiographical narrative in third person (although the third part was translated into English in the first person) raises important questions of knowledge and experience, clash of civilizations and most important of social class in a softmanner that sounds like the easy gurgle of the river of life. Infact, the title itself, the Days, in Arabic has many connotations,among which destiny and life. This was my first book of Arabic literature that I read by myself when I was 10.
