Is the Bible Agrarian or Primitivist? Part II
Primitivists continuously target "civilization" as, if not the mother of most ills, then at least the great facilitator of them. Blogger and author Keith Farnish writes that a better world awaits us if we "stop believing that the answers lie within the most destructive thing that humanity ever had the misfortune to create." The rub, of course, lies in the definition of civilization, which can be a somewhat slippery thing. Richard Heinberg, an outside sympathizer of primitivism, notes that civilization may imply such characteristics as social stratification, organized warfare, and writing, but that the historical evidence does complicate matters. Jason Godesky, a primitivist trained in anthropology, lists five primary traits widely accepted in the field:
1. Settlement of cities of 5,000 or more people.
2. Full-time labor specialization.
3. Concentration of surplus
4. Class structure
5. State-level political organization
Meanwhile, the characteristics headlined in the Wikipedia entry are agriculture, long-distance trade (a secondary characteristic in Godesky's list), state-form of government, specialization, urbanism, and class structure.
Primitivists tend to conclude that one characteristic naturally and inevitably follows from the other. As a result, agriculture, as opposed to foraging, is inherently negative because it results in food surplus that are (always?) exploited by elites for the suppression of others. In his reference entry on anarcho-primitivism and the Bible, Ched Myers writes, "Agriculture inexorably gave rise to concentrated populations and increasingly centralized and and hierarchical societies in built urban environments. These in turn developed into oppressive city-states, an aggressively colonizing civilization that exerted a powerful centripetal force on the hinterlands."
The problem, as Heinberg points out, is that these elegant lists are naturally descriptive instead of prescriptive. Exceptions are to be found and it is not clear why certain essentialist visions must be accepted. Heinberg specifically cites archaeological research of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Maskan-shapir. The data suggests at least one example of urban culture without class divisions. Moreover, I am struck by the question of how exactly early Israel is supposed to be classified. Israel was clearly an agricultural society (or, perhaps, "horticultural" according to certain definitions - see Godesky's article in which horticulture is deemed acceptable). Israel continued the practice of growing domesticated plants and keeping domesticated animals. For some primitivists, domestication is a big no-no; the first step down the slippery slope to domesticating other human beings, as Myers writes. And yet, Israel's earliest known laws, the Covenant Code in Exodus, command kindness for the alien and stranger. Israel did not seek empire; not at first, not until external political pressures (instead of, say, some kind of subconscious logical leap from farming to enslaving) led to a monarchy that then chose self-aggrandizement through conquest. So yes, Israel aped the majority tradition of civilization eventually, but not at first. At first, Israel was settled, but not "civilized" according to the criteria above. She did not consist of nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers, but nor did she build a stratified society on crop surpluses. So was Israel civilized, or wild?
I ask that question because the primitivist material I have read suggests a certain tendency toward dualist thinking. Even Godesky acknowledges a "cultivation continuum" between "horticulture" and "agriculture" only to rob it of significance in the end. Perhaps some dualisms have their merits, but I don't see this one in Scripture. There is room enough for John the Baptist to preach in the wilderness and Jeremiah to preach in Jerusalem. An agrarian vision is more hopeful that this is not schizophrenia. We can learn to honor wilderness while managing and domesticating. We can overturn oppression and see the dawning day as New Jerusalem the golden city. In other words, there is a hope for redemption of perhaps even the most tarnished of human projects. Perhaps even something like "civilization," whatever that means, can be saved. But it will have to learn its place in a wild world in which, as God says to Job, the rain is made to fall in the desert where no human lives.
Labels: Agrariana
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