Resources | Anti-Tech Collective

Anti-Tech Library & Resources

The ATC Library is a collection of resources (mostly non-fictional writings) recommended by the community for their contribution to technological criticism.

If you are entirely unfamiliar with anti-tech ideas, this is a wonderful place to begin. We have attempted to curate the Library with self-learners in mind. This means that we have begun attempting to group and rank works according to our assessment of their ease of access, contribution to and influence on the overall discussion, their overall revolutionary value, and so on: in a word, their estimated essentiality for understanding the Technological Question and proposed solutions. To say that some works are less essential than others does not mean that nothing is gained in reading the 'less essential' works. We are viewing the most essential works as 'fire starters' and the less essential ones as progressively 'adding fuel to the fire'... in our opinion, of course.

Most of the items include notes or summaries written by current or past internal ATC members or the authors themselves to pique your interest and aid in your learning journey.

If you already have some familiarity with anti-tech thought, this library is still a wonderful resource for further developing and bolstering your understanding of the Technological Crisis. Other articles and essays, including mostly recent ones, not amounting to entire books are included in the "Further Readings" section under the main Library for those already familiar with basic AT theory. Links to active groups and websites beyond ATC but which are either anti-tech themselves or are amicable to anti-tech are found in the "External Resources" section.

If you, as a member of the community, have suggestions for inclusions to the library or if you have criticisms of the works already included, please share them with us by contacting ATC through antitechcollective@protonmail.com.

CONTENT DISCLAIMER: Not all works listed here advocate for revolution against the technological system a la Kaczynski. In fact, the majority do not. However, all take the issue of Technology seriously, promote a tech-critical worldview, or otherwise can contribute to one's understanding of the Technological Crisis. Not all internal ATC members have read everything listed or endorse the inclusion of each piece. However, on the group level, we have decided that each piece can contribute something to your understanding, even if only through presenting a different perspective on, approach to, or opinion about the Technological System. It never hurts to understand your opponent's arguments and it certainly never hurts to bolster your own.

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: The Anti-Tech Collective does not claim ownership of any of the works listed unless specified. All credit and ownership belongs to the original authors and works are cited purely for educational purposes.

Industrial Society and its Future

In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identifed and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the 'Unabomber Manifesto.' The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety.

Technological Slavery

Logical, lucid, and direct, Technological Slavery radically reinvigorates and reforms the intellectual foundations of an age-old and resurgent world-view: "Progress" is a myth. Wild nature and humanity are fundamentally incompatible with technological growth.

In Technological Slavery, Kaczynski argues that: (i) the unfolding human and environmental crises are the direct, inevitable result of technology itself; (ii) many of the stresses endured in contemporary life are not normal to the human condition, but unique to technological conditions; (iii) wilderness and human life close to nature are realistic and supreme ideals; and, (iv) a revolution to eliminate modern technology and attain these ideals is necessary and far more achievable than would first appear.

Drawing on a broad range of disciplines, Kaczynski weaves together a set of visionary social theories to form a revolutionary perspective on the dynamics of history and the evolution of societies. The result is a comprehensive challenge to the fundamental values and assumptions of the modern technology-driven world, pinning the cause of the rapidly unfolding catastrophe on technology itself, while offering a realistic hope for ultimate recovery.

Note: Theodore John Kaczynski does not receive any remuneration for this book.

Tier 1: A-T 101

101

Tier 2: Metaphysical A-T

The Technological Society

As insightful and wise today as it was when originally published in 1954, Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society has become a classic in its field, laying the groundwork for all other studies of technology and society that have followed.

Ellul offers a penetrating analysis of our technological civilization, showing how technology—which began innocuously enough as a servant of humankind—threatens to overthrow humanity itself in its ongoing creation of an environment that meets its own ends. No conversation about the dangers of technology and its unavoidable effects on society can begin without a careful reading of this book.

The Technological System

Some 20 years after writing The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul realized how the totalistic dimensions of our modern technological milieu required an additional treatment of the topic. Writing amidst the rise of books in the 1970s on pollution, over-population, and environmental degradation, Ellul found it necessary, once again, to write about the global presence of technology and its far-reaching effects. The Technological System represents a new stage in Ellul's research. Previously he studied technological society as such; in this book he approaches the topic from a systems perspective wherein he identifies the characteristics of technological phenomena and technological progress in light of system theory. This leads to an entirely new approach to what constitutes the most important event of our society which has decisive bearing on the future of our world. Ellul's analysis touches on all aspects of modern life, not just those of a scientific or technological order. In the end, readers are compelled to formulate their own opinions and make their own decisions regarding the way a technique-based value system affects every level of human life.

Presence in the Modern World

Presence in the Modern World is Jacques Ellul's most foundational book, combining his social analysis with his theological orientation. Appearing first in French in 1948, it has reached the status of a classic that retains all of its relevance today in the face of the challenges that beset us. How should we respond toward such complex forces as technology or the state? How can we communicate with one another, despite the problems inherent in modern forms of media? Do we have hope for the future of our civilization? Ellul responds by describing how a Christian's unique presence in the world can make a difference. Instead of acting ""as sociological beings,"" we must commit ourselves to the kind of revolution that will occur only when we become radically aware of our present situation and undertake ""a ferocious and passionate destruction of myths, intellectual idols, unconscious rejections of reality, and outmoded and empty doctrines."" In this way, says Ellul, we become the medium for God's action in the modern world.

The Technological Bluff

The last book on technology written by Ellul. The author argues that "an easily distracted consumer society is caught up in a rapidly developing, uncontrollable technological system . . . . Every problem generates a technological solution; computers breed ever larger, more fragile, and vulnerable systems. But the solutions raise more and greater problems than they solve . . . . Responsibility, contemplation, civility, and spirituality suffer."

The Failure of Technology

A fantastic recent find, which I trust readers will appreciate and help spread the word - an ebook of this classic and essential critique of modern "scientism" and technology, which has been out-of-print and virtually unfindable in English since the 1960's! It was translated in 1950 from the German original: "Die Perfektion der Technik" - which, btw, in German does not have the positive connotation of perfection in English, but simply implies the bringing to completion, to full development.

If you don't know the book, I cannot recommend it too highly! It as insightful as anything his brother Ernst wrote. It contains one of the original environmentalist visions, and its insights into the fundamental shortcomings and illusions of our science and technology have never been surpassed. FGJ gets down to the very heart of the matter, as more recent critiques have not been able to - the superior insight of the author also have been due to his position at a less developed stage of technology, which allowed a more detached, objective perspective.

Energy and Equity

A junkie without access to his stash is in a state of crisis. The "energy crisis' that exists intermittently when the flow of fuel from unstable countries is cut off or threatened, is a crisis in the same sense. When such a crisis is perceived in the western sphere, there are normally two solutions proposed: Relieve our dependence on foreign fuels by developing "ecologically friendly' energy extraction technology, or send an army to pacify the fuel-rich region in question. Both of these paths, seemingly at odds with each other, take as fundamentally true a certain proposition, that in no circumstances should we use less energy than we already use. In this conception, all human problems must be solved by the impressment of still more "energy slaves' to meet the expanding demand of human masters. The two solutions consist of securing the current source of the drug, or finding a different, more secure pusher. In this essay, Illich examines the question of whether or not humans need any more energy than is their natural birthright. Along the way he gives a startling analysis of the marginal disutility of tools. After a certain point, that is, more energy gives negative returns. For example, moving around causes loss of time proportional to the amount of energy which is poured into the transport system, so that the speed of the fastest traveller correlates inversely to the equality as well as freedom of the median traveller.

Technics & Civilization

Technics and Civilization first presented its compelling history of the machine and critical study of its effects on civilization in 1934—before television, the personal computer, and the Internet even appeared on our periphery.

Drawing upon art, science, philosophy, and the history of culture, Lewis Mumford explained the origin of the machine age and traced its social results, asserting that the development of modern technology had its roots in the Middle Ages rather than the Industrial Revolution. Mumford sagely argued that it was the moral, economic, and political choices we made, not the machines that we used, that determined our then industrially driven economy. Equal parts powerful history and polemic criticism, Technics and Civilization was the first comprehensive attempt in English to portray the development of the machine age over the last thousand years—and to predict the pull the technological still holds over us today.

The Metaphysics of Technology

What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of technê and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon," of universal scope. This work ― the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic ― breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.

Metaphysics

Tier 3: Revolutionary A-T

Autopsy of Revolution

In this significant and very timely book, the author of The Technological Society, The Political Illusion, and Propaganda asks a tremendous question and shows that the answer we give it is decisive for the future of our society: Can we learn from history what revolution really is necessary for our survival? That is, can we distinguish between senseless, ineffectual revolt or rebellion and a genuine revolution that can alter fundamentals? In his basic, closely reasoned way, Jacques Ellul examines past and recent history in light of the current overwhelming preoccupation with revolution, which seems to have become the daily bread of Western man's thoughts and actions, the immediate explanation for every historical movement. Ellul insists on examining the possibility that today we are projecting onto past events a fairly recent and distorted image of revolution. The new image was created by Marx in the nineteenth century, and Ellul questions how long we can continue to live on his legacy. More important, he suggests that Marx may have brought about an abrupt deviation of the necessary revolutionary current and given a false meaning to the word revolution. Is all our talk about Marxian revolution talk about reality, or a way of filling a void with words? Finally, among so many social eddies and agitations, are we today caught up in a really revolutionary movement-or are we being led into blind combat by false lights that in reality are reflections in distorting mirrors? Are we capable of discerning the real Revolution, the needed Revolution? Ellul does not map out a route in detail: he clears paths into the future, making it possible for a route to be found. His masterly book should help to change our thinking, and therefore our future.

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

This seminal study and critique of propaganda from one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1962. Taking not only a psychological approach, but a sociological approach as well, Ellul’s book outlines the taxonomy for propaganda, and ultimately, it’s destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.

Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How

In Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Kaczynski argues why the rational prediction and control of the development of society is impossible while expounding on the existence of a process fundamental to technological growth that inevitably leads to disaster: a universal process akin to biological natural selection operating autonomously on all dynamic systems and determining the long-term outcome of all significant social developments.

Taking a highly logical, fact-based, and intellectually rigorous approach, Kaczynski seamlessly systematizes a vast breadth of knowledge and elegantly reconciles the social sciences with biology to illustrate how technological growth in and of itself necessarily leads to disastrous disruption of global biological systems. Together with this new understanding of social and biological change, and by way of an extensive examination of the dynamics of social movements, Kaczynski argues why there is only one route available to avoid the disaster that technological growth entails: a revolution against technology and industrial society.

Through critical and comprehensive analysis of the principles of social revolutions and by carefully developing an exacting theory of successful revolution, Kaczynski offers a practical, rational, and realistic guide for preventing the fast-approaching technology-induced catastrophe.

Revolutinary

Tier 4: Environmentalism & Deep Ecology

Silent Spring

First published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. This fortieth anniversary edition celebrates Rachel Carson's watershed book with a new introduction by the author and activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new afterword by the acclaimed Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear, who tells the story of Carson's courageous defense of her truths in the face of ruthless assault from the chemical industry in the year following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death in 1964.

A Sand County Almanac

Few books have had a greater impact than A Sand County Almanac, which many credit with launching a revolution in land management. Written as a series of sketches based principally upon the flora and fauna in a rural part of Wisconsin, the book, originally published by Oxford in 1949, gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; a final section addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. Beloved for its description and evocation of the natural world, Leopold's book, which has sold well over 2 million copies, remains a foundational text in environmental science and a national treasure.

Can Life Prevail?

With the train of civilization hurtling at ever-increasing speed towards self-destruction, the most pressing question facing humanity in the 21st century is that of the preservation of life itself. Can Life Prevail? provides a radical yet firmly grounded perspective on the ecological problems threatening both the biosphere and human culture. With essays covering topics as diverse as animal rights, extinction, deforestation, terrorism and overpopulation, Can Life Prevail? makes the lucid, challenging writing of Linkola available to the English-speaking public for the first time.

"By decimating its woodlands, Finland has created the grounds for prosperity. We can now thank prosperity for bringing us - among other things - two million cars, millions of glowing, electronic entertainment boxes, and many unneeded buildings to cover the green earth. Surplus wealth has led to gambling in the marketplace and rampant social injustice, whereby 'the common people' end up contributing to the construction of golf courses, five-star hotels, and holiday resorts, while fattening Swiss bank accounts. Besides, the people of wealthy countries are the most frustrated, unemployed, unhappy, suicidal, sedentary, worthless and aimless people in history. What a miserable exchange."

The Revenge of Gaia

In The Revenge of Gaia , bestselling author James Lovelock- father of climate studies and originator of the influential Gaia theory which views the entire earth as a living meta-organism-provides a definitive look at our imminent global crisis. In this disturbing new book, Lovelock guides us toward a hard reality: soon, we may not be able to alter the oncoming climate crisis. Lovelock's influential Gaia theory, one of the building blocks of modern climate science, conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from "flipping" into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself.

The Voice of the Earth

What is the bond between the human psyche and the living planet that nurtured us, and all of life, into existence? What is the link between our own mental health and the health of the greater biosphere? In this "bold, ambitious, philosophical essay" (Publishers Weekly), historian and cultural critic Roszak explores the relationships between psychology, ecology, and new scientific insights into systems in nature. Drawing on our understanding of the evolutionary, self-organizing universe, Roszak illuminates our rootedness in the greater web of life and explores the relationship between our own sanity and the larger-than-human world. The Voice of the Earth seeks to bridge the centuries-old split between the psychological and the ecological with a paradigm which sees the needs of the planet and the needs of the person as a continuum. The Earth's cry for rescue from the punishing weight of the industrial system we have created is our own cry for a scale and quality of life that will free us to become whole and healthy.

The Later Philosophy of Pentti Linkola

In the first ever English-language, book-length philosophical analysis of Pentti Linkola’s controversial vision of Deep Ecology and the ideal society, Chad A. Haag attempts a rigorous analysis of Linkola’s later writings, especially those written from the early 1990s to the release of his 2004 text Voisiko elämä voittaa. Although most readers outside Finland are primarily acquainted with Linkola through the English-language abridgement Can Life Prevail?, Haag goes far beyond this territory by incorporating numerous previously inaccessible essays, interviews, and speeches in order to introduce audiences to a more holistic picture of Linkola’s monumental body of work. Linkola’s thought is elucidated through contrasting him with the three great philosophical representatives of democratic modernity by opposing his ethical system with that of Kant, his political philosophy with that of Habermas, and his ontology with that of Zizek. In addition, his thus-far unacknowledged relation to classical philosophical thinkers such as Foucault, Husserl, Gadamer, Deleuze, Guattari, and Thomas Aquinas shall be explored, as well as his relation to more recent anti-technological thinkers like Ted Kaczynski, Varg Vikernes, John Michael Greer, Dmitry Orlov, Michael Ruppert, and Julius Evola. Finally, his contrast with leftist and liberal political activists such as Shaun King, Ana Kasparian, Bernie Sanders, and Andrew Yang shall provide abundant sources of humor.

Being and Oil, Vol 1: Peak Oil Philosophy and the Ontology of Limitation

In the first ever book-length manifesto of Peak Oil Philosophy, Chad Haag argues that the transition to Fossil Fuel Modernity replaced the herds of megafauna of the Hunter Gatherer Worldview and the cyclically-harvested grain of the Agrarian Worldview with a single immensely powerful but quickly vanishing substance: oil. Everything we do is a euphemism for burning vast amounts of fossil fuels. Haag provides an original hierarchy of transcendental standards of meaning to reveal the extent to which our mythologies, systems, counter sense objects, and deep memes are just so many incomplete revelations of our Phenomenological awareness of petroleum. But as the globe already hit Peak Oil in 2005 and has been on the downward slope of depletion ever since, these higher order meanings have begun to collapse into falsity. Oil's peculiar role in sustaining systems of meaning precisely through imposing a hard physical limit to existence therefore requires a novel Ontology of Limitation. Haag reawakens the Heideggerian quest for Being by suggesting that even the subject itself must be understood as a limitation sustained through the limitation of, in our era, fossil fuels. Haag introduces a new table of 15 modes of truth to explicate how Peak Oil defies a simple binary of truth and falsity, given that even truth under Fossil Fuels is just a euphemism for oil's presence. Combining the Peak Oil insights of John Michael Greer and the anti-technological theories of Ted Kaczynski with the philosophical rigor of Heidegger, Aristotle, Zizek, Plato, Husserl, Descartes, and Jordan Peterson, Haag crafts a truly unique response to the challenge of joining Peak Oil and Philosophy.

The Hermeneutics of Ecological Limitation

Although the term “environmentalism” has become so universalized as to be meaningless, ecophilosophy remains one of the most under-explored territories within all of philosophy. Haag argues, however, that the two are fundamentally incompatible by demonstrating that mainstream environmentalism cannot challenge the industrial system because it is simply an extension of fossil fuels and Modern Technology. Contrary to Zizek’s and Gadamer’s tendency to contrast ecological closure with the radical openness of linguistic interpretation, Haag argues that ecology must instead be understood as the most primordial horizon of hermeneutical interpretation, since a subject’s ecological context provides the standard of meaning for higher order memes, objects, systems, and mythologies to emerge. Haag examines the most controversial forbidden thinkers on the topic, such as Julius Evola, Pentti Linkola, Varg Vikernes, Michael Ruppert, Ted Kaczynski, John Zerzan, and John Michael Greer, in addition to mainstream environmentalists like David Klass, Greta Thunberg, and Ana Kasparian in order to move the discussion of ecology beyond the environmentalist limits imposed by the media and academic industry.

The Philosophy of Ted Kaczynski: Why the Unabomber was Right about Modern Technology

In the first ever book-length philosophical analysis of Ted Kaczynski’s writings on Industrial Civilization, Chad A. Haag explores the supremely-forbidden territory of questioning Modern Technology. Although the media has almost exclusively restricted the discussion of Kaczynski’s philosophy to the Unabomber Manifesto, Chad A. Haag breaks the silence regarding his vast body of writings by examining his fragmentary magnum opus Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How and the shorter published essays. In addition, Haag analyses numerous super-rare unpublished essays, letters, and allegories retrieved from the Kaczynski Papers archive in Michigan in order to situate his thought within the context of the other great philosophers who wrote on Modern Technology, such as Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger, as well as to determine Kaczynski’s unexpected relations to classical thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Husserl, and Descartes. In addition, Kaczynski’s unique views offer potent alternatives to the all-too-familiar political stances of Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and leftists in general. Finally, Kaczynski’s rationalistic epistemology of essence, his implicit theory of hermeneutical subjectivity, and his views on morality are fleshed out explicitly for the first time ever.

A Critique of Transcendental Memology: A Peak Oil Philosophy of Truth

In the first book of its kind, Haag engages with the topic of Peak Oil through a serious analysis of Western Philosophy. Haag's own theory that deep memes serve as the transcendental standard of truth incorporates a rigorous critique of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, and Zizek to inaugurate an original Peak Oil Philosophy.

Hermeneutical Death: The Technological Destruction of Subjectivity

Although the only acceptable criticism of Modern Technology is the Frankfurt School cliché that it makes the subject “too big” by allowing it to dominate the entire cosmos with instrumental reason, Haag argues that this academic industry caricature actually gets the problem exactly backwards. Because the self-moving simulation eventually squeezes out the possibility of interpretation, technology causes the subject to disappear through a paradoxical excess rather than lack of sensory stimulation. Through an in-depth analysis of all six somatic contexts, Haag reveals that Modern Technology is not just another Soma because it somehow oversteps its own hermeneutical limits to become something other than a counter sense object based on fossil fuels. Detailed readings of the greatest anti-technological thinkers Ted Kaczynski, Jacques Ellul, Julius Evola, Pentti Linkola, John Michael Greer, Martin Heidegger, Michael Ruppert, and John Zerzan reveal that Gadamer’s false dichotomy between sensation and language misses the point that it is precisely Technique’s excessive linguistic clarity which destroys the horizon of ecological hermeneutics. Meditations on the forbidden thinkers Sayyid Qutb, Ted Bundy, David Icke, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and René Guénon reveal that the Power Leaked collective racks up nominally-massive accomplishments but only at the cost of degrading the individual to nothing except a cog in the System with no agency beyond feeling sensations and obeying mandates. Critiques of Social Justice Politics, as well as prominent technophiles like Ray Kurzweil, Mark Zuckerberg, and Anita Sarkeesian, expose the contradictions inherent in technological apologetics, while readings of pop culture phenomena like Star Trek, Death Note, and Marvel Comics reveal the unspeakable truth about our own technological society.

Social Justice Madness

Finally, someone has to have the guts to say it: SJWism has officially destroyed academic philosophy and risks destroying all philosophy (and, by extension, the very possibility of an activity so basic as thinking) if this runaway train is not called out for what it really is. Far from courageously rebelling against the System, SJWism simply is the System of Modern Technology in disguise, in that SJWs always fight for the same things which just happen to be technical requirements for the global technological system to function more efficiently. In his most controversial book to date, Haag reveals that behind the façade of a sprawling catalogue of different intersectional categories for sale on the Stock Market, every one of them is just another sock puppet over the same counter sense object of the Current: the self-contradictory ideal of an absolute value that just happens to constantly change. The unspeakable truth is that each round of automation leaves one with fewer and fewer opportunities to earn a First World standard of living through any work one can do, so being Current eventually becomes the only job left for humans to seize the unearned benefits of fossil fuel industrialism while blotting out the ecological contradictions of doing so. Through blasphemously humorous critiques of prominent SJWs like Cenk Uygur, Jussie Smollett, Anita Sarkeesian, Ana Kasparian, Shaun King, and Elizabeth Warren and of influential socialists like Hugo Chavez, Slavoj Zizek, and “Aleksandr Tuvim,” Haag reveals the contradictions of SJWism through utilizing the resources of anti-technological, deep ecology, and controversial thinkers like Ted Kaczynski, Jacques Ellul, Pentti Linkola, John Michael Greer, Michael Ruppert, and Jordan Peterson.

Deep Eco

Tier 5: Primitivism & Anarcho-Primitivism

The Retro Future

To most people paying attention to the collision between industrial society and the hard limits of a finite planet, it's clear that things are going very, very wrong. We no longer have unlimited time and resources to deal with the crises that define our future, and the options are limited to the tools we have on hand right now.

This book is about one very powerful option: deliberate technological regression.

Technological regression isn't about 'going back,' it's about using the past as a resource to meet the needs of the present. It starts from the recognition that older technologies generally use fewer resources and cost less than modern equivalents, and it embraces the heresy of technological choice, our ability to choose or refuse the technologies pushed by corporate interests. People are already ditching smartphones in favor of 'dumb phones' and land lines and eBook sales are declining, while printed books rebound. Clear signs among many that blind faith in progress is faltering and opening up the possibility that the best way forward may well involve going back.

A must-read for anyone willing to think the unthinkable and embrace the possibilities of a retro future.

Twilight of the Machines

The mentor of the green anarchist and neo-primitive movements is back with his first book in six years, confronting civilization, mass society, and modernity and technoculture—both the history of its developing crisis and the possibilities for its human and humane solutions.

As John Zerzan writes, “These dire times may yet reveal invigorating new vistas of thought and action. When everything is at stake, all must be confronted and superseded. At this moment, there is the distinct possibility of doing just that.”

When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics

John Zerzan, a respected voice of anarcho-primitivist thought, is back with his call to action to survive and thrive, overcoming our modern crisis. Instead of viewing the decline of modern civilization as something to mourn, he sees the opportunity for us to reclaim our true humanity. In When We Are Human, Zerzan explores biological and social science discoveries, then invests the abstract findings with history and literature to create a syncretic understanding of how we ended up in a civilization-ending state. More than his previous works, Zerzan, as an elder in his community, shows us our past errors to ensure a more meaningful future for our next iteration of humanity.

Origins: A John Zerzan Reader

The new collection of Zerzan's writings on origins, of language, time, numbers, gender, agriculture. This reader brings together the best, most original thinking to date, of Zerzan's many years of writing.

A People's History of Civilization

The American anarchist, primitivist philosopher, and author John Zerzan critiques agriculture-based civilization as inherently oppressive and advocates drawing upon the life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought, and the concept of time.

This book includes sixteen essays ranging from the beginning of civilization to today's general crisis. Zerzan provides a critical perspective about civilization.

Repent to the Primitive

Description: Rewilding is the process of restoring nature, including human nature, to its unmanaged, wild state. Rewilding is happening everywhere. In conservation, vast tracts of land have been set aside and guarded from artificial management. In politics, many people, now and throughout history, have resisted the influence of civilization while surviving as individuals and small groups in nature. They have fought wars, escaped slavery, destroyed factories, and lobbied governments in the process.

John Jacobi presents a philosophical foundation for rewilding. Human nature, he argues, must be tamed for humans to live in civilization. But the civilizing process does not work perfectly. Those who fall through the cracks — wild wills — tend to dislike civilized life, its manners and rules, preferring instead the company of flora, fauna, and a small band of friends. This perspective can be philosophically justified, argues Jacobi, and, as the ecological crisis worsens, it will only continue attracting adherents.

Primitivism

Tier 6: Spiritual & Esoteric

Revolt Against the Modern World

With unflinching gaze and uncompromising intensity Julius Evola analyzes the spiritual and cultural malaise at the heart of Western civilization and all that passes for progress in the modern world. As a gadfly, Evola spares no one and nothing in his survey of what we have lost and where we are headed. At turns prophetic and provocative, Revolt against the Modern World outlines a profound metaphysics of history and demonstrates how and why we have lost contact with the transcendent dimension of being.

The revolt advocated by Evola does not resemble the familiar protests of either liberals or conservatives. His criticisms are not limited to exposing the mindless nature of consumerism, the march of progress, the rise of technocracy, or the dominance of unalloyed individualism, although these and other subjects come under his scrutiny. Rather, he attempts to trace in space and time the remote causes and processes that have exercised corrosive influence on what he considers to be the higher values, ideals, beliefs, and codes of conduct--the world of Tradition--that are at the foundation of Western civilization and described in the myths and sacred literature of the Indo‑Europeans. Agreeing with the Hindu philosophers that history is the movement of huge cycles and that we are now in the Kali Yuga, the age of dissolution and decadence, Evola finds revolt to be the only logical response for those who oppose the materialism and ritualized meaninglessness of life in the twentieth century.

Through a sweeping study of the structures, myths, beliefs, and spiritual traditions of the major Western civilizations, the author compares the characteristics of the modern world with those of traditional societies. The domains explored include politics, law, the rise and fall of empires, the history of the Church, the doctrine of the two natures, life and death, social institutions and the caste system, the limits of racial theories, capitalism and communism, relations between the sexes, and the meaning of warriorhood. At every turn Evola challenges the reader’s most cherished assumptions about fundamental aspects of modern life.

Eco-Philosophy: Designing New Tactics for Living

(From Wikipedia) Skolimowski is part of a new branch of philosophy called Eco-Philosophy, which claims that THE WORLD IS A SANCTUARY. From this central assumption immediately follows reverence for life and for all there is, responsibility for the world and society, altruism and sharing as the basis for ethics, and ecological spirituality, which maintains that the ecological and the spiritual are one.

Philosophy for a New Civilisation

This book is a primer for third world nations and societies, who are tired of the alleged superiority of industrial nations. This book provides a way of overcoming toxic thinking of technological mentality. The work will be of great value to scholars, philosophers, and all searching people who believe in positive possibility.

Download Chapter 4 for FREE!

Eco-Yoga

An inspiring guide to spiritual renewal, with practical exercises and meditations for living in harmony with the earth. Attractively designed with 28 original wood engravings. In the preface to this book, the author writes: ``Traditional precepts of yoga were devised for a much simpler world. Now we need to add other yogas to assist the health of our minds and bodies. In this volume, I address myself to the inner self of the individual and offer suggestions for relevant paths, meditations, and techniques that can lead to sanity and radiance. I call these meditations EcoYoga. We are not prescribing specific postures or physical exercises, but what we offer is still yoga, a way of being at peace with yourself and the world today. This is not a book to be read in an hour. It is a pool of tranquility to be dipped into from time to time for spiritual nourishment, meditation, and reflection.''

Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu’s slim book may be more than 2,000 years old, but it sings as clearly today as when first written. Equal parts spiritual guide and political manifesto, these words provide a blueprint for the evolution of our species. If humanity still exists 2,000 years from now, it will be because we followed the counterintuitive advice Lao Tzu laid out in his little book of poems.

Our species may not survive for another 2,000 years. There’s no sense in getting discouraged though. Lao Tzu has provided us with our survival guide. The world we dream of exists, and it’s a world that can benefit all of us. We just have to notice we’re already living in it.

There are many different translations of this Chinese text. We recommend reading more than one in order to capture the true essence of Lao Tzu's words.

Panpsychism in the West

In Panpsychism in the West, the first comprehensive study of the subject, David Skrbina argues for the importance of panpsychism—the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things—in consideration of the nature of consciousness and mind. Panpsychism, with its conception of mind as a general phenomenon of nature, uniquely links being and mind. More than a theory of mind, it is a meta-theory—a statement about theories of mind rather than a theory in itself. Panpsychism can parallel almost every current theory of mind; it simply holds that, no matter how one conceives of mind, such mind applies to all things. After a brief discussion of general issues surrounding philosophy of mind, Skrbina examines the panpsychist views of philosophers from the pre-Socratics to the post-structuralists.

The original edition of Panpsychism in the West helped to reinvigorate a neglected and important aspect of philosophic thinking. This revised edition offers expanded and updated material that reflects the growth of panpsychism as a subdiscipline. It covers the problem of emergence of mind from a non-mental reality and the combination problem in greater detail. It offers expanded coverage of the pre-Socratics and Plato; a new section on Augustine; expanded discussions of Continental panpsychism, scientific arguments, Nietzsche, and Whitehead; and a new section on Russellian monism. With this edition, Panpsychism in the West will be continue to be the standard work on the topic.

Earth Alive

Selected readings in environmental ethics. Readings include such authors as Plato, Skolimowski, Lovelock, Feinberg, Naess, Devall & Sessions, Roszak, Bateson, Hardin, Illich, and Kaczynski.

The Calling

THE CALLING is a concept poem-book, at once scintillating and inspiring. The stars speak to us. What do they say?

The Soul of Philosophy in a Soulless Age

The Crisis of the Modern World

It is no longer news that the Western world is in a crisis, a crisis that has spread far beyond its point of origin and become global in nature. In 1927, René Guénon responded to this crisis with the closest thing he ever wrote to a manifesto and 'call-to-action'. The Crisis of the Modern World was his most direct and complete application of traditional metaphysical principles-particularly that of the 'age of darkness' preceding the end of the present world-to social criticism, surpassed only by The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, his magnum opus. In the present work Guénon ruthlessly exposes the 'Western deviation': its loss of tradition, its exaltation of action over knowledge, its rampant individualism and general social chaos. His response to these conditions was not 'activist', however, but purely intellectual, envisioning the coming together of Western intellectual leaders capable under favorable circumstances of returning the West to its traditional roots, most likely via the Catholic Church, or, under less favorable ones, of at least preserving the 'seeds' of Tradition for the time to come.

Of Cosmogonic Eros

This monograph is dedicated entirely to an in-depth examination of the mysteries of Eros and the most powerful forms of ecstasy. Here Klages presents a pandaemonic vision of becoming which is inextricably linked to an Eros whose elemental power shatters everyday consciousness and mates the individual to the secrets of the cosmos. The author seeks to restore Eros to his true status and function by carefully distilling his essence against all falsifications and distortions. Showing how Eros is related to Thanatos and integral to every true cultus of the dead and ancestral worship, Klages leaves no doubt that only the Eroto-Gnostic holds the keys to authentic Life and the daemonic empowerment of the Cosmos.

Of Cosmogonic Eros is an indispensable work for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of Eros and ecstasies and the metaphysical conflicts we face in modern times. For researchers and practitioners of Esoteric Traditions and Eroto-Magical systems of spirituality this book must be considered a treasure chest of insights and knowledge. It is a true rune of an Eros of whom Klages says that, “He can be roused while awake as if in the most stupefying dream. He celebrates his orgies beneath the breeze of spring storms, in the light of a star-studded heaven, in a hailstone shower, on a flaming mountain ridge, in the raging surf, in the lightning flash of “first love”, but not least in the embrace of fate that smites its carrier.”

The Science of Character

Ludwig Klages' first work, originally published in 1910.

Anthology: The Biocentric Worldview

This book is a selection of essays and poems by the German philosopher and psychologist, Ludwig Klages. He was a fierce critic of what he saw as the lack of quality in the modern world, which he held to be a product of the false ideas and belief systems of our times. For Klages, the world is divided between forces and ideas that enhance life in all its vigor (such as those of Nietzsche), and those which oppose life by reducing it to mere materialism, and by portraying it as something to be shunned as innately corrupt and evil (such as modern religion). To overcome the life-denying forces, Klages calls for a return to the pagan view of life, and to a direct relationship between humanity and the natural world, and opposition to the destruction of nature by the agents of progress. He also opposed the distortions and falsehoods which he claimed were being propagated by psychoanalysis.

Anthology: Cosmogonic Reflections

This book is a selection of aphorisms and reflections excerpted from the voluminous works of the German philosopher and psychologist, Ludwig Klages. He was a fierce critic of what he saw as the lack of quality in the modern world, which he held to be a product of modern ideas and organised Christianity in our era. For Klages, the world is divided between life-affirming beliefs that venerate nature and those anti-natural forces that promote materialism and rationalism. To overcome these anti-life forces, Klages wished to return European consciousness back to its pagan roots and renew the link between man and sacred nature. He opposed technocratic rationalism, illusions of progress, and democracy, which he believed to be antithetical to true culture. His aphorisms defend paganism and a healthy Eros for a renewed future.

Chthonic Gnosis: Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All

Dr. Gunnar Alksnis

This groundbreaking release is the first authoritative work on Ludwig Klages and his pagan metaphysics ever to be published in English. Without a doubt Klages is one of the most intriguing and enigmatic pagan thinkers of the early 20th Century. A figure of great controversy, he radically rejected Christianity and Monotheism in favor of a pan-daemonic paganism. Advocating the return to primordial states of consciousness through magico-erotic encounters with the living powers of the ensouled cosmos, Klages was a driving force in the notorious Cosmic Circle of German mystics. Thoroughly edited and annotated by David Beth this work by Dr. Gunnar Alksnis features additional essays by Dr. Volker Zotz, successor of Lama Anagarika Govinda and head of the Arya Maitreya Mandala Order of Tantric Buddhism and Prof. Paul Bishop of the University of Glasgow.

Ludwig Klages and the Philosophy of Life

Paul Bishop

This book provides a unique overview of and introduction to the work of the German psychologist and philosopher Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), an astonishing figure in the history of German ideas. Central to intellectual life in turn-of-the-century Munich, he went on to establish a reputation for himself as an original and provocative thinker. Nowadays he is often overlooked, partly because of the absence of an accessible and authoritative introduction to his thought; this volume offers just such a point of entry. With an emphasis on applicability and utility, Paul Bishop reinvigorates the discourse surrounding Klages, providing a neutral and compact account of his intellectual development and his impact on psychology and philosophy.

Spiritual

Tier 7: Modern & Misc.

Re-Engineering Humanity

Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger

Every day, new warnings emerge about artificial intelligence rebelling against us. All the while, a more immediate dilemma flies under the radar. Have forces been unleashed that are thrusting humanity down an ill-advised path, one that's increasingly making us behave like simple machines? In this wide-reaching, interdisciplinary book, Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger examine what's happening to our lives as society embraces big data, predictive analytics, and smart environments. They explain how the goal of designing programmable worlds goes hand in hand with engineering predictable and programmable people. Detailing new frameworks, provocative case studies, and mind-blowing thought experiments, Frischmann and Selinger reveal hidden connections between fitness trackers, electronic contracts, social media platforms, robotic companions, fake news, autonomous cars, and more. This powerful analysis should be read by anyone interested in understanding exactly how technology threatens the future of our society, and what we can do now to build something better.

Misc.

Tier 8: Fiction

The Way Home: Tales from a Life without Technology

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce.

THE WAY HOME is a modern-day Walden ― an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of THE MONEYLESS MAN, explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging and fishing.

What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire – much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

The History of Nicholas & The Oracle of Knowledge

"Translated" from an archaic text recovered long ago, this document/novel explores the pains and fears of both existing within, and escaping from, the Industrial world - in search of some form of freedom and hope for the future. How do we navigate this changing world? How will it change in our absence? How strong will the draw be to return to such a world, and how will our children view the decisions we've made to provide a more wholesome, nature-based future for them?

BUY the physical book for 50% OFF with code "ATC"

Darwin Among the Machines

An article published in The Press newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch, New Zealand, which references the work of Charles Darwin in the title. Written by Samuel Butler but signed Cellarius (q.v.), the article raised the possibility that machines were a kind of "mechanical life" undergoing constant evolution, and that eventually machines might supplant humans as the dominant species.

The article ends by urging that, "War to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race."

Erewhon

Fiction

Ole Martin Moen

A piece critical of Kaczynski. We've included it because it provides a common argument in defense of the technological system which everyone should know well in order to counter.