John Zerzan

John Zerzan, 2010

John Zerzan (* 1943 in Salem , Oregon ) is an American writer, media artist , anarchist and a central figure of primitivism in the United States.

In his work, he criticizes civilization as inherently oppressive and contrasts the forms of life with prehistoric populations as a symbol of a free society. In part, his criticism goes so far as to reject domestication, language , symbolic thinking (such as mathematics and art ) and the concept of time . His four major publications include: Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Against Civilization: A Reader (1998), and Running on Emptiness (2002).

Life

Zerzan, the son of Czech immigrants, completed a degree in history , a bachelor's degree from Stanford University , and a master's degree from San Francisco State University. He did not finish the doctoral thesis he had started at the University of Southern California .

In the 1960s, he was arrested for civil disobedience while participating in an anti- Vietnam War march at Berkeley University . Zerzan was sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment and served in the Alameda County Jail. He then decided that he would never again take prison terms of his own free will, insofar as it was in his power. In those years he was friends with Ken Kesey and the " Merry Pranksters ", as well as the music and intoxication scene in what was then San Francisco and " Haight-Ashbury ".

As a leftist at the time, he worked as a social worker for the California state in the late 1960s . Frustrated by the working and living conditions of a poorly paid employee, he campaigned for the establishment of a union for the public sector, was elected its vice-president in 1968 and its head one year later. However, the local Situationist group insulted him as a "left bureaucrat". Despite everything, he sympathized with the situationism surrounding the French writer and action artist Guy Debord .

While the student and hippie movements weakened and lost their influence in the 1970s, Zerzan became addicted to alcohol. The climax and turning point of his addiction is said to be an event in which he is said to have burned his furniture in a square in San Francisco. After that he is said to have shifted back to writing for anarchist periodicals.

Zerzan was one of the editors of the magazine Green Anarchy, which was published biannually until 2008 . He is also the head behind Anarchy Radio in Eugene at the KWVA campus radio station. He is a contributor to magazines like Adbusters . As a speaker he toured the world on occasion. Zerzan is married to an archivist from the University of Oregon and now lives near Eugene .

Fonts

• Twilight of the Machines . Los Angeles: Feral House, 2008. ISBN 1-932595-31-7 or ISBN 978-1-932595-31-4
• Running on emptiness: the pathology of civilization . Los Angeles, California: Feral House; London: Turnaround, 2002. 320 pp. ISBN 0-922915-75-X
• Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections . Uncivilized Books, 1999. ISBN 0-9667758-0-5 or ISBN 978-0-9667758-0-8 (Enlarged edition, Feral House, 2005. ISBN 0-922915-98-9 or ISBN 978-0-922915 -98-9 )
• Future primitive and other essays . Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, c1994. ISBN 1-57027-000-7
• Alice Carnes & John Zerzan: Questioning Technology: A Critical Anthology: Tool, Toy or Tyrant? . New Society Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-86571-205-0 or ISBN 978-0-86571-205-8
• Elements of refusal . 1988 and 1999 (2nd Ed.) Columbia, Mo .: Paleo Editions, c1999. 308 pp. ISBN 1-890532-01-0
• G. Munis, John Zerzan: Unions against revolution: two essays . Detroit: Black & Red; Chicago: New Space, 1975.

Literature / films about John Zerzan

• “Surplus or Consumer Terror”, documentary by Erik Gandini , ARTE TV France / Sweden 2003, first broadcast on September 4, 2004; Received the “ Silver Wolf Award ” at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam .

Web links

Commons : John Zerzan  - Collection of Images

• "G 8 reloaded": art commercials against "consumer terror"
• Interview with John Zerzan from September 14, 2000 in the Weltwoche