Table Of ContentBACKWOODS
aj ournoafal n arcahnydw ortcunning
No. 1 Spring 2018
BACKWOODS
Edited by Bellamy Fitzpatrick, Fera
Sylvain, and Thuggy Whiskers, PhD.
Backwoods is published twice a year
by Enemy Combatant, publishers of
anarchist books and pamphlets, with
an eye to small scale, low-tech, and
natural materials, as much as is
possible within the bowels of leviathan.
Subscriptions are $15/year.
Individual issues are $10 ($5/copy for
10+ copies).
Please send cash or equivalent amount
in postage stamps only (no checks).
Address correspondence, content
submissions, and subscriptions to
Backwoods, PO Box 238, Poestenkill,
NY 12140.
Backwoods may also be obtained from
EC Publications
PO Box 1014,]acksonville, OR 97530.
(Cash or postage stamps only)
Little Black Cart
www.littleblackcart.com
Anti-copyright. Backwoods may be
reprinted at will for non-profit
purposes.
No. 1
Welcomteot heB ackwoodsTh e Editors 2
AnI nvitattoiD oens ertiBoellnam y Fitzptrick 5
PockeotfHs a ppineTsobsy Hemenway in
conversation with Backwoods 27
A ForeGsatr dePnr imer Sylvia Wilde 39
TheG ardePna thK anzan Kitsune 45
OnS ubsist&e Snlcaev eryFe ra Sylvain 49
Reviews 61
AgainSsuts tainabPietleri Ltamyb orn Wilson 72
Welcome to the Backwoods
We are writing Backwoods as a kind of suture in is the critique, the v1s1on, the social ethics; and
journal form, an effort to bring together in reader permaculture is the design, the ecological ethics,
ship and communication two disparate radical the way of reharmonizing ourselves with our
tendencies in North America: those belonging to world. We imagined many others shared our view,
the anarchist milieux and those of the perma elementary as it seemed to us.
culture milieux. We aim to create a platform for As we met more and more radicals over our
dialogue, critique, and inspiration between and continuing lives, however, we were disappointed to
within these sets of radicals and thus bring to the find that our synthesis, while certainly not unique,
fore fresh perspectives on the liberatory possibilities appeared at least to be quite uncommon. The
remaining in this late period of our shared crises in anarchists we met (at least those not mired in some
the bowels of Leviathan, our world-eating and veiled version of Marxism) often had penetrating
enslaving civilization. critiques of society and economy but lacked an
As people who each independently became ecologically-sensible notion of how we could
aware of anarchism and permaculture almost actually live freely and in a profoundly trans
simultaneously in our lives, the two have always formed way -at worst, their theory and praxis was
seemed obviously complementary to us: anarchism confined to an unconscious millenarianism based
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on nothing but the destruction of the existent. through the deliberate undermining of the
Permaculturists we encountered, meanwhile, tended possibility of subsistence outside of the dominant
to have the practical skills for transforming their economy. Finally, our recent essays are juxtaposed
relationships with their habitats and often had the with a transcript of a 2014 interview with late
key recognition that agriculture has been an ex permaculture luminary Toby Hemenway, a wide
ponentially-compounding error lying at the heart ranging conversation on similar themes of looking
of our crisis -yet so many lacked the critical analysis at the roots of our crisis and the possibilities for
necessary to understand how resistance can be liberation.
recuperated into the dominant paradigm and so Moving from critique to praxis, we begin what
blithely imagined permaculture as the means to will be an ongoing column by Sylvia Wilde based
save neoliberalism from its own excesses, as though on learning how to live an autarkic life in direct
making permaculture products become the avant relationship with the land -'A Forest Garden Primer'
garde commodities would make us free. introduces the reader to techniques that will allow
There are, of course, notable exceptions. Those them to provide for their needs while simul
in the green, or anti-civilization, anarchist tendency taneously regenerating the soil and creating habitat
tend to have more ecologically-sophisticated per for nonhuman organisms. Kanzan Kitsune's 'The
spectives; and individuals like David Holmgren Garden Path' gives a poetic glimpse of life on a
and the late Toby Hemenway, major figures in the successful example of such a project in Shizuoka,
permaculture world, also identify or identified as Japan.
anarchists, complete with more penetrating social Finally, we begin what will be a regular feature
critiques. In creating Backwoods, we wish to of reviews by looking at recent publications from
broaden and deepen these crossovers and con the worlds of permaculture and anarchy, and we
nections. We see great opportunities being lost for close with the first in a series of Backpage Rants,
discovering affinity and embarking on shared with our first ranter, Peter Lamborn Wilson, sharing
projects of liberation rooted in an anarchist under his thoughts on the concept of "sustainability."
standing of human social relations and a perma We are greatly interested in dialogue, feed
cultural understanding of ecology and subsistence. back, contributions, and criticism. We also believe
For our first issue, we have devoted much of one of the easiest steps we can take to decrease our
the content to establishing the basics of our theory, dependence on civilization is to refrain from treating
so that we may build upon a mutually-understood the recent advent of the Internet as an inescapable
framework with our readership and contributors in necessity of communication. For these reasons, we
the future. To that end, in 'An Invitation to De ask that correspondence be sent via the at least less
sertion,' Bellamy Fitzpatrick lays out a critique of technologized route of conventional mail:
civilization as a whole way of life dependent on Backwoods, PO Box 238, Poestenkill, NY 12140.
slavery, ecocide, and alienation and sketches the
beginnings of a liberated way of life based on - The Editors
exiting civilization and stopping its reproduction
through daily life. Moving from the general to the
specific, Fera Sylvain writes in 'On Subsistence
and Slavery' about how the managers of civilization
in Britain during the industrial revolution and the
abolition of African chattel slavery developed a
new form of more subtle, sublimated exploitation
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An Invitation to Desertion
Bellamy Fitzpatrick
Backwoods is an invitation to those who can hear fluence. Such social relations are poisonous to all
it, those who already know that something is involved, being based on venality and coercion,
deeply false and diseased about our way of life and ridiculous commodity fetishism, and the death of
who are looking for fellowship in truly confronting real human community through domination and
our crisis. This crisis is not one of surface issues, atomization.
something that can be remedied with either well II. We denounce the world-eating mode of sub
intentioned social reform or rational tinkering with sistence known as agriculture, with its effacement
economic organization - it instead lies at the very of ecosystems and their replacement with human
core of our way of life: our values, our relations, domesticates, as a fundamental human error, one
and our ways of seeing the world. We are living generative of mass extinction, soil exhaustion, war,
through a great derangement, the ecocidal and and overpopulation.
immiserating culture of Leviathan, in which the III. We refuse the techno-industrial logic that treats
majority are possessed by a slavish and con the beautiful tapestry of the living world as just so
sumerist ethic, a profound alienation from the non much grist for the mill, as an unliving "resource" to
human world, and a deep confusion built on cultural be "developed" -that is, to be endlessly plundered
lies. and paved, extirpated of life, and replaced by
This piece is an introduction to the theory parking lots, factory farms, waste dumps, extraction
motivating Backwoods. As theory is thea, "a view," sites, and our apartment complexes and offices that
and horan "to see" (Online Etymology Dictionary), fittingly resemble battery cages.
we are talking here of a whole way of seeing, an IV. We reject the meaninglessness of modernity
understanding of the world and how to act meaning that has produced perhaps the most humiliated,
fully within it. It is presented as an antidote to the dislocated, deskilled, distracted, lonely, unhealthy,
reigning ideology of neoliberal republicanism, and unloved people that have ever lived.
aiming to delve into the roots of our crisis so as to V. We champion anarchy: the freedom that comes
understand how to live as much as possible outside from conscious self-ownership and voluntary re
it and against it. Our ethos will be explicated further lations of mutuality with our human and nonhuman
in this piece and developed continually throughout kin in small, autarkic, face-to-face communities
this journal, but, briefly, it is the following: based in a regenerative relationship with the land
I. We indict the Civilization of Leviathan as a truly and the whole of the nonhuman world.
insane way of life predicated on the creation of States VI. We call for the application of knowledge
to enforce the enslavement of the many so that the gained from both traditional wisdom and modern
parasitic few may acquire absurd wealth and in- ecology to the pursuit of modes of subsistence that
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are harmonious with the world that sustains us: want to live and what values we want to pursue.
foraging, hunting, fishing, and forest gardening. Most of us eat food from grocery stores or
VII. We espouse a Neo-Luddism that consists of restaurants, grown in distant places we will never
eschewing toxic and stupefying technologies, see under unknown and uncontrollable conditions.
learning well-rounded skill sets for furnishing a We rent or take out a mortgage to find a home we
living, and exploring and reviving traditional did not build with neighbors we did not choose
knowledge, skills, and forms of healing. and must labor immediately and continually to pay
VIII. We embrace the vivacity of deeply eco for it. After going from place to place to beg for
logically harmonious ways of life and the sense of the opportunity to sell our time, touting our value
place, presence, and fulfillment that comes from with a piece of paper that summarizes how
nourishing and being nourished by an enveloping, compliant and productive we are, we are rewarded
living world full of consciousness and agency. by surrendering what is produced with our labor,
To begin communicating our philosophy to how our labor is performed, and what is done with
those who can hear it, this invitation to the de the product afterward.
sertion of Leviathan's entrails will consist of: 1. a The cycle of life seems to confront us like a
brief examination of our crisis, which occurs at the blurred, harried race. From childhood, most of us
levels of human social relations, broader eco are indoctrinated in compulsory government- or
logical relations, and within the mind of the indi corporate-run schools where we are taught false or
vidual; 2. a frank recognition of the fact that the misleading histories, trained to be obedient to
political realities of modern nation-states mean they closely measured linear time, and inured to peer
can only perpetuate the crisis, not rectify it; 3. a competition in the performance of duties issued by
short analysis of the alternative political ideologies authority. In adolescence, through schooling,
of the Left and the Right, revealing that they, too, socializing, and propaganda, most of us adopt the
are incapable of addressing the heart of the issues religious, secular, and/or political ideologies with
afflicting us; 4. a look at anarchism, the most which we are bombarded that make our reality
radical political tendency, and how even most of seem desirable, appropriate, or at least inevitable.
its forms fall short of our goals; 5. an introduction Besides the jockeying for selling one's labor
to the theory of anti-civilization anarchy on which mentioned above, what is called success in
Backwoods is based; 6. and, finally, a first glimpse adulthood for many is vying to exchange the terror
of the implications for praxis of our perspective: of being alone for the sanctioned isolation of the
desertion, autarky, and reinhabitation. nuclear family, that reproductive unit that allows
the cycle to begin anew. Elderhood completes this
The Crisis of Modern Civilization humiliation, as one's inability or unwilingness to
The vast majority of human beings living on Earth continue laboring often means increasing social
today have extremely little control over their lives irrelevance and impotence that commonly ends in
and shared world. The ways in which we eat, gain being tended to like an invalid by hired strangers.
shelter, and make a living are largely decided for What is commonly called our freedom consists
us, overdetermined by existing social norms that of only the most trivial and useless forms of
we can influence only minutely, allowing us only a freedom: the freedom to vote for some of one's
little room to maneuver in decisions about how we rulers among predetermined and highly similar
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political candidates, the freedom to choose among positive feedback loops that, once triggered, will
commodities that shriek at us with their labels and unavoidably bring about dramatic temperature
advertisements, the freedom to escape presence in rises within the next few decades (Hall), and even
one's own life through a vast menagerie of the minimal goals of the more optimistic are not
pornography, television series, films, and - most being met (Shibli).
recently, at the furthest outposts of moronizing As without, so within: the human psyche is
innovation -virtual reality and sex robots. collapsing as surely as the biosphere by which it is
As we modern slaves - for we do, as we shall nourished. Depression, "the number one psycho
see, truly deserve that perhaps inflammatory title - logical disorder in the western world", abounds,
struggle to assert some sense of agency in our own afflicting more than 17% of Americans. Since the
lives, the wider world engulfs us as a vast and inception of unmitigated consumerism in the mid-
variegated, almost unfathomable crisis. Our crisis 20th century, there are an estimated ten times as
is multifarious, a web of interrelated and mutually many people suffering from depression, with the
reinforcing subcrises - ecological, social, eco incidence more than doubling in the past twenty
nomic, psychic, philosophical - that not only years (Pietrangelo, Elliott and Tyrrell), leading
immiserate our lives and poison our bodies, but, at some psychologists to bluntly acknowledge de
this late stage, now threaten the integrity of the pression as the quintessential "disease of modernity,"
whole biosphere, that complex association of as "humans have dragged a body with a long
organisms and their habitats that encompasses the hominid history into an overfed, malnourished,
Earth and gives to it the richness of life in its sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, com
beautifully simultaneous unity and diversity. petitive, inequitable, and socially-isolating en
Our ecological crisis is one of accelerating vironment with dire consequences." (Hidaka).
biocide that nearly defies imagination. Because of Fewer than one in five sufferers even seek help or
our technopathological culture of agriculture, acknowledge their condition - misery, perhaps, is
urbanicity, and industrialism, species are going seen as the norm as we expect less and less from
extinct at a rate one thousand times faster than the life (Real).
normal, background rate (De Vos et al.). Fore Suicide, depression's catastrophic end, is the
bodingly, only the great mass extinctions in the eighth-highest cause of death and also on the rise
history of the Earth compare to this rate of death, - among the middle-aged, it rose thirty percent
and the signs of its severity surround us. The soils from 1999 to 2010 (Elliott and Tyrrell). Un
are becoming lifeless (Moss and Scheer) and doubtedly, one of the most appropriate symbols of
washing into the sea (World Economic Forum), our time is the presence of nets below bridges and
when they are not being entombed beneath windows that cannot be opened on tall office
pavement (Brown). The oceans are becoming acidic buildings and hotels: the social planners anticipate
(NOAA), devoid of coral (Eyre et al.), and emptied the broken, hollowed-out worker or customer who
of fish (Tanzer, et al.). The air is becoming in decides one lonely night to finally end their
creasingly carcinogenic (WHO) and extinguished existence, and they deny them even that freedom.
of insects (Hallmann et al.). The more pessimistic Meanwhile, empathy, that essentially human
of climatologists are currently suggesting that we capacity to feel what others feel, has fallen at an
may be very near or past the point of setting off accelerating rate in recent decades, while narcissism,
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the defensive enclosure of the self by a false elite are, variously, either so convinced of the
persona (Vaknin), has increased during the same greatness of their lifeway or so mendaciously self
period. This psychic bleaching is attributed by serving that they forcibly spread the gospel of
researchers to widespread social changes: an in "freedom and democracy" to foreign lands through
creased interest in accruing wealth, decreased wars for "regime change."
frequency of reading, increased social isolation, Even among believers in legitimate political
fewer friendships, and, of course, a greatly in authority - that is, those who believe it is ap
creased use of technological gadgets (Konrath et propriate and desirable to have rulers so long as
al, Kristol, Zaki). those rulers are good and just - rampant political
corruption is an open secret, a fact recognized by
The Politics of "The End of History" the everyperson in quotidian conversation. The
To those who take our shared crisis seriously, the ancient habits of graft, influence peddling, em
politics of the status quo can offer no true solution. bezzlement, and other forms of corruption are not
More than that, the very existence of politics, as a only alive, but thriving - they are a perpetual, in
specialized activity separated from life, is itself a herent feature of a democratic republic, which
manifestation of the crisis: it is the willed ab merely selects for ambitious, venal demagogues
dication of the many from responsibility over their who engage in these practices rather than, as it is
own lives and shared world; it is the modern often imagined, preventing their rise. In our pre
secular theology (Schmitt), in which one begs for sent era, the thinness of political legitimacy has
deliverance by a vast and invisible being known as reached the point that politicians routinely make
the State through the prayer of voting; and it is, of speeches in which they deride the political process
course, the province of one of the parasitic classes itself and openly refer to others as bought-and
we call politicians, the professionalized caretakers paid-for political careerists. In this light, when it is
of the dysfunctional social order. often lamented by political commentators that only
The dominant ideology of the modern political about half of the US population eligible to vote
class flows from celebrated political scientist chooses to do so, we might instead ask why so many
Francis Fukuyama's laughably millenarian decla people still believe that we can be saved by getting
ration in 1989 that we had achieved "the end of the right people into office.
history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's Indeed, the utter emptiness of the political
ideological evolution and the universalization of process is lain bare from a cursory examination of
Western liberal democracy as the final form of the past few decades of U.S. presidential and
human government" (Fukuyama). Fukuyama's in congressional elections, during which the two
tellectual descendants, the neoconservatives and dominant parties have repeatedly traded power, but
neoliberals who now dominate both major political nothing whatsoever has been done to forestall the
parties of the United States, congratulate them implementation of newer forms of naked authori
selves on ruling a society whose highest virtue is tarianism: murder by drone via presidential edict,
accruing wealth by plundering the living world and aggressive persecution of journalists and whistle
climbing to the top of corporate slave hierarchies blowers, the incarceration without trial and sub
in the ritualized, pacified war of all against all that sequent torture of perceived enemies, the nearly
we euphemize as "the free market". This ideology's ubiquitous surveillance of the population, the
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