When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics

by John Zerzan

These are dark and darkening times, challenging us to look deeper to grasp the roots and dynamics of the looming civilizational crisis. Chronic illness of the planet calls for radically new thinking if there is to be any hope of renewal. When We Are Human offers thought at a necessary and primal level.

All previous civilizations have failed, and now there's just one global civilization, which is starkly, grandly failing. To deny or avoid this fact is to remain in the sphere of the superficial, the irrelevant. The physical environment is reaching the catastrophe stage as the seas warm, rise, acidify, and fill with plastics. Icebergs ahead and floating past beachgoers idly watching the planet die.

So much is failing, so much is interrelated in the technosphere of ever-greater dependence and estrangement. Social existence, now strangely isolated, is beset by mass shootings, rising suicide rates, slipping longevity, loneliness, anxiety, and the maddening stream of lies and concocted politics.

Zerzan trains his passionate focus on several fields of discourse: anthropology, history, philosophy, technology, psychology, and the spiritual. Points of light that become a kaleidoscope refracting new insights and contributing an overall picture of late civilization.

Genres: History

252 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 2021

About the author

American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author.

His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like.

Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.

Reviews

[Douglas]

Definitely a collection of notes. Well-read individual with snippets of wisdom pieced together in thematic chapters. Lacking in cohesion and unity yet his material may lead you to read something else by him or the many referenced authors.

[Kazimirko]

The most enjoyable of Zerzan's works so far. It's not just a bundle of his typical information-dense long essays, this book is also filled with short meditations/notes on various topics - very refreshing. These notes are more personal and less rigid, and provide better insights into his thinking, something I'd love to see him do more; they're a bit like his columns for Eugene Weekly he recently started writing. At the end (last 50 pages) a conversation from Oak Journal, a very cool anti-civ project, is featured.

One more thing I'll note: he had some yikesy takes on autism in one of the chapters, but has since publically apologised on the 07/20/2021 episode of his show Anarchy Radio.

Otherwise, I absolutely love this book.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another fantastic collection of essays from Zerzan. His depth of focus is astounding, drawing on everything from current events to art history and philosophy to plead his case against modern civilization makes for entirely engaging reading.

[Savvas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sharp and down to earth perspectives but a bit too much quoting and reference which makes less of a cohesive text per chapter.