Our guest for this episode is Ben Etherington, author of Literary Primitivism and the long-form essay The New Primitives, published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the themes of which we discuss in this episode. In this discussion, Ben lays out a nuanced examination of Primitivism, a “mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate ‘primitive’ experience.”
In modern Western societies, the primitivist ideal is expressed though variously—a few examples being recent fads like the Paleo Diet, fitness regimens like barefoot/minimalist running, radical anti-civilizational and anti-technological political philosophies (e.g. the works of anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan, and more controversially, the manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski), as well its themes and affects being represented in popular media. Primitivist themes and aesthetics run through numerous popular films, most notably in James Cameron’s blockbuster film Avatar.
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