A picture says a thousand words.

A while back an anonymous person mailed me a giant rock with an insulting remark attached to it. I interpreted it as a form of intimidation and I called the police. They sped over to my house, took finger prints off the rock, crime scene photos, interviewed all of my neighbors and roommates, interrogated the Fedex employees, ran the prints through the database, enhanced the security video feed to get a perfect image of the perps face and put an APB out across America. They apprehended the suspect almost instantaneously and imprisoned them for the rest of eternity, justice served.

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Poseur Hipster Douchebag or Inner-Dimensional Reptilian Shape-Shifter?

I’ve had a couple people ask me lately if I “believe in aliens”. This subject used to fascinate me as a child. I read all about UFO’s, exhausting the school library and moving onto the public library. I even spotted a few of them hovering above my elementary school. I had a passion for anything paranormal. Later in life that translated more to the spiritual side and towards animism. These days I hardly think about aliens, so when someone asked me if I believed in them I had to think about it for a second.

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Gabe, a commenter on my blog, asked me this:

Scout, and others who are identifying “community” as a key missing component in our collective journey toward rewilding, I ask you: how can we (rewild-minded folks) live INSIDE the system now, and in satisfying numbers, and create the community we need to, if not live outside the system for legit fear of getting murdered en masse, offer support to one another on a day-to-day level? I’m talking about intentional community. I’m not talking about a final cultural solution – I’m talking about a solid step in the right direction; toward community.

Anyone? Why are we not living in community now? Are we addicted to isolation?

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In the past couple of weeks I killed my first mammals. One, a rat I trapped without watching die, which felt strange and distant. For a deeper understanding of killing, I killed a rabbit at a rabbit slaughtering and butchering class this last week. I’ve often written about how I don’t see a difference in the killing of plants or animals. That both deserve equal respect. However, killing these mammals both changed and solidified my emotional experience and logical interpretation of killing.

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I struggle with alcoholism. I sometimes have the urge to get completely fucked up drunk. At one time in my life I smoked more than half a pack of cigarettes a day. I sometimes binge on television shows and don’t leave the house for days, just watching entire seasons without so much as stepping out of my bedroom to take a piss or even eat a meal. I do this also with video games. I check my facebook way too much, even when I know I probably don’t have any reason to. Okay, so I’ll admit it. I have an addiction to certain aspects of civilization.

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Inevitably those-who-rewild will find themselves attacked as hypocrites by those who don’t understand rewilding: “If you hate civilization so much, why don’t you go live in the woods?” “You hate technology, but there you sit waiting for people to comment on your latest facebook status update.” “You want to live like a hunter-gatherer but you buy all your food at the grocery store!” “You talk shit on mainstream media, but you watch television!” And on, and on and on.

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The mentality of colonization runs deep in our culture, particularly deep in those who benefit the most from the colonization. While I like to think of myself as a non-racist, I still have the mindset of the colonizer that prevents me from seeing my own racism and prejudice. For a while now I’ve grappled with this. I think one of the first steps in de-colonizing my mind involved recognizing that I live on stolen land. This scared the hell out of me.
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I have a lot of friends and family. The great majority of them know nothing about rewilding. Many consider themselves Christians, Mormons, Atheists, Democrats, Republicans, etc. I want to make the point here that I don’t base my relationships on whether or not someone has an interest in rewilding or even understands anything about it. Obviously I lean towards rewilding friends, but I don’t require it. Why do I remain friends with these people? Because I don’t act like an insane fundamentalist asshole.

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A few weeks back I went to a anarchist curated fundraiser for an anti-civilization film. In lieu of my recent “fan mail” and the overall attacks I get from green anarchists, I’m very apprehensive about going to these kinds of events, but I wanted to show my support for the film and meet the filmmaker. I didn’t stay long. Why, in a room full of people who generally agree more or less with me about civilization, did I feel like I stood in the lions den? On my drive home I realized that the activist (and particularly anarchist) community that I have known and experienced has felt like a hate culture.

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Whenever I get to talking about how fucked up this culture is and how much it is fucking up the planet, someone inevitably writes me off as just preaching doom and gloom without “realistic” solutions. Generally what they actually mean is solutions [sic] that will prevent them from having to fundamentally change the way they live their life.

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For a long time now I’ve used this blog to post up angry rants about random topics, generally relating to rewilding in some way or other. I’ve realized something in the last few days that is blowing my mind: I’m fucking sick of “rewilding.” Yes that’s right folks. I’ve had it up to here with the word rewilding.

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A power system sits in place that keeps the rich rich and the poor poor. This power system lies outside of most people’s perception because we grow up in it, never knowing anything different, never seeing it articulated but understanding it down to our bones. It feels as natural to us as drinking a glass of water. This power structure keeps us as slaves, forced to continue building civilization. Without empire civilization could not, would not exist.

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Seriously, topics like this bore the shit out of me and I shouldn’t even have to write about this. But because it happens so frequently, I thought I should. The other day some asshole posted a few comments on my blog calling me a hypocrite (among other things) for watching television. I deleted their comments. A little later they started posting comments about how I had “censored” them.

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*this is an out-dated version of this concept. I’ve revised it off the web and will repost it later.*

In the same vain as Primitive Skills Vs. Rewilding, permaculture does not encompass a world view change away from civilization. In fact, I see permaculture more often than not used as an example of how to save civilization from collapse. As much as it may seem like this essay means to attack permaculture, I actually think permaculture works great as a starting point for learning indigenous horticultural practices and preparing yourself for the collapse of civilization by disconnecting yourself from the industrial food economy. I read and practice permacultural principles and base my garden plans from them! I have a copy of Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden on my shelf. [/disclaimer]

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Philosophically I loathe pacifism, because instinctively, I would never even consider it. Yet, reflexively I enact pacifism when attacked, threatened or intimidated. After practicing something long enough, you can re-train your reflexes. I have pacifist values, not because I want to or chose to, but because of my training from early childhood in civilization and specifically, in school. We learn to never fight back or we will receive worse than what we gave. This training needs to stop, now. We need to rewild our relationship to violence.

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For the most part, I consider myself an optimist. I find it funny that a lot of people label me as a pessimist because I advocate for the collapse of civilization. When I say “civilization will collapse no matter what we do,” rather than see that as an opportunity for something new, they file it away under “doom and gloom.” I think these people have it all backwards.

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Depression ain’t just for the economy. It sucks. I haven’t felt this depressed since age 20. At least, I haven’t felt noticeably this depressed since age 20. Age 21-24 I self-medicated using alcohol and cigarettes so I can’t clearly say what I felt during that time. But now, I don’t medicate at all, legal, illegal, prescribed or otherwise. I drink coffee for the occasional boost, like right now, in order to write this.

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Humans have a long history of teaching social taboos through jokes irony, sarcasm, and mockery showing us what we do not find as acceptable behavior. Such comic geniuses as Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David know this too well, their narcissistic characters always breaking social taboos and looking like assholes. In Farley Mowats “People of the Deer” I recall a moment where he drew a picture of a deer smoking a pipe, to which the intuits laughed hysterically! I think this kind of ridiculousness encapsulates the humor in irony and mockery. It has a kind of innocence to it; it looks silly for a deer to do human things, just as it looks silly for a human to mimic deer things. We laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, whether we see a deer smoking a pipe or Larry David not bringing a gift to Ben Stiller’s birthday party.

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No one knows what the future will bring, but this we know: Civilizations destroy the land. Our civilization won’t last much longer. A movement known as rewilding has started against civilization. This movement has a frontier and we live in it.

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Do hunter-gatherers have religion? That question makes about as much sense as asking if hunter-gatherers had language, science or art. Of course they did. Although their religions looked vastly different than the religions (and science & art) that we see today in civilization.

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I can’t help but feel like many people still have purist values when it comes down to understanding rewilding. I often hear people say “if you want to rewild, shouldn’t you go live out in the wilderness!?” Rewilding means un-doing domestication. Cities mark the most domesticated places in the world. Rewilding in the city has no contradictory values; it just means more work in some ways, less in others.

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Guilt refers to the feeling we have when we make decisions that go against personal, cultural and mythological pressures. It feels like not doing what you “should” do. It works as one of the most powerful tools of social and cultural renewal. I do not think of guilt as a “bad” thing. I see it as a tool we need to understand. Rewilding goes against all of our life-long civilized programming. Anything we do to rewild could make us feel guilty. Of course, the culture of rewilding creates a new paradigm in which continuing to live in civilization would make us feel guilty since we know that civilization kills biodiversity. In a sense, rewilding involves crossing a threshold into two worlds. This creates a split cultural psyche, leaving us with weird schizophrenic behaviors; feeling both guilty for leaving civilization and guilty for not having left enough.

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“Federal officials have called for killing about 30 sea lions near Bonneville Dam each year to keep them from gobbling a rising share of Northwest salmon that the government spends millions of dollars to protect.”
- The Oregonian Friday, January 18, 2008

Dear salmon. I have a confession to make. When I worked as a production assistant for television commercials, a friend called me for a job… on a political campaign advertisement.

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People have called me many names:

Self-serving new-age nihilistic pseudo-hippie/yuppie quack-opportunist poseur-hipster-douchebag green-capitalist-bastard egotistical-celebrity-anarchist tool that gives everyone douchechills with a BS agenda, a trust fund from granny, and an obsession with publicity.

A poster of Meta-filter asked the question: Urban Scout, sincere crusader for sustainability or poseur-hipster-douchebag?

Much of what I do involves performance art, so you could label me a poseur. I dress in (what I think look like) hip clothes, so you could call me a hipster. I often make egotistical jokes about myself and others, I could see why someone would call me a douchebag. On top of that I sincerely teach rewilding skills to people and educate people on the ills of agriculture. My life revolves around teaching sustainability. So you could call me a sincere crusader for sustainability. Can’t I have all of these qualities simultaneously? This “one or the other” mentality reflects back to artistotles “is” of identity; you can only “be” A or B, not both.

This question (although intellectually incoherent) haunts me because of the sheer number of people who attack me using this aristolian logic. Most often people say that I “talk” more than I “walk” without thinking about the importance and need for talking about things. People need to understand this stuff. I sacrifice my own relationship with nature by sitting inside thinking and writing so that people will learn why civilization doesn’t work and what does work. I get off on thinking about this stuff and writing so I don’t think of myself as a martyr. It just really upsets me when people don’t see the value of talking about things. I keep talking because of the shit I see in the media projecting a fucked up world view.

George Bush Jr. said during his State of the Union Address:

America is leading the fight against global hunger. Today, more than half the world’s food aid comes from the United States. And tonight, I ask Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, so we can build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine. (Audience Applause.) [emphasis added]

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I owe almost everything I know about rewilding language to my friend, author and teacher Willem Larsen from the College of Mythic Cartography, from the day he introduced me to “ePrime” to more currently as his obsession with animist languages sends reverberations through the rewilding community with his invention of “ePrimitive” an even further in depth attempt at rewilding English. No one has done a more thorough investigation and experimentation into this than Willem Larsen. No one. We all owe him a great deal of gratitude. I feel honored to have helped Willem get his thoughts in this first ever accumulated work.

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[youtube D7MxcT11Fvg]

You heard right folks, the next installment of Urban Scout’s anti-vegan brigade! Inspiration for the following tirade came from, once again, the Willamette Week in which they interviewed an animal rights activist in the “hot seat.”

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One day my friend Tony and I decided to see if we could make a bow-drill from scratch at a local park we traveled to often. We played around in the log jam for a few minutes and gathered up all the pieces we needed. All but cordage, which would involve more labor. I knew where a small patch of nettle grew and we decided to venture over to the patch, since nettle bark makes great cordage. However, just at the end of the log jam I saw an unfamiliar weed growing up through the rotten limbs.

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The following stories about so-called anarchists come from completely subjective experiences that I have had (and a few others), with particular anarchists over a period of time. I do not mean to insult all those who label themselves as anarchists, but question the label when I have seen the culture or scene of “anarchists” act thusly.

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Since its inception civilization has created a value system of good vs. evil. The concept of good and evil (or the more scientific “right” and “wrong,” seems to permeate so much of our thought, that we have projected it onto indigenous mythologies as well. “Surely the notion of good and evil comes from human nature, not culture!” Perhaps if we look deeper, we may see that the notion of good and evil live and die with a culture of destruction.

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In our culture, the young and the elderly experience perhaps the worst amount of prejudice and abuse. Living with abusive parents, families and forced into schooling where the system coerces us to do what it tells us than dumped in nursing homes and forgotten. Oppression among the young and old happens so often and looks so normal to us, most people don’t even see it as oppression. Of course, children and old people don’t get a voice in this culture. As you age you see a positive progression up the hierarchy; as an adult you forget the oppression as you accept the benefits that come with growing older. Once you reach a certain age, you once again receive oppression as a senior citizen.

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When I think of “resistance movements” I envision a small group of people resisting against a much larger and all-powerful militarized machine. To think of civilization as an all-powerful death machine, the idea of resisting makes me feel small and paralyzed. But when viewed through the eyes of rewilding, resistance looks and feels very different.

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I have always used the term primitive skills to refer to things like making hand-made tools such as the bow and arrow or the the social systems such as tribal organization or educational systems such as mentoring or body skills such as heightening senses or rituals such as giving thanks to the landbase. After spending several days at Rabbitstick Rendezvous (the oldest primitive skills gathering in the country), I figured out why I get a funny feeling when I tell people that I practice “primitive skills.”

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An Open Letter to the City Repair Project, from your not-so-friendly, collapse-wary, hard-up Urban Scout.

Dear The City Repair Project,

You don’t really know me, but I know you. I have to say, it took me a while to get up the nerve to write this letter. But after sitting for several months now and seeing your ugly cob structures sit empty of people, and watching my savings go faster than a cup of Stumptown Coffee, I finally feel filled up with an insane jealous rage as to why the fuck you get so much funding for your bullshit cob projects and I can’t seem to scrape up a single penny.
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I get made fun of for looking like a hipster all the time. I care a lot about my image and I feel no guilt or lack of purity for feeling that way. I take showers, I shave, I dress in clothes that I think look cool and match the aesthetic I see as “hip.” Of course, any group of culture or sub-culture has their specific way of dress that allows people to recognize which culture or sub-culture a person belongs to. Image reflects your culture. It does not define it.

I’ve noticed many people, including myself become wrapped up in the idea that because many indigenous cultures had sustainable subsistence strategies that means all of their customs will work for everyone. Though I’ve found it easy to jump to this conclusion as I rewild, I have also found it more and more limiting; just because native cultures did it, doesn’t mean it will work for us people-who-rewild.

I can hear the conversation with my mom in my head. It goes like this:

“Peter, why do you wear that loin cloth, you just look ridiculous in it!”

“Mooooom! I told you, when I wear the loin cloth call me Urban Scout! You’ll embarrass me!”

“Oh, oh… Sorry honey.”

“I wear it because primitive peoples do, and I want to live like them.”

“Okay ‘Scout,’ and if primitive people jumped off a bridge…? I mean what do you plan to practice next, Cannibalism?!?”

“Of course not,” and then under my breath, “…I mean, not yet.”

“What did you say?”

“Huh?”

“That last part? Did you say something else?”

“What? Oh I just mean, yeah totally. No, What?”

“Huh? Oh, Not. Nothing. I thought you said something.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, but do you see what I mean? Just because some primitive people wore a loin cloth doesn’t mean you have to too.”

But seriously, I see this everywhere. It seems many people have begun to generalize indigenous customs, “indigenous peoples did X,” to justify their own. I even found this when I recently read the Crimethinc “Hunter-Gatherer” zine. Don’t get me wrong, I love Crimethinc and I enjoyed the majority of the zine. But I couldn’t help but feel extremely irritated with the following text:

One Million Years of d.i.y. punk!

For over 50,000 years, our ancestors didn’t shave their legs or armpits or wear deodorant. They scavenged food like modern trash-pickers do, traveled like hitchhikers riding rivers and hopping ocean currents around the world, celebrated life with folk music made by their friends, passed down culture they devised. You bet some of them had dreadlocks, some homemade tattoos and scarification, some patches proclaiming their allegiances.

There used to be as many humans as there are punk rockers, now.

“See how cool we… look. See our dreds? Smell our B.O.? See how we “forage” in dumpsters? Don’t we just act sooo indigenous/primitive!” …Hey Crimethinc, you forgot to say 50,000 years of DIY man/boy love! Check this out:

Gilbert Herdt (1981, 1984a, 1987, 1990) and other anthropologists have reported on a pederastic puberty ritual shared by 30 to 50 Melanesian and New Guinea cultures that may be historically related to similar practices that developed among aboriginal Australians some 10,000 years ago. The focus of intense speculation by anthropologists and fierce opposition from Western governments and missionaries, these ritualized homosexual relationships are a necessary part of the coming-of-age training for boys. Their basis is the belief that boys do not produce their own semen and must get it from older men by “drinking semen,” i.e., playing the recipient role in oral-genital sex or anal sex before puberty and during adolescence. This is the opposite of the traditional Western view in which the recipient (insertee) of anal or oral sex is robbed of his manhood.[1]

Oh my God. NAMBLA acts sooo much more indigenous than punk rockers! Since Portland filmmaker Gus Van Sant has drank “man’s milk” and I have not (well, I did taste my own once), does that mean he should have a blog about rewilding and I should shut the fuck up? That makes no fucking sense at all. People all around the world, civilized and not, practice a multitude of customs.

Why does this paragraph frustrate me so much? Two reasons.

1. To make the generalizing statement, “For over 50,000 years our ancestors didn’t shave their legs or wear deodorant,” implies that all indigenous cultures didn’t have beautification rituals that involved hair removal and body scenting. That doesn’t hold true at all, since we know many cultures, i.e. the Iroquois, plucked all of their body hair using clam shells. Also, we know indigenous people scent themselves with things like lavender, rosemary, etc. I guess the statement above probably holds true in one sense; they didn’t use the industrial produced Mach3 razor or Teen Spirit. But the comment, in the context with the other general statements makes it clear the author wants to justify why so many DIY punk kids stink and have hairy bodies.

You know the kids with the hippie “natural” look? In reality it has nothing to do with a “natural” look, since we know that many “natural” human cultures had highly maintained beautification. It really translates to the “no maintenance” look. They stink, have scraggly beards or leg hair, shaggy, nappy hair, with raggedy clothes hanging off their bodies by a thread. They might live on the anarcho-punk end of the spectrum or the pacifist-hippie end, they may wear all black, with dirt smears on their face and have steal-toed boots (how did they pay for those?!?) or they may have patchy, colorful chords with overly-large, tie dye shirts and hemp sandals.

The funniest part to me about the “no maintenance” look involves how much maintenance it actually takes! Seriously, I know because I used to dress that way for a time. It takes a lot of work to look like you don’t care. So why not look like you do care, since you obviously care a lot? Why do you want to look like you do not care? Does looking like you don’t care make you cool or something?

2. The second reason I feel frustrated comes from this misinformation presenting a superficial reason for rewilding. It distracts us from the important reasons we yearn for the indigenous lifestyle; meeting the needs of the environment, culture and individual. What makes the indigenous lifestyle attractive in the most general sense, does not involve their rituals, style of dress, level of cleanliness, sexual practices, etc. By contaminating the mythology and taking us away from the subsistence strategies of indigenous people, to the more superficial layer of image, we find ourselves never fully getting what we need. No number of sweat lodges or dreadlocks or home-made folk songs will give us the subsistence strategy of hunting and gathering that meets the needs of all three elements mentioned above. They may keep those strategies alive once practiced, but they don’t act as the strategies themselves.

Picking trash carries the same spirit as indigenous foragers, (living in the hands of the gods) but not the same function in terms of meeting the needs of the environment; picking trash does not make the ecosystem healthier because the mechanisms that create the trash in the first place come from the larger destructive culture. While it may feel better than working as a slave in the pyramid, it does not help the ecosystem the way a hunter-gatherer culture would.

Both of these irritations create a “radder than thou” personification of those in the anarcho-primitivist-punk scene. “We act sooo much more primitive than you do, with your clean shaven face, pressed slacks, and pop music collection.” Basically it amounts to scenester trash. It only serves to alienate other people to the true ideology of indigenous living because of its falsified, superficial layer of a appearance. If the culture of anarcho-primitivism involves having repugnant dreadlocks and noxious armpits, you can count me out!

Wearing buckskin clothes or a loin cloth doesn’t make you a native. Wearing all black and dreadlocks doesn’t make you more anarcho-primitivist than wearing American Apparel. Rewilding refers to an action like running or climbing, it does not have a specific image; anyone, from any sub-culture can rewild. It works as a cross-cultural activity… Like reading, cooking, or talking. Therefore it may look completely different to one culture or sub-culture to the next. It works better this way because diverisity helps rewilding stay alive and take different shapes.

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Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout

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I recently joked with Penny Scout about how the term, “scavenger hunt,” sounds like an oxymoron; a scavenger doesn’t hunt… they scavenge. This joke inspired me to write a little about the terms of subsistence strategies.

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I recently saw a comic (thanks Anthropik!) that inspired me to articulate some things about the notion of “green-washing,” and other terms floating around in mother cultures myth-space/meme-pool.

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John Zerzan did a talk at (The Dreaded) Reed College a while ago. One of the Reed professors accused John of idealizing indigenous peoples, in the age old tradition of the “noble savage.” I hear this one come up often, and it feels just as boring and reactive and lazy every time.

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I’ve had a bad week, psychologically. My money has begun to dwindle and I have to face the reality; I live as a slave in a hierarchical system. It makes me terribly depressed to imagine myself behind the counter, serving up another latte to another slave as they head to their slave-job.

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As you may imagine, I’ve gotten many e-mails from pissed off vegans after posting, Civilization Found in Vegan Ethics. One person just couldn’t understand the fundamental connection between grain diets and population growth. Others, like the ones I responded to here, live in denial that plants have feelings too. I would like to say that some very nice non-fundamentalist vegans and I had a good dialogue, so thank you guys!

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Get a job. Get a job? You’re stealing from people. Taking from them. You’re a vampire. No, I’m trying to live another way… I’m trying to escape. You haven’t escaped shit. You sit around on your fucking computer all day, driving your girlfriend crazy with your weird sayings and movie quotes and commercial jingles you randomly puke up. You’ll never escape this way.

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I feel that most people generally equate technology with physical objects or artifacts. Tangible items we can hold in our hands. Given their invisible nature, social technologies seem to go unnoticed or unrecognized as “technology.” However, right now a very primitive technology has sprung up among the most high-tech communities. In an ironic twist of fate, I have begun networking with these self-proclaimed, “tech-geeks,” to learn one of the most ancient technologies out there: sharing.

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Recently I received a message from a Myspace stalker who said to me: “…you live through your inheritance without a real job soaking up earth skills… i wouldnt mind trying that inheritance thing out sometime…” Despite his insanity and lack of understanding of anything about this project, I still feel on the defensive. I generally try not to care what random assholes think of me. However, to alleviate strangers spreading rumors in the future, I do feel I need to clarify these assumptions surrounding my money and me.

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I got a myspace message today that totally exemplifies why I hate Brownies (AKA Tom Brown Jr. Fanatics).

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At Derrick Jensen’s talk in Portland last October, Derrick asked the crowd if they knew the name of the people who lived here before civilization. More than a few people responded that “no one lived here,” and that, “Willamette (as in the Willamette river that runs through Portland) means ‘the valley of sickness and death.’” I don’t remember the first time I heard this myth, but I can tell you that I never questioned it. In fact, I’ve even helped spread it. I never seemed to think twice about it, it simply made sense; white people do stupid things like move into mosquito infested valleys. But when Derrick asked, and I saw so many people respond with this claim, I really began to wonder just where the hell it came from.

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