John Zerzan

John Zerzan ( born 1943 in Salem, Oregon) is an American writer, media artist and anarchist.

In his work he criticized civilization as inherently oppressive, and juxtaposes their ways of life of prehistoric populations, as a symbol of a free society. Some of his criticism extends as far domestication, language, symbolic thought ( such as mathematics and art ) and the concept of time to be rejected. His four most important publications include: Elements of Refusal (1988 ), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994 ), Against Civilization: A Reader (1998) and Running on Emptiness ( 2002).

Life

Zerzan, son of Eastern European immigrants, earned a degree in history, the bachelor's degree at Stanford University, and a master at San Francisco State University. Begun doctoral thesis at the University of Southern California, he did not lead to the end.

In the 1960s, he was arrested for civil disobedience when he participated in an anti- Vietnam war march at the Berkeley University. Zerzan was sentenced to a two-week prison sentence, which he served in the Alameda County Jail. He then decided never to use again freely Gefängnisaufenhalte on them, as this would be in his power. In those years he was friends with Ken Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters ", as well as music and noise scene in what was then San Francisco and " Haight -Ashbury ".

As the then Left, he worked in the late 1960s as a social worker for the state of California. Frustrated with the working and living conditions of low-paid employees, he campaigned for the establishment of a trade union for public service, was elected in 1968 later to their head to their vice and a year. However, the local Situationistengruppe abused him as a "left-wing bureaucrats ". Despite everything, he sympathized with the situationism to the French writer and performance artist Guy Debord.

While the student and the hippie movement in the 1970s was becoming weaker and lost its influence, Zerzan was addicted to alcohol. Climax and turning point of his addiction to be an event in which he is said to have burned his furniture to a place in San Francisco. After that, he is said to have moved back more on writing for anarchist periodicals.

The anarchist intellectuals is currently one of the editors of the quarterly journal "Green Anarchy". He is also the brains behind " Anarchy Radio" in Eugene at the campus radio station KWVA 88.1FM. He is a contributing writer for magazines such as Adbusters. As a guest speaker, he toured occasionally around the world. Zerzan is married to an archivist at the University of Oregon, and now lives near Eugene.

Zerzan is a central figure of primitivism in the United States.

Works

• Twilight of the Machines. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2008 ISBN 1-932595-31-7 ISBN 978-1-932595-31-4 respectively.
• 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 ISBN 978-0-9667758-0-8 or ( Enlarged edition, Feral House, 2005. ISBN 0-922915-98-9 or ISBN 978-0-922915 -98-9 )
• Future Primitive and other essays. Brooklyn, N. Y.: 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 ISBN 978-0-86571-205-8 or
• Elements of refusal. 1988, 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.

Books / movies about John Zerzan

• " Surplus or consumer terror ", documentary by Erik Gandini, ARTE TV France / Sweden 2003 Original Air Date on September 4, 2004; Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam with the " Silver Wolf Award".