Civilization and Insanity: A Conversation with John Zerzan

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KBOO
Air date: 
Wed, 03/06/2019 - 8:00am to 9:00am
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Host Paul Roland continues to explore the social dimensions of "mental health"

 

Eugene, Oregon-based anarchist writer John Zerzan has been writing provocative essays and books challenging dominant narratives of "civilized" thought, history, social organization and technology for over 30 years. Host Paul Roland ran into him again this past Saturday at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference where John was tabling, and the conversation led to an invitation to come on this show. Paul has been reading the book Madness Is Civilization: When the Diagnosis Was Social, 1948-1980 (2011) and had invited the author, Michael Staub, to come on for an interview. Unfortunately he declined because he said he'd moved too far away from the material and didn't feel he could get back into it enough for an on-air conversation.

Zerzan, for his part, has delved deeply into the "disease" of civilization throughout his works, using Freud's seminal Civilization and Its Discontents as one among many points of departure. It promises to be a lively and provocative discussion.

 

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-shepard-nature-and-madness

http://feralhouse.com/a-peoples-history-of-civilization/

http://feralhouse.com/against-civilization/

https://www.johnzerzan.net/

 

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