Anarcho-Primitivism, or Anprim, is an ideology that draws very heavily from the colonialist’s ahistorical view of “savages”. At the ideology’s very core lives a continuation of colonial racism, every aspect of the ideology is drenched in colonialism.
I’ll start by explaining that the term “primitive” being pointed towards people is derogatory, that was (and still is) done to seperate the colonizers from the colonised. To put it another way, the “civilized” white men, from the “uncivilized” dark men. Further, “Primitive” Anti-Civ ideology was named by its detractors. Believers in the ideology referred to it as “Anti-Civilization”, “Pre-Civilization”, and “Post-Civilization”, and the critics - being colonialists themselves - called it “Primitivism”. If you use “Prim” for Anprim, you might as well be calling the natives of America “red beasts”, or the blacks of Africa “apes”.
Which brings us to the next issue of the ideology, the meme-y desire to treat Anarcho-Primitism as a monkey collective, or more directly, wanting to treat Anti-Civists like apes. Which, comes directly from the aforementioned colonial racism affixed to the ideology. Anti-Civ is a very wide ideology, based widely on technophobia and sentiments around the “failures of civilization”, often citing the rise of capitalism as a mistake that could have been routed if civilization had been built differently, or if it had not been built at all. They’re not “oh haha cities bad throws poop”, as many mistake them as being, they’re a structured ideology based on theories and observable wrongdoings.
The third thing I want to bring up about Anti-Civ - if I may use its proper name - is that it is very often filled with ecofascists, and right-wing chuds. Though there are leftists within the umbrella, if you take the time to visit Anti-Civ communities, you’ll find very quickly that they’re filled with hateful people. You’ll find rampant homophobia, terrible transphobia, and boatloads of racism. That makes it a predominately vile ideology, and not a community I want here on Lemmy.
Of course, I write this because /c/anprim has been made, and I dreaded the day I would have to write this out to protect - if you would - Lemmy from the terrible meme of it. And, of course, I don’t say this to be an asshole or a party pooper, but I can’t allow such a disgusting disgrace of a meme’d ideology to taint our communities. People who are aware of me would know I’m Pagan, and that I specialize - for my career - in guns from the 1800s. Those are two communities that constantly get flooded with Anti-Civ assholes, I’ve seen what happens when they become tolerated, and I don’t want that to happen here.
Not necessarily, comrade. Anti-Civ is a very wide-stretching umbrella term, I myself am a bit of a soft-Luddite and that counts as Anti-Civ. The issue is more with the people who utilize the ideology for the aims of “Primitive” politics. Which, happens to be a good little bit of the umbrella.
There’s a slight “all and” in that statement. Not everyone who wants to establish a commune is Anti-Civ. Though, I will say people who dream of starting a commune to escape from Capitalism are idealists, and predominately of the anarchist variety whom grew up without empty bellies.
There’s a family of reenactor archetypes, who regardless of the era being reenacted - regardless of the history being relived - believe deeply in their core that times were better back then, and that we as a society should return to it. I personally see this the most with Civil War reenactors, and Pagan era living history groups. These unaware Anti-Civers often arrive to that position by adding both social and material conditions of the modern world together. That often means internalizing racist attitudes and the redesigning of the past done by reactionaries. So to answer your question, if a person wants to live in the past, or if they want to leave society in its entirety, there’s good chances they’re hateful towards someone whom we as communists fight for.
Both, and both are equally as cringe. The IRL ones rarely directly say they’re Anti-Civilization, but like the Ancaps in public, they’ll drop hints. If you’re chilling out anywhere pertaining to the past and someone says “boy, things were better back then”, they’re probably going to be Anti-Civ to some degree. The Online ones, however, will flat out tell you they’re Anti-Civ. However the online ones also often buy entirely into the “Anprim” meme and make racist jokes plainly, so they’re a lot easier to notice.
To your comment on revolution, Anti-Civists see only one major means of changing the world, and that’s leaving it behind. If they get involved in a revolution, it’s probably just to destabilize societal enforcers in their area. And those who’ve internalized Anti-Civ as an identity would probably fight against the revolution, because we ourselves represent a civilization.