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DOMESTICATION

ARTICLES Against Domestication - Jacques Camatte Surveillence and Domestication - John Connor The Domestication of Aniamls...and of Man - CrimethInc. Human Domestication: Sickness of Separation - Griffin Hominids and Domestication - Rick Reese  The Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism - Shultz & Lavenda Agriculture - Domesticating Ourselves BOOKS Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication - John A. Livingston The Domestication of the Human Species - Peter Wilson

Domestication is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate and control life according to its logic. These time-tested mechanisms of subordination include: taming, breeding, genetically modifying, schooling, caging, intimidating, coercing, extorting, promising, governing, enslaving, terrorizing, murdering…the list goes on to include almost every civilized social interaction. Their movement and effects can be examined and felt throughout society, enforced through various institutions, rituals, and customs. It is also the process by which previously nomadic human populations shift towards a sedentary or settled existence through agriculture and animal husbandry. This kind of domestication demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land and the plants and animals being domesticated. Whereas in a state of wildness, all life shares and competes for resources, domestication destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (e.g. pastoral lands/agricultural fields, and to a lesser degree — horticulture and gardening) necessitates the end of open sharing of the resources that formerly existed; where once "this was everyone’s," it is now "mine". In Daniel Quinn’s novel Ishmael, he explains this transformation from the "Leavers" (those who accepted what the earth provided) to that of the "Takers" (those who demanded from the earth what they wanted). This notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property and power emerged.

Domestication not only changes the ecology from a free to a totalitarian order, it enslaves the species that are domesticated. Generally the more an environment is controlled, the less sustainable it is. The domestication of humans themselves involves many trade-offs in comparison to the foraging, nomadic mode. It is worth noting here that most of the shifts made from nomadic foraging to domestication were not made autonomously, they were made by the blade of the sword or barrel of the gun. Whereas only 2000 years ago the majority of the world population were gatherer- hunters, it is now .01%. The path of domestication is a colonizing force that has meant myriad pathologies for the conquered population and the originators of the practice. Several examples include a decline in nutritional health due to over-reliance on non-diverse diets, almost 40-60 diseases integrated into human populations per domesticated animal (influenza, the common cold, tuberculosis, etc.), the emergence of surplus which can be used to feed a population out of balance and which invariably involves property and an end to unconditional sharing.