Primitivism

In contrast to theories of human development which see the human race as ascending from a lower to a higher plane, much of philosophy and religion sees the decline of humanity from some Golden Age, a decline which each individual life is an attempt to redress. Some have seen this as the need to return to the natural, uncontrived state currently superseded whether due to historical development, to technological development, to social laws and customs, or to development of mental activity.

In classical thought, the Golden Age is distinguished as an age when mankind was naturally just and required no legal system. Cultural primitivism as lived by Aristhenes rejected luxury, property and social and moral rules. Similar (though more ascetic) life marked Judaic and early Christian primitivists, comparing such simplicity with the state of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the fall. In Hindu teaching, the human race is currently in the final and lowest of four ages, the Iron Age or Kali Yuga; by practice of discipline and realization of the self the individual can overcome external circumstances and live in the Golden Age. The cultural primitivists of the middle ages, however, rejected historical primitivism, seeing history as an ascent or development from the Ages of God the Father and God the Son to a third age, that of God the Holy Spirit, when men will be full of grace and spiritually, as opposed to intellectually, advanced. Later, the simple, uncorrupt life was stressed both by Luther and Calvin, and by the romanticists of the 18th century, notably Rousseau; while 19th and 20th centuries are marked by numbers of proponents of the simple, childlike or primitive existence.

Present day primitivism is demonstrated by those who currently hail the Age of Ecology as the development of humanity to a maturity beyond individual ideologies, when the boundaries between humanity and nature cease to exist. Consciousness includes the whole of nature, even of the cosmos. This is seen as a vindication of pagan and pantheist harmonious relationship with nature and as the culmination of mystical teachings of both East and West. The exclusiveness of "civilized" religions and their attempts to impose their authority on others are held to be disastrous.