As paleo diets and ancestral health and anti-vaxxer campaigns sweep the country, one gets the sense that a new form of primitivism is approaching, an emerging cult cleverly disguised behind the attractive mask of authenticity—or should I say, neoauthenticity.
One way or another you’ll know neoprimitivism has arrived when legitimate concern over technological excess finally gives way to a paranoid rejection of science. This is already happening, not just in America, but all over the so-called developed world, and sadly, in some of its best educated communities.
Neoprimitive logic, based largely in fear, ignorance and the repudiation of peer-reviewed science, says that green tea, coconut water, bone broth and everything raw is authentic and good for us, while gluten, vaccines and chemicals used to kill disease-vector insects are poisons.
Published research is ignored, as the alleged benefits of all things ancient—and the toxicity of all things modern—are conjured from statistical anomaly, unsubstantiated clusters, anecdotal evidence and a distorted pseudo-authenticity.
The results include the outright banning of fluorides, social-Darwinist public policy and, despite the sound principles of herd immunity, parents opting out of vaccinating their children.
In an open society, we encourage freedom of choice, even to the point of enduring the plague of neoprimitivism. And I suppose we must allow anti-scientism to wade through our media, even if it begins to jeopardize public health and the future of our children. But if we let it go too far beyond that point, and decide that science can be ignored, or worse, rejected, we become no smarter than fish who have decided that water is their enemy.
Mark Dowie is an investigative historian living on the outskirts of Willow Point.