We are independent & ad-supported. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links.
Advertiser Disclosure
Our website is an independent, advertising-supported platform. We provide our content free of charge to our readers, and to keep it that way, we rely on revenue generated through advertisements and affiliate partnerships. This means that when you click on certain links on our site and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn more.
How We Make Money
We sustain our operations through affiliate commissions and advertising. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the merchant at no additional cost to you. We also display advertisements on our website, which help generate revenue to support our work and keep our content free for readers. Our editorial team operates independently of our advertising and affiliate partnerships to ensure that our content remains unbiased and focused on providing you with the best information and recommendations based on thorough research and honest evaluations. To remain transparent, we’ve provided a list of our current affiliate partners here.
Cultural

Our Promise to you

Founded in 2002, our company has been a trusted resource for readers seeking informative and engaging content. Our dedication to quality remains unwavering—and will never change. We follow a strict editorial policy, ensuring that our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts. This guarantees that everything we publish is objective, accurate, and trustworthy.

Over the years, we've refined our approach to cover a wide range of topics, providing readers with reliable and practical advice to enhance their knowledge and skills. That's why millions of readers turn to us each year. Join us in celebrating the joy of learning, guided by standards you can trust.

What is Rewilding?

By Devon Pryor
Updated: May 23, 2024
Views: 10,944
Share

Rewilding, when taken in the context of modern day human society, refers to a process by which the domestication of people is undone. The philosophy behind rewilding is based on the idea that over time, the changing civilization of humans has resulted in the domestication of the human being. Rewilding practices seek to reverse this domestication, and return human beings to a pre-civilized, wild state of being.

Within rewilding theory, domestication is considered to be negative, the effect of unnatural influences brought by the constant and accumulative modernization of society. Rather than view modernization and civilization as the progress of human society, rewilding theories see these forces as a digression from the natural and correct state of human life.

Rewilding considers the natural state of humans as the pre-civilized, wild, primal state of life, wherein complex social structures, technology, and other markers of civilization do not have a place. Rewilding criticizes these modern ideas, along with most facets of modern human domestic life that do not have to do with pure survival.

As a practice, rewilding seeks to reverse the domestication of humans via the reintroduction of what is considered innate knowledge, that which is thought to have been lost during the gradual domestication of the human species. This innate knowledge includes familiarity with plant and animal species, for example. Rewilding considers the natural and innate knowledge of humans to be more linked with nature and the wild itself. It seeks to return humans to their place in wild nature, to return them to an untamed state of holistic being.

Due to its rejection of society, or of that which is considered symptomatic of social domestication, rewilding has associations with anarchism. More specifically, rewilding can be linked to green anarchism, and anarcho-primitivism. Green anarchism is a combination of social, political, and philosophical theories that emphasize the importance of the environment, and criticize the digression of humans from a state in tune with the environment. In this sense, rewilding might be considered as the tool by which followers of green-anarchism could go about reversing the negative effects of domestication.

Rewilding is also linked with anarcho-primitivism in terms of viewing the civilization of humans not as progressive, but as digressive, misled and unnatural. More specifically, anarcho-primitivism credits the negative aspects of modern day society to be symptomatic of industrialization, technology, division and specialization of labor, and other digressions from the original wild state of humans. Anarcho-primitivism posits the nomadic, primitive, hunter-gatherer lifestyle as the original and innate state of human life, and considers all digression from this state to be unnatural, and negative. Much like rewilding, anarcho-primitivism points the finger at facets of modernized society such as agriculture, hierarchy, and other types of social stratification.

Share
PublicPeople is dedicated to providing accurate and trustworthy information. We carefully select reputable sources and employ a rigorous fact-checking process to maintain the highest standards. To learn more about our commitment to accuracy, read our editorial process.
Discussion Comments
Share
https://www.publicpeople.org/what-is-rewilding.htm
Copy this link
PublicPeople, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.

PublicPeople, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.