John Moore, 1957–2002

Formative British anti-Civilisation theorist and poet John Moore collapsed on his way to work as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Luton last 30^th October 2002.

Originally writing from an autonomist perspective, John was heavily influenced by anarcho-primitivist Fredy Perlman, particularly his early-1980s mythopaeic classic ‘Against His-Story, Against Leviathan’. John’s key pamphlets ‘Anarchy & Ecstacy’ and ‘Love Bite’ challenged boundary distinctions in almost every respect, certainly concerning authorial authority. These pamphlets employment of myth to this end was widely misunderstood, particularly by wilfully literal-minded reviewers at ‘5^th Estate’, which led John to even more determined attempts to subvert the authoratitive voice through ‘The Book of Levelling’ and poetry emphasising cultural challenges to the Totality.

John played a big role in the Anarchist Research Group throughout the 1980s and also founded the Anarcho-Primitivist Network following the 1993 Anarchy in the UK festival in London, publishing the‘Primitivist Primer’, an instant classic still in wide circulation today. APN counted editors of ‘Do Or Die’ and ‘Green Anarchists’ amongst its enthusiastic participants, and so was influential in the ‘green wave’ of eco-radicalism that characterised the mid-1990s. John’s contacts ranged through Lorraine Perlman to the editors of ‘Freedom’, dealing with each with good humour and principle.

John was erudite, generous and brave. He left us all too early and with much still to say, and has already received tributes from the likes of John Zerzan, the ‘Black Badger’ and the editors of ‘Anarchy:A Journal of Desire Armed’. He leaves his widow and co-worker, Leigh Starcross, and will be much missed.