The escape from modernity and the turn to `the primitive', the twin pillars of primitivism, are dominant - although not always acknowledged - themes in modern Western art and anthropology. This article explores these themes through an examination of the construction of difference in critical-primitivist discourses. Particular attention is paid to, first, German Expressionism and, second, the primitivist critical theory of Stanley Diamond, radical American anthropologist and founding editor of Dialectical Anthropology. Primitivism can be emancipatory. However, whether articulated by radicals or reactionaries, it presupposes that some people belong to the modern (or postmodern) world while others belong to `prehistory' or `tradition'; that some people are fixed in time while others develop through time. Notions of temporality are a central component of Western discourses of racial and cultural difference: unfortunately, the temporal assumptions of the primitivist are often those of the racist.
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