RC JOURNAL: Survivalism?

Here's an aggressive version of the Resilient Community. May change it later to make it clearer. Suggestions are always welcome.
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There's a misconception within some quarters that solutions to growing global instability/failure that don't involve fixing the current system is an admission of failure. Further, this line of reasoning charges that efforts at adding resilience to local communities is nothing more than survivalism. This isn't true. Here's why:

• Local is the only choice. The ability of the global system to dampen instability and prevent failure is nearing zero. We have neither the organizational frameworks necessary for global governance nor the precise tools of global policy required (even IF we were smart enough to manage something this complex). Any chance of real global change must start at the ground level by correcting the true sources of the problem and spread virally. Resilient communities eliminate nearly all of the drivers towards global instability and mitigate the effects of instability already in the system. It's self-reinforcing.

• RCs guard against systemic decay and catastrophic failure. Survivalism assumes isolation, hoarding, and subsistence means to preserve only the bare essentials of life (the Jeremiah Johnson scenario). It's an approach that guarantees only long term privation and nearly inevitable failure. In contrast, resilient communities replace increasingly unreliable and expensive global sourcing of energy, food, etc. with locally efficient (and offer higher quality) alternatives. It also provides the ultimate level of protection against superempowered threats and hollow states. As a result, it preserves an existing quality of life (or lays the foundations for the creation of one where it didn't exist before).

• RCs offer a path to accelerating returns. In contrast to the isolation of survivalism, the RC is community driven -- both within the community's physical environs and across similar efforts (via data connectivity). As such, it will benefit (we are already seeing this) from rapid rates of innovation available through open source development -- across the entire range of activities from energy to food to product fabrication. Relatively quickly, the solutions generated from these efforts will convert a community that was once a black hole of economic productivity into its exact opposite: a fount of accelerating wealth and life improvement that is orders of magnitude more efficient in its use of mass, energy, space, time, and information.

Comments

[deichmans]

So I guess we'll be soon hearing from your remote survivalist camp in rural Montana? (Or, even better, near Banner's joint in Bella Coola, BC!)

However, I disagree with your assertion that "[t]he ability of the global system to dampen instability and prevent failure is nearing zero." In fact, I think global institutions are better suited for contending with instability than ever before.

This does not mean a world without failure. But it does mean that when systems fail, there are many different mechanisms in place to provide relief. Consider what would have happened to Banda Aceh even forty years ago, without the outpouring of international relief and (immediately after the tsunami) USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN providing logistics support, potable water, etc. Ibid. for KATRINA.

Our measure as a species will be when we are able to mobilize the same kind of relief at every place in need (q.v., David Axe's intrepid reporting from eastern Chad).

[Tap]

Mr. Robb – What unintended consequences or potential negatives do you see associated with the creation of resilient communities?

[felixdzerzhinsky]

For deichmans: Do you consider the US Federal Government's inability (in the richest country on earth) to handle a predictible disaster that had been foretold in a National Geographic special several years prior to be a successful relief effort? You may wish to refer retired Coast Guard office Stephen Flynn's book "The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation" for a different and more critical view of Katrina.

http://www.cfr.org/bios/3301/stephen_e_flynn.html

For John Robb and others:

I notice a lot of people, including John Robb, who criticize survivalism tend to be getting their perceptions of survivalism from the mainstream media or movies.

The "Jerimiah Johnson" concept of survivalism has long been criticised by serious survivalist writers in favour of relocating to a small town. This is often criticised in survival circles as 'The Backpacker Mentality' or the 'Lone Cabin in the Wilderness'.

The late Mel Tappan notes the problems with the 'Backpacker Mentality' argued for relocation to a resilient community in his writings which werecollected in the book "Tappan of Survival".

'Most people who approach the topic for the first time tend to be hampered by what I call the "backpacker mentality." They tend to conceive of disaster survival as an extended wilderness adventure in which they somehow manage to escape from the cities in the nick of time, just ahead of the fleeing mobs, carrying all they will need for shelter, food, clothing, medical care and protection in a pack on their backs, in the saddle bags of a ten-speed bicycle or in the trunk of the family car. Another common misconception centers around the isolated wilderness cabin or mountain stronghold where a single family or a few friends expect to fend off all comers, in the event of their being discovered.'

and

'For these reasons, and many others that become obvious when you think seriously about the problems of establishing an isolated, single-family retreat, one is tempted either to opt for a group retreat -- despite the obvious shortcomings -- or to remain paralyzed from indecision, doing nothing as time runs out.
Although the problems I observed with existing group retreats invalidated them from practical consideration so far as I was concerned, I remained convinced that only a community of reasonable size with a balance of vital skills would be both workable for the long term and proof against attack by the determined bands of well-organized looters that would doubtless emerge from the crisis period.
The empirical answer to this dilemma, which the theoreticians seem to have missed, is obvious: an already existing, functioning community in which the balance of skills, social interplay and other essential factors have been established pragmatically. A small town.'

Dr Bruce Clayton who trained as an ecologist prior to writing the seminal "Life After Doomsday" also argues for living in a small community so you don't have to 'dodge the bullet' as he puts it.
'Recently, more and more survivalist leaders have
come to the conclusion that the easiest way to insure the continuity of goods and services is to move to a small rural community...It has a proper balance of skilled people and an assortment of tools, skills and supplies. All things considered there is no poassible way for an individual or family to duplicate the self sufficiency of a small town.'

Dr Clayton also notes doing 'The Beverly Hillbillies' in reverse will not work. You need to become integrated into the community prior to a crisis.

'If you decide to move to a small rural community do it soon. You want to be a well established member before things turn nasty.'

Dr Clayton was ahead of his time. Writing about a possible energy crisis back in 1980 long before most people had even heard of Peak Oil Dr Bruce Clayton in his book "Life After Doomsday" had this to say:

'The primary fear we entertain today is that our "slaves" (machines) may be about to run out of "food" (oil) and our intricate civilization will come sputtering to a stop. There are lots of arguments about this, with wide differences of opinion about when the oil will run out, how fast we are using it up, and how much unknown oil remains hidden in the earth's crust. It really doesn't matter. No one argues that the oil will not, in fact, run out sooner or later.

The danger of our energy crisis is that during the period when we are in transition from oil to some other energy source, there could be some difficult times. Our agriculture requires not only gasoline to run the equipment, but oil-based fertilizers and insecticides as well. Without them, even for one year, we could not feed ourselves. Depending on how wisely the changeover to new energy sources is handled, the transformation could be either simple and painless or a series of emergencies.Time will tell.'

Both Dr Bruce Clayton and Mel Tappan's books are still in print, or obtained used and can be found through online bookstores. While the books are dated on specifics they are still worth a good starting point for personal resilience.

Without personal resilience there can be no community resilience.

[jeffvail]

The comment above noted "Without personal resilience there can be no community resilience." I agree, I think it's a power-dynamics issue: political power structures composed of dependent individuals tend to devolve into autocratic and abusive power structures for purely political reasons, whereas political power structures composed of resilient individuals tend to be more egalitarian and democratic--look at early republican Rome vs. empire Rome, or early colonial America vs. modern America for a few imperfect examples.

I don't think that individual survivalism is necessary, nor that it should be abandoned completely in favor of self-sufficiency purely at the community level. Rather, I think a good way to look at self-sufficiency within the resilient community context is as a scale-free mandate for "minimal self-sufficiency": at every level, self-sufficiency should be sought sufficient to prevent mandatory participation in a higher-level and abusive power structure. Individuals don't need to grow 100% of their own food, or produce 100% of their own energy or water, or provide 100% of their own defense, but I think that a minimal capacity for self-sufficiency is desirable in ADDITION to active participation in community efforts at self-sufficiency. This is not at the exclusion of specialization or centralization, but rather allows individuals or communities at all levels to decide of free will to engage in those activities on terms that benefit them, rather than needing to do so at unfavorable terms in order to meet basic necessities...

[Robert Paterson]

John
Please can you cross post this in the Boyd Ning site - thanks Rob

[lewy14]

jeffvail,

You wrote:

Rather, I think a good way to look at self-sufficiency within the resilient community context is as a scale-free mandate for "minimal self-sufficiency": at every level, self-sufficiency should be sought sufficient to prevent mandatory participation in a higher-level and abusive power structure.

Brilliant stuff.

Shorthand: resilience should be fractal.

[Syn Diesel]

A study of Schumacher's Intermediate Size would seem helpful for those unfortunate enough to have difficulty with this subject matter. Small is beautiful (but not too small, please).

Kirkpatrick Sale's Human Scale covers the same ground. A left-libertarian Bible for many.

Nigel Calder's small 1986 future-tense, scenario-based fact-fiction science reporting book The Green Machines is an easy and fun read. A million independent eco-villages of the Swiss Model complete with escaped GMO toenail-eating fungi. Good fun. Just substitute today's Peak Oil for the 1980s looming threat of Nuclear Winter and you have a 21st century Peaknik Techno-Optimists' wetdream.

A current treatment of the subject with a political bent is in the works from Kevin Carson: http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2008/07/revised-chapter-fourteen-draft.html

Ongoing preview of his new book-in-progress at his blog: http://members.tripod.com/kevin_carson/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/chapter--decentralizedproductiontechnology.pdf

Chapter 14, which covers decentralised production technology. He also has great blogging coverage of Idiocracy and Bureau-rot.

[felixdzerzhinsky]

While we are back to the 80'with Nigel Calder you might want to check out the old hippie classics "Ecotopia" and "Ecotopia Rising" by Ernest Callenbach. He even has a fictional political organisation based on environmental principles called the "Survivalist Party" which when taking their name argued that the Right Wing militia types are not really survivalists anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia_Emerging

[felixdzerzhinsky]

Apparently the Yamagishi Association in Japan was influence by Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia. It might be an interesting international example of a Resilient Community for your book. And they take Researchers:

"Public Relations for Researchers and Professionals

For researchers and professionals interested in alternative societies, the Public Relations Group of Toyosato would be happy to receive and respond to inquiries concerning study visits and the providing of information.

Proposals for research stays and information requests should be directed to the coordinator.
Contact Address:

Yamagishi Toyosato Village
H. Katayama (katayama_h@mula-net.com)
Takanoo-cho 5010, Tsu, Mie, 514-2221 JAPAN

http://www.yamagishi.or.jp/en/yamagishi0601.html "

[USMC8652]

John,

I'd be interested in hearing more about the natural conflict between the global system and resiliency. Absolute resiliency demands little interconnectedness and a great deal of redundancy. The extremes of globalization demand almost no resiliency (at the extremes of the JIT concept).

I suppose that one could make an argument that adding the appropriate amount of slack (resiliency) into the system will improve survivability of the overall system. However, I think the fundamental question is what sort of slack, how much, and where?

What's the community's response on this?

[gmoke]

Back in the 1970s during the first oil crisis, the Commonwealth of MA initiated a study on food security for the state. The results made them start a program of promoting local agriculture - Mass Grown and Fresher - which still exists today.

Part of the program involved reviving farmers' markets. At the time the program started there were maybe 18 in the state. Now there are close to 120. This is a success that has been replicated throughout the USA with about 4000 farmers' markets happening every week throughout growing season. This is a core constituency for self-reliance, if anyone wanted to activate them.

Food is an organizing principle even more than energy and builds community much more easily. We have a foundation in agriculture upon which we can build towards more resilience, if we want to.

[radio controlled helicopters]

Cross post complete. Thanks for the info