Individual Survivalism vs Collective Action

[chris]

The Power Switch forum is probably the main UK Peak Oil discussion board and someone has just written up some interesting conclusions, which seem quite accurate to me, about the attitude of people who voted in the polls he put up on this site to try to work out where people were coming from:

Hello Everyone.

I have been mulling over the responses from the polls conducted over the last few days and it seems to me that there is an important and serious debate to be had here.

I must confess to being rather surprised and a little (but only a little) disheartened. The polls suggest that:
a) More than a third of the 30 or so of the active members of this forum indicated that they were unwilling to participate in a PO group even if one existed in their area.
b) The same proportion were not convinced that it was in their interests to make more people aware of PO.
c) The majority of you thought that the most likely outcome of PO was our Society being overwhelmed by the effects of PO before it could respond resulting in collapse.
d) Finally we see that the majority of the people here describe their attitude towards PO as “survivalist”.

Now, to my understanding, a Survivalist is essentially someone who believes that they (and possibly their immediate family) can survive "Societal collapse" on their own, indefinitely, by hiding, stock-piling, preparing etc. On reflection I have concluded that I three objections to Survivalism as a viable course of action:

1) It won't work. If "Societal collapse" were to be allowed to happen there would be nowhere for a Survivalist to hide from an increasingly desperate and determined population; no way for them to prevent whatever they have stock-piled from being taken and having their preparations from being undone. In my opinion anyone who seriously thinks they can prepare for and "survive" "Societal collapse" is deluding themselves.

2) It is counter-productive for the Survivalist and the Community. The Survivalist response implies further isolating yourself from your community and delaying the mobilisation of any community action until your preparations are considered adequate. This wastes precious time and I feel actually makes the isolated Survivalist more vulnerable as they become conspicuously better off.

3) It is utterly immoral. It displays the kind of greedy, selfish and suspicious nature that got us into this mess in the first place.

I guess what I am saying is that because we are so few in number it is all the more important that all of us who do understand the significance of PO are working together as hard and as quickly as we can to create and promote a positive and realisable vision of a post-PO world. Of course I will be doing what I can to prevent unnecessary hardship for myself and my family. But I strongly believe that the only safe place for all of us is within in a robust and resilient transitional community.

And to those of you who described their attitude towards PO as “defeatist” or commented that they were unable to make adequate 'Survivalist' style preparations, I feel that you actually have the least to lose and the most to gain my being as pro-active as possible in mobilising a collective community response to the consequences of PO.

Anyway, there is it. Thank you again for participating in the polls and offering your many thought provoking comments. I look forward to reading many more...

Adam

http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10245

[craig]

Chris - enjoyed your comments on this Powerswitch thread...