Newsgroups: misc.survivalism
Subject: Re: What is Survivalism (?)
From: ditto@NO-SPAM.ezonline.com
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 02:33:09 GMT

Here's something from my site which attempts to explain in a more
technical sense what survivalism is.  Some will agree, other's won't,
but that's that way this question always ends up being answered.

What is Survivalism?

This is a commonly asked question, with no easy answer. Survivalism
has many facets, and takes many forms. It means something different to
everyone. Keep this in
mind as I attempt to give you my best answer to this famous question. 

The Survival Mindset
At its most basic level, survivalism is a mindset with the goal of
keeping an individual alive through adverse circumstances. These
circumstances could be lots of
things, from a devastating flood or earthquake to a nuclear attack or
civil war. 

Each survivalist has a mental list of "risk situations" which he or
she has determined to be a possible threat. These situations could be
very imminent threats, or only
slight threats. In any case, there is a chance of the risk situation
occurring. The difference between a survivalist and any other person
is that the survivalist has
considered the threatening situations and is taking steps to prepare
in case they occur, whereas others have chosen to ignore the
situations, or don't perceive them as
threatening. 

It's probably easier to give examples to illustrate my point. Let's
say I live in Iraq. With only a few moments of thought, I can come up
with a list of things that
threaten my survival. They would be war, famine, drought, terrorism,
and earthquakes. (No, I don't know if earthquakes are common
occurrences in Iraq, but we'll
assume they are for this example) 

Now that I've determined the risk situations, I need to figure out
which are most likely to occur, and which are less likely. So, I
choose to order them like so: 

   1.Drought 
   2.Terrorism 
   3.War 
   4.Earthquakes 
   5.Famine 

Understand, the above list is in order of chance of occurring, not in
order of severity of the threat. In other words, I would be more
afraid if my country broke out
in a war than if we had a drought, but I believe the chances of a
drought occurring are far greater than chances of a war breaking out. 

Now that I have a list of risk situations, in order of probability of
occurrence, I can make plans to prepare in case one or more of them
occurs. 

Once you understand the thought process that the above example shows,
you understand the "survival mindset". You've assessed your risks and
are now ready to
prepare for them. How you prepare is up to you. The fact that you are
preparing makes you a survivalist. 

Material Preparation

One motto of the survivalist is "Prepare for the worst, pray for the
best". Each person has to determine how they will prepare, and must
decide what lengths and
expense they will go to with their preparation.

For some people, keeping a weeks worth of canned goods and a kerosene
heater around the house may be their way of preparing for a blizzard.
For others, they
may want not only the food and the heater, but a snowmobile as well.
Still others may decide that if it looks like a terrible snowstorm,
they'll take a trip to their house
in a warmer climate before it hits. In each example above, the person
perceived the blizzard as a threat. The lengths they went to to
prepare were all different. The
first person decided extra food and a second heat source was enough,
while the last person wanted a place to escape to. 

No one can tell you how you should prepare for a disaster, because all
of us have different situations we must take into account. The
important thing is that you
assess your threats, and determine how you can prepare for them if
they occur. You need to do what you feel is necessary. If you feel
comfortable knowing that a
week's worth of food and water is stocked up in your kitchen, you're
prepared. If you buy a house in Florida to fly off to, you're
prepared. 

Many survivalists pick the worst possible scenario to prepare for.
Others choose to prepare for moderate occurrences of their risk
situations. Often times, preparing
for the worst involves a lot of time and money. As with all other
aspects of survivalism, to what level each individual prepares is up
to them. I may feel comfortable
with a weeks supply of food on hand, you may want enough for a month.
Or a year. It's an individual choice that only you can make. 

Skill Assessment and Acquisition 

Preparation doesn't only involve acquiring material items, it means
acquiring the skills you need to survive. Anyone can buy material
goods and "survival gear". But if
you don't have the skills and knowledge necessary to use that gear
your chances of survival in any type of crisis lessen substantially.
Let me make two examples to
illustrate my point: 

We'll say one man lives in the city, and feels that one of his risk
situations is rioting. In order for him to survive, he feels he'll
have to leave his apartment and get to his
"safe house", which is a friend's place in the country 75 miles away.
Our second person lives in the country, and feels his primary risk
situation is loss of electricity
during a storm or blizzard. 

In the first case, the city dweller may need to travel on foot for
those 75 miles if the streets are blocked with traffic and such. The
skills he'll need are navigation,
hiking, outdoor cooking, stealth, and possibly caching for storing
food along the way. He'll also need to plan several travel routes to
his destination, in case one is in
a particularly bad state. He'll need to consider that the riot could
happen at any time of the year, so cold weather survival skills could
come into play. 

Our second example has a different situation. He feels that a power
loss is his biggest threat, so the skills he'll need revolve around
that. He should know how to
cook over a fire, how to preserve food without a refrigerator, how to
use oil lamps and kerosene heaters to keep warm during winter, and he
should have an
alternate water supply set up so he can get water into his home
without using an electric pump. 

In these two examples, both survivalists need to have knowledge and
skills which are unique to their situations. After you determine what
your risk situations are,
and begin stocking up on supplies for them, you need to assess your
skills and learn what you feel you need to know. 

Conclusion 

Survivalism, as I see it, is made up of three basic elements - the
survival mindset, material preparation, and skill assessment and
acquisition. You must have all three
in order to be properly prepared for a crisis situation. You, as an
individual need to determine what your risk situations are, and how to
prepare for them. You must
consider what skills and materials you'll need to survive each of your
risk situations, then you'll need to work to acquire them. 

The next logical question people ask is "when am I prepared enough"?
The answer is never the same, because each of us have different
situations. You're the only
one who can determine when you've prepared enough. Others can help you
assess your situations, or recommend goods and gear for a particular
risk situation, but
only you can determine when you're ready to survive. One way you can
make this determination is to test yourself. If you feel you'll need
camping skills to make it
through a time of crisis, go camping for a few days and see how you
make out. Or, if you believe you'll need to pack the car and leave in
a hurry, try it. See if you
can fit everything in the car you thought you'd be able to, and see
how long it takes. If you're happy with the result, then you're
prepared. If not, keep working at it
until you are. 

Survivalism is a mindset that must become a part of your life. It
shouldn't dominate everything you do, but it should always be in the
back of your head. You should
approach each situation in life with a few questions, two of which are
"What are the possible risks involved?" and "What information, skills,
or materials can I gain
from this which will help me get by in risk situations?". Once you
begin to look at life from a survivalists point of view, you'll view
many situations differently then you
do now. Only after you've practiced using the survival mindset will
you truly understand what I'm referring to. But always remember to
keep reading, keep learning,
and keep stocking up. Prepare for the worst, pray for the best. 

--DG

This article was originally posted on Project EPSILON:
http://www.ezonline.com/ditto/index.html

Emergency
Preparedness &
Survival
Instruction
Literature
ONline


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