Some Kind of Survivalist, Revisited

Back in March I was asked if I was "some kind of survivalist" and I wrote about it here. I was later turned onto the work of James Wesley, Rawles, and for a brief time had a link up here to his SurvivalBlog. I took the link down after only a couple days as I realized that it was a little extreme for me personally and more or less the essence of what I defending myself against in my own blog post.

I'm a big fan of balance. I feel we don't have enough of it in this world and certainly not in American culture. Too often we look to technology but forget nature, progress while forgetting history, quantity and not quality. I am not against technology, progress, and abundance, but I do feel we could afford more nature, history, and quality -- in a word, balance.

I bring all of this up because an article on James Wesley, Rawles' blog was brought to my attention and I appreciated what it had to say. The article is titled In Defense of Prepping: When Disaster Doesn't Strike by A.S.D. and not only discusses reasons to prepare for disaster, but actually makes the point that those who do prepare do not actually want disaster to come. I realize that part of my own desire to distance myself from "The Survivalist" image is that it brings with it a stereotype of rednecks in bunkers with stockpiles of ammunition and MREs just waiting for the day they get to play real-life war games.

Another part is this issue of balance. While I can get behind saving up for a rainy day, I can't imagine devoting my entire life to an event that may or may not come. Gardening, canning, and freezing food makes sense to me because I believe large-scale factory-farming has compromised our food supply. Also, it makes sense to stock up food and supplies in the event of an emergency. It only takes a few days for store shelves to empty when supply lines shut down (as our family experienced first hand). It's always better to have a spare tire and not need it than need it and not have it. At the same time, I don't know about spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on gear and infrastructure that I would have to store and maintain but never use unless some worldwide catastrophe hits.

Everyone has to find their own balance and I understand there is an argument for being prepared for anything. I can't say I agree with everything in A.S.D.'s article, but I appreciate it just the same and it is with respect to him and James Wesley, Rawles that I reference them now.

Check it out. See what you think.