Unlocking the Safety
by Benjamin ShenderSomething has been bothering me for a while. People do know that there is plenty to eat. Certainly not everyone, but in modern West Virginia, many third world countries, middle-ages Europe, etc otherwise civilized people still forage. It supplemented, and still supplements, their crops. So what keeps them in line? Their safety is under lock and key.
There is often quite an amount of talk about unlocking the food. However, food is not the only thing that civilization has unfairly kept from humanity. By locking away the food civilizations have made people work anywhere from forty to over one hundred hours every week on starvation rations. And by locking up the safety civilization has kept people who know better in line.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs safety is just beyond food and water as the basic drives of a human. Essentially, once a person is fed and watered the next thing they look for is safety. So civilization locked that up, too.
In the civilization people consider cities to be safe, and the forest to be dangerous. When Europeans first colonized the Americas they built waterfront towns, with all doors and windows facing the water. They did their best to ignore the woods, and limited their time there. The woods were not safe. The woods still are not considered safe. Even otherwise avid hikers will refuse to actually campout. Environmentalists as well. We may feel safe in our suburban homes, but our modern suburbs are not far removed from our cities. How many of us honestly feel secure walking through the woods, with or without a light source and friends? Why are so many horror stories built around things coming out of the wild? The forest, the ocean, space. But, with the exception of the dead, no unspeakable horrors come out of cities. And even then, zombies usually start out in the country and head towards the city. But there are no evil hell-fiends jumping out of Wal-mart…oh wait…strike that.
And why do otherwise ardent primitivists refuse to leave the cities? Why do New Tribalists refuse to join tribes? Civilization has our safety. We need to relearn the tribal definition of safety as well as the tribal definitions of food, leadership, community, and progress. For a tribe, safety is the tribe. You are safe with your tribe, alone you are vulnerable.
Despite what the memes of civilization say, you are not safe in a city. In fact, cities are veritable death traps. Without daily shipments of food and water they are uninhabitable. Nor is there sufficient elbow-room for a person’s mental health. And, with our wood construction methods, cities are fire-prone. So what keeps a person safe? Help. By itself, a human is fragile and vulnerable. In a group, humans are some of the most successful hunters on Earth. Alone, a person can be over-whelmed; in a community, stressors can be spread around until they become a non-issue. Alone a person can only look 120-180 degrees around at a time; however, a party can watch the entire savanna. One hunter has only a 25% chance of bringing home a kill; a tribe has a 95% chance of having meat for dinner. We are vulnerable alone; we are not safe in the arms of a metallic skyscraper. Safety in numbers, safety in tribe.
Hey –
Is it really safety or is it resistance to change?
My bad, Ben, I just put up a new post at Ishcon, and I forgot to mention that this blog ALSO influenced my thought process this morning. But it definately did
Janene
Comment by Janene — 1 November 2005 @ 12:05 PM
It just occurs to me that maybe that’s why we feel more comfortable in a city. We have safety in numbers and we’re surrounded by people. Of course, it’s far too many people and a lot of them are unpleasant or possibly dangerous, but instincts don’t mince words. We don’t understand that what we want is a few people whom we feel totally comfortable around; we just think, “People. Good. More people. Better!”
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 1 November 2005 @ 12:08 PM
Changing things is dangerous. Not changing things is therefore considered safe. Hence, civilization has our safety. If we then consider that civilization is not safe and tribes are safe then changing things is the safe choice and not changing things is the dangerous one. We’ve been brought up with the idea that stability is safer. Now we know that sustainability is safer, but it’s far too late to alter our memeplexes without a lot of work. Is it safety or resistance to change? I don’t know. Is there really a difference?
Of course, more people is also more dangerous. Say only .5% of the population have sex with rabbits, kill small children, and strip naked on the bus. In a city you have at least 25 people doing it (assuming a population of 5000). In New York City (8 million) you have 40,000 people having sex with rabbits, killing small children, and stripping naked on the bus. In a tribe of 100, you only have one person doing it every other generation. Very managable.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 1 November 2005 @ 12:55 PM
In John Grays’ work Straw Dogs he likens the move to cities as our attempt to recreate the life of the forager as an attempt to escape the settled life of the farmer. And if you pace through the known streets and alleys of European cities - at least those that are relatively unplanned - you can feel what he means.
It may be harder in the block ordered regimented cities of USA, but still I’ve wandered around New York and felt the same thing.
Wouldn’t like to try is in LA though, probably get run down by a Roller.
We live in the present and act out the past.
Comment by Adrian — 1 November 2005 @ 1:37 PM
There are a few other factors working to keep those who philosphicaly agree with primitivism from actually leaving civilization:
One, when we experience wilderness it is almost always from within the context of civilization. We go backpacking like we are going to the moon, carrying small versions of everything that civilization provides for us at home: fossil fueled stove, water filter, first aid kit, synthetic clothing, tent and sleeping bag…ect. Most of us would be unable to survive without any of these long term unless the weather is near perfect and berries are in season.
Comment by Michael — 1 November 2005 @ 2:39 PM
Which leads, Michael, to an interesting question. Are there some very basic primitive skills we can learn to survive until we sort the other stuff out?
For example, I know you can eat meat while trying to figure out what plants are. What ‘meats’ would be accessible to us that most civilized folks wouldn’t think of?
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 1 November 2005 @ 2:51 PM
Any animal, and insects. Lots of stray cats in cities and what not.
As for primitive skills being the deciding factor…it isn’t. There are quite a few primitivists who know these skills. At least to the extent that any further knowledge would require full-time experience. Of all these I know and know of who don’t just walk away, it isn’t because they wouldn’t survive, it’s because they’re scared. Fear can be quite the motivator. As long as we just have food our needs will require us to seek out safety. Which is why after a hike we go to the hotel and take a hot shower. The fact that we ate like kings and didn’t bring any food with us is irrelevant. It’s still dangerous out there.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 1 November 2005 @ 3:03 PM
It’s not just because the food is under lock and key that people have to work for civilisation. Taxes are another way to keep people working. You cannot own land and be sulf-sufficient. You have to sell stuff on the market to generate cash to pay taxes or your land will be taken away.
Other regulations and harassment will keep you from living on public land but all this is well known to you all already.
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 2 November 2005 @ 1:17 PM
I’m scared of bears. I think another reason that skilled people don’t leave is that no one will join them.
Comment by planetwarming — 15 December 2005 @ 1:12 AM
A lot of work in environmental psychology (specifically prospect-refuge theory) suggests that forests don’t feel safe because . . . they aren’t. At least as far as our senses are concerned. Savannahs (not coincidentally, where we evolved) offer both excellent prospect (ability to see what’s going on “out there”) and refuge (ability to not be seen by others/predators).
So lets head for the plains…
Comment by brix — 12 April 2006 @ 1:45 PM
I’m not scared of the wilderness. I’m scared of what civilization will do to me if I try to walk away now. Specifically, take away my child. “To protect her” from my uncivilized ways. Just like our government did to the Native tribes of this land a generation and three ago. That is the hold Leviathan has over me. Not my safety, but my right to raise my progeny. So, until collapse or her reaching the age of majority I stay in order to be with her.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 29 August 2006 @ 11:41 PM
I’m right there with you ChandraShakti. I’m not afraid of the wilderness either (especially not forests, I’ll actually gravitate *toward* forests, *because* I feel safer there). It’s because civilization won’t let you live outside of itself. You might be able to swing it for yourself, but once a child is involved, your days of primitive living are numbered….
Comment by jhereg — 30 August 2006 @ 8:49 AM
Co-existing with a hostile civilization is the hardest part, but it’s not impossible. They just might take away your child if you don’t observe their zoning laws and whatnot. Here’s our own escape plan, and how we plan to navigate those obstacles.
It’s not impossible. Civilization isn’t going to “come after you.” Mostly, it doesn’t care. It might crush you in its oblivious apathy towards you, as with Brent Ladd’s account with CYS, but it’s not open hostility. That means it’s simply an obstacle to be accounted for, not necessarily a show-stopper.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 August 2006 @ 9:36 AM
Well, I agree in theory, but I’m not yet convinced that the collapse is sufficiently advanced that I can successfully finagle a way to get my 6-year-old out of school and into a primitive situation. Granted, I’m not ready to do that yet anyway. We’ve got an escape plan as well, and there’s a few more milestones to meet first.
Comment by jhereg — 30 August 2006 @ 9:56 AM
Sure, but you’d be amazed what homeschooling and just having a structure on some land up to code could do for getting all those nasty feds to suddenly not give a damn what you do.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 August 2006 @ 10:21 AM
Well, I guess that’s where the line gets blurry. There’s a whole grey-scale continuum here stretching waaaaay back, and, yes, there are more opportunities opening now, and they’ll continue to do so, but, *right* *now*, I think that even though it *is* theorhetically possible to swing it, practical reasons are still going to push the difficulty level up too far.
We actually *did* homeschool for a year, but the social aspect just didn’t pan out as well as we ( and by “we” I mean my daughter:) ) liked, despite the effort we put into it.
Comment by jhereg — 30 August 2006 @ 12:00 PM
Yeah, it’s hard now, but even now, there’s cracks showing. Those cracks are just going to get wider, and the whole thing’s going to get easier. We all need to figure out for ourselves how long to hang on before we bail. I’m just trying to make sure your personal decision doesn’t scare someone else off from trying.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 August 2006 @ 12:04 PM
The homeschooling idea is a good one. I am making progress toward acquiring a fair bit of land with a (barely) up-to-code house on it. But the social thing is also an issue. I have not been as successful as Jason at gathering a tribe. I have been working at it and talking with potential members. But without being able to offer them more than hope for some vague future at this point, none of them are biting yet. I do have a plan to escape that also allows me to continue surviving if civilization somehow manages to continue. The main missing element is… community. Which is believe was the main thrust of this article. *sigh* perhaps once I have the place I can get the people to join me too.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 30 August 2006 @ 11:18 PM
[quote]I’m just trying to make sure your personal decision doesn’t scare someone else off from trying.
[/quote]
Ah, no, that really wasn’t my intent. I’ll readily admit that I’m in a less that ideal situation for many reasons. Having kids right now, does make it harder, tho’ obviously not impossible. I live in an area that the collapse hasn’t really touched much yet and that’s certainly part of my decision.
ChandraShakti, what part of the country are you in? I’m in Ohio myself, anywhere nearby?
Comment by jhereg — 31 August 2006 @ 8:52 AM