Survivalism
Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who actively prepare for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales from local to international. Survivalism also encompasses preparation for personal emergencies, such as job loss or being stranded in the wild or under adverse weather conditions. The emphasis is on self-reliance, stockpiling supplies, and gaining survival knowledge and skills. Survivalists often acquire emergency medical and self-defense training, stockpile food and water, prepare to become self-sufficient, and build structures such as survival retreats or underground shelters that may help them survive a catastrophe.
Use of the term "survivalist" dates from 1976, but preparing for possible future emergencies and disasters is a very old human activity.
Contents
Outline of scenarios and outlooks
Survivalism is approached by its adherents in different ways, depending on their circumstances, mindsets, and particular concerns for the future. The following are characterizations, although most (if not all) survivalists fit into more than one category:
Safety Preparedness Oriented
Learns principles and techniques needed for surviving life-threatening situations that can occur at any time place. Makes preparations for such calamities as structure fires, dog attacks, physical confrontations, snake bites, lightning strikes, car breakdowns, Third World travel problems, bear encounters, flash floods, home invasions and train wrecks.
Wilderness Survival Emphasis
Stresses being able to stay alive for indefinite periods in life-threatening wilderness scenarios, including plane crashes, shipwrecks, and being lost in the woods. Concerns are: thirst, hunger, climate, terrain, health, stress, and fear. Prepares with: knowledge, training and practice. Survival kit often includes: water purifiers, shelter, fire starters, clothing, food, medical supplies, navigation, signaling gear, and a heavy-duty survival knife.
Self-Defense Driven
Concerned with surviving brief encounters of violent activity. Focus is on personal protection and its legal ramifications, danger awareness, John Boyd's cycle (also known as the OODA loop—observe, orient, decide and act), martial arts, self defense tactics and tools (both lethal and non-lethal).
Natural Disaster, Brief
Lives in tornado, hurricane, flood, wildfire, earthquake or heavy snowfall areas and wants to be prepared for the inevitable. Invests in material for fortifying structures and tools for rebuilding and constructing temporary shelters. May have a custom built shelter, food, water, medicine, and enough supplies to get by until contact with the rest of the world resumes.
Natural Disaster, Prolonged
Concerned about weather cycles of 2–10 years, which have happened historically and can cause crop failures. Might stock several tons of food per family member and have a heavy duty greenhouse with canned non-hybrid seeds.
Natural Disaster, Indefinite/Multi-Generational
Possible scenarios include: global warming, global cooling, environmental degradation, warming or cooling of gulf stream waters, or a period of severely cold winters caused by a super-volcano, an asteroid strike, or large scale nuclear proliferation.
Bio-Chem Scenario
Concerned with the spread of fatal diseases, biological agents, and nerve gases. Examples: Swine flu, E. coli 0157, botulism, Dengue Fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, SARS, rabies, Hantavirus, anthrax, Plague, cholera, HIV, Ebola, Marburg virus, Lhasa virus, sarin, and VX, possibly even COVID-19. Might own NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) full-face respirators, polyethylene coveralls, PVC boots, Nitrile gloves, plastic sheeting and duct tape.
Malthusian
An increase in human population affects available fresh water, food, health-care, environment, economics, consumerism, and spread of diseases. Some warn that this will result in a Malthusian population crash.
Monetary Disaster Investors
Believe the Federal Reserve system is fundamentally flawed. Newsletters suggest hard assets of gold and silver bullion, coins, and other precious-metal oriented investments such as mining shares. They are preparing for paper money to become worthless through hyperinflation. As of late 2009 this is a popular scenario.
Biblical Eschatologist
These individuals study End Times prophecy and believe the Savior is going to return soon, and that the final battle with Satan on the Plains of Megiddo might occur in their lifetime. Most believe that the Rapture will follow a period of Tribulation, though a smaller number believe that the Rapture is imminent and will precede the Tribulation ("Pre-Trib Rapture"). There is a wide range of beliefs and attitudes in this group. They run the gamut from pacifist to armed camp, and from having no food stockpiles (leaving their sustenance up to God's providence) to storing decades' worth of food. A small subset are Messianic Jews, and an even smaller fringe subset follow a charismatic leader's interpretations of the Bible.
The Branch Davidians are one such sect.
Peak Oil Doomers
The Doomers are convinced that Peak Oil is a genuine threat, and take appropriate measures, usually involving relocation to an agriculturally self-sufficient survival retreat.
Rawlesian
Followers of James Wesley Rawles, the best-selling author of survivalist fiction and non-fiction books. Adherents often prepare for multiple scenarios with fortified and well-equipped rural survival retreats. Most are politically conservative. Nearly all place an emphasis on both being well-armed as well as being ready to dispense charity in the event of a disaster. Most take a "deep larder" approach and store food to last years. They emphasize practical self-sufficiency and homesteading skills.
Medical Crisis Oriented
Has a complete medical pack in house and car. Donates blood and is active in the Red Cross. Has taken CERT, EMT, and CPR courses, knows vital signs, and stockpiles medicines. Concerned with vehicle accidents and emergencies involving injuries. Focus is on helping family, friends, and community survive medical emergencies.
Common preparations
Common preparations include the creation of a clandestine or defensible retreat, haven, or Bug Out Location (BOL) in addition to the stockpiling of non-perishable food, water, water-purification equipment, clothing, seed, firewood, defensive or hunting weapons, ammunition, agricultural equipment, and medical supplies. Some survivalists do not make such extensive preparations, and simply incorporate a "Be Prepared" outlook into their everyday life.
A bag of gear, often referred to as a Bug Out Bag (BOB) or Get Out Of Dodge (G.O.O.D.) kit, can be created which contains basic necessities and useful items. It can be of any size, weighing as much as the user is able to carry.
A "72-hour kit" may be assembled, which contains essential emergency items. In most community emergency situations, it will take at least three days (72 hours) for help to arrive.[citation needed] Therefore, there should be three days' worth of food, water, and personal items for each member of the family. The 72-hour survival kit also includes a first aid kit, important numbers and papers, as well as plans for outside contact and rendezvous. There are also 72-hour isolation kits that include using a 5-gallon bucket as a toilet, tablets for water purification, and personal hygiene supplies.
The American Red Cross recommends keeping such a 72-hour supply of essential items in case evacuation is needed. They recommend a 2 week supply of such items, including water, in order to ride out a disaster in the home. Suggestions for building these kits are available from the Red Cross website.
The most ardent survivalists aim to remain self-sufficient for the duration of the breakdown of social order, or indefinitely if the breakdown is predicted to be permanent (a "Third Dark Age")—a possibility popularized in the 1960s by Roberto Vacca of the Club of Rome. Some survivalists[who?] allow for the contingency that they cannot prevent this breakdown, and prepare to survive in small communal groups ("group retreats") or "covenant communities".
Changing concerns and preparations
Survivalists' concerns and preparations have changed over the years. During the 1970s, fears were economic collapse, hyperinflation, and famine. Preparations included food storage and survival retreats in the country which could be farmed. Some survivalists stockpiled precious metals and barterable goods (such as common-caliber ammunition) because they assumed that paper currency would become worthless. During the early 1980s, nuclear war became a common fear, and some survivalists constructed fallout shelters.
In 1999, many people purchased electric generators, water purifiers, and several months or years worth of food in anticipation of widespread power outages because of the Y2K computer-bug.
Instead of moving or making such preparations at home, many people also make plans to remain in their current locations until an actual breakdown occurs, when they will—in survivalist parlance—"bug out" or "get out of Dodge" to a safer location.
Religious beliefs
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, depicted in a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (ca. 1497–98), ride forth as a group, with an angel heralding them, to bring Death, Famine, War and Plague unto man. Other survivalists have more specialized concerns, often related to an adherence to apocalyptic religious beliefs. Some New Agers anticipate a forthcoming arrival of catastrophic earth changes and prepare to survive them.
Some evangelical Christians hold to an interpretation of Bible prophecy known as a post-tribulation rapture, in which Christians will have to go through a seven-year period of war and global dictatorship known as the "Great Tribulation". Jim McKeever helped popularize survival preparations among this branch of evangelical Christians with his 1978 book Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, and How To Prepare For It.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an official policy of food storage for its members. This is a hedge against unemployment and prolonged sickness, and is focused more on self-reliance than survivalism. The policy is referred to as "Provident Living" in official Church publications. It has existed throughout the Church's history, and has evolved to reflect changes in threats to personal independence. The current food storage minimum for LDS members is one year, but at one point the minimum was 7 years.
The Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, were known for their belief in a coming apocalypse and the adoption of some survivalist practices. The 2012 phenomenon has mystical or religious underpinnings, or both.
Mainstream emergency preparations
People who are not part of survivalist groups or apolitically oriented religious groups also make preparations for emergencies. This can include (depending on the location) preparing for earthquakes, floods, power outages, blizzards, avalanches, wildfires, terrorist attacks, nuclear power plant accidents, hazardous material spills, tornadoes, and hurricanes. These preparations can be as simple as following Red Cross and U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommendations by keeping a first aid kit, shovel, and extra clothes in the car, or by maintaining a small kit of emergency supplies, containing emergency food, water, a space blanket, and other essentials.
Mainstream economist and financial adviser Barton Biggs is a proponent of preparedness. In his 2008 book Wealth, War and Wisdom, Biggs has a gloomy outlook for the economic future, and suggests that investors take survivalist measures. In the book, Biggs recommends that his readers should "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure." He goes so far as to recommend setting up survival retreats: "Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food," Mr. Biggs writes. "It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe, there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down."
Survivalist terminology
Survivalists tend toward using military acronyms such as OPSEC and SOP, and terminology common among Peak Oil adherents and gun culture. They also use terms that are unique to their own lexicon—some key survivalist terms and acronyms include:
- Alpha Strategy: The practice of storing extra consumable items, as a hedge against inflation, and for use in barter and charity. Coined by John Pugsley.
- Ballistic Wampum: Ammunition stored for barter purposes. Coined by Jeff Cooper.
- BOB: Bug-out bag.
- BOL: Bug-out location.
- BOV: Bug-out vehicle.
- Contrapreneur: Someone who foolishly invests in a declining market. Coined by James Wesley Rawles.
- Crunch: A general term for a major, long-term disaster.
- Doomer: A Peak Oil adherent who believes in a Malthusian-scale societal collapse.
- EDC: Every Day Carry. What one carries at all times in case the end of the world strikes while one is out and about.
- EOTW: End of the world
- Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) - an extreme level of electromagnetic energy sufficient to burn out computer chips that may be caused by solar flares or by atmospheric nuclear explosions. Such an event would disable the Internet, telephones, computers, and devices that rely on computer controls, including automobiles, the electrical grid, and household appliances.
- Goblin: A criminal miscreant. Coined (in the survivalist context) by Jeff Cooper.
- Golden Horde: The anticipated large mixed horde of refugees and looters that will pour out of the metropolitan regions WTSHTF. Coined (in the survivalist context) by James Wesley Rawles.
- G.O.O.D.: Get Out of Dodge (City). Fleeing urban areas in the event of a disaster. Coined by James Wesley Rawles.
- G.O.O.D. Kit: Get Out of Dodge Kit. Synonymous with Bug-Out Bag (BOB).
- Pollyanna or Polly: Someone who is in denial about the disruption that might be caused by the advent of a large scale disaster.
- Prepper: A synonym for survivalist that came into common usage during the late 1990s. Used interchangeably with survivalist much as retreater was in the 1970s. Refers to one who is prepared or making preparations.
- SHTF: Shit Hits the Fan. A term used generically by survivalists to describe disaster situations.
- TEOTWAWKI: The End of the World as We Know It. In use since the early 1980's.
- WTSHTF: When the Shit Hits the Fan. A term used generically by survivalists to describe disaster situations.
- WROL: Without Rule of Law. Describes a potential lawless state of society.
