End of the World? Not As We Know It!

"The thrilling sensation of getting lost in a blizzard, of freezing to death in the woods and having to eat your friend's buttocks to stay alive. That is lost on many people."
--Michel Gerard, concierge and sometime foil of Lorelei Gilmore on The Gilmore Girls

Survivalists manage to weasel their way into the news on a semi-regular basis.  We’re never really sure why, except that fearful non-conformists exhibiting odd behavior are always seen as good filler on a slow news day.

We find, however, that our little experiment in urban homesteading is (with disturbing frequency) often confused with the aims and objectives of these sad little people.  We are asked by those who learn we are keeping a “Mormon pantry”, and that we distill our own drinking water, and that we grow as much food as we possibly can, whether we belong to such-and-such a survivalist listserv, or whether we have such-and-such caliber semi-automatic weapons, or how deeply our bomb shelter is dug, and where did we find the radiation-proof lead with which to line it.  That we would be more in sympathy with Michel Gerard, and less with James Wesley Rawles seems unimaginable to such folk, who either have all-too-clean fingernails, or all-too-black fearfulness.

Let us once and for all put these comparisons between our humble home and the encampments of the eschatologists-on-a-bender to rest:  we are not “survivalists” and we do not believe “the end of the world” or “the end times” or anything even remotely as childish and silly as that are upon us.  Apocalyptic thinking has a long history, which if you think about it, is rather ironic.  Apart from being puerile theology, however, it is also the exact antithesis of the driving force behind our attempt at urban homesteading.

There are several fundamental differences in our plans and designs which should make our philosophical differences self-evident, should any observers wish to discern said belief structures:

• Myrtle’s place is right smack dab in the middle of town.  Most survivalists choose to live well outside of city limits, beyond the reach of things like municipal planning commissions and city code enforcement officers.  They think they are safe from looters in such isolated locations.  Bully for them.
• Myrtle’s place is currently supplementing grid sources of water and energy, but has the eventual aim of lobbying for universal replacement of grid-based distribution of water and electricity.  Survivalists make most of their plans on the assumption that the grid will eventually fail, and everyone will be on it and dependent on it, and all heck will break loose as a result.
• Myrtle’s place eschews canned goods as much as possible, due in great measure to the dangers from chemical seepage into food.  Survivalists think c-rations are just peachy keen, and envision surviving a nuclear holocaust by holing themselves up in human-sized sardine cans.
• Myrtle’s place is a weapons-free zone.  We are mostly plant eaters, with the occasional fish finding its way onto our plates.  The last we heard, shooting catfish is not the most efficient means of harvesting them.  And anyone who wants to steal from us has clearly found the wrong address, because we haven’t got the newest, shiniest, most expensive of whatever it is thieves typically look for.  And if someone were here to steal food, the odds are pretty good that the residents of Myrtle’s place would have offered them some long before they had a chance to steal it.  Survivalists, of course, are armed to the teeth and live in constant fear of predatory theft.

We could go on, of course, because the number of differences between our approach to life and that taken by survivalists is a rather lengthy catalog.  We have no bomb shelter.  We have no problem with paying our taxes, getting licenses to drive, getting permits for our chickens, checking with the city code office on the acceptable height and location of our fence, or a whole host of other compromises with communal authority which drive survivalists to distraction.

The reason is because we actually like living in society.  The problems our species will face in the coming decades are very real, and very significant, but it is our belief at Myrtle’s place that either we all face them together, or we simply will not solve them in any way particularly helpful to anyone.  We would rather be right in the middle of town, showing a way forward for those who will observe, than be huddled on the outskirts, living in armored bunkers and (frankly) exhibiting a pathetic ethos not equalled in the history of homo sapiens.

Survivalists generally fall into one of three categories:

1)    Theological survivalists:  Usually some flavor of Protestant Christian – who believe that the second coming of Jesus, and the fire and plagues described in Revelations (a ridiculous book whose inclusion in the Christian canon has always puzzled us) are imminent, and who believe they might somehow survive these scary events unscathed if only they store enough canned goods and ammunition.  Why they believe the scary bits in Revelation and not any of the redeeming bits from the red-letter portions of the Gospels is a mystery best left to the study of psychiatry.
2)    Anarchist survivalists:  The most famous modern anarchist survivalist was Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, known more popularly as “The Unabomber”.  His manifesto is actually full of stunningly accurate insights into the dangers of technophilia on the part of society at large; however, his “solutions” to the problems of humans living together under increasingly difficult conditions and with increasing damage to the environment which sustains them involve, essentially, giving up, chucking the entire human experiment, and living in isolated shacks in the woods.  Oh, and killing people, mustn’t forget that last part.
3)    Paranoid survivalists:  We recognize that this description might include the other two categories, as well, but we reserve it for the various political perspectives used as justifications for survivalism – there are neo-nazi survivalists, white-supremacy survivalists, libertarian survivalists, politically-unaligned-except-we-really-hate-communism/socialism/monetarism/President Obama/the post office/census takers survivalists… again, we could go on forever.  The distinctions these people draw up to dilineate themselves from each other… we don’t understand, and we don’t want to understand.  Their unifying characteristic is that they do not trust other people.

The Myrtle experiment, conversely, can best be summarized as an attempt at good citizenship.

• We believe human beings are first and foremost social creatures, who do and should form collective units such as families, neighborhoods, towns and cities, counties, states, nations and global alliances, and as such we ought to do everything we can to contribute to the health and well-being of other people in each of those social units.
• We believe that there are limits to economic growth, and to the amount of natural resource use which our species can sustain, and that we are living in the decisive century for humanity to come to grips with those facts, but that the solutions to these respective crises is not hermit-like retreat, but rather a collective response.
• We believe there is less to fear from vagrants and criminals than there is to fear from isolation and loneliness.  Friendship and fellowship are more important in times of crisis than at any other time, and may best be found by living with other people, even people who have less than we do, than by living behind barricaded walls.

Mostly, though, we believe that there is almost definitely not an “end game” being played out – humanity will continue, in one form or another.  The right call, therefore, is to be good team players and try to make the future brighter for everybody.  Survivalism is all about the selfish desire to “protect me and mine”.  We want no part of that way of life.  Rather, we’re all about protecting “us and ours”; the happier folk we know are all of like mind.  We invite you to join the tribe, wherever you are. 

Pull up a lawn chair, grab a lemonade, and watch the chickens be silly.  Even if it is the year of the Mayan apocalypse, we’re still going to be making plans for the fall garden, next spring’s garden, and maybe even how we’ll build a bridge over the fish pond next summer, and add a decorative trellis or two, in addition to more permanent seating out under the arbor for the occasional party.  It just seems like more fun than contemplating life in a gopher hole.  And if history does, in fact, repeat itself, Myrtle’s optimism will more than likely be redemed, sooner rather than later.

Happy farming!