[quote=“Fenriswolfr, post:9, topic:373”][quote author=jason link=topic=400.msg4023#msg4023 date=1187816996]
Probably not; they’re probably just walking off to their deaths. Why would I want to join in that?
[/quote]
Which could be true, but I feel the same way in Civilization, except in civilization you know what the main causes of death are, how they come about, and how modern medical practices attempt to ‘save’ people. Without it, currently we don’t know, we can think, what might be our cause of death if we leave civilization? Eat something poisonous and die (into the wild)? Just get sick (who knows from what) and die (unable to sustain oneself)? Attacked by large predators (thrown at people all over the news)? Hunted by the government/police/ etc.? “Hunted” by man, i.e. shot at? Break a leg or other body part and be crippled and die to the elements?
What are some more ways that leaving civilization is like walking into death (Metaphorically speaking, to me, it is, but with death there is also birth).
We know these things, they are always thrown out at us in the media, in our fears, and show us how civilization is much safer…
However most of the deaths through these incidents seem only to happen if one were alone… A broken bone can be healed, and with a supportive group one should not die because of it… Sickness can be overcome… With a group determining if something is safe or unsafe, there may contain more knowledge…
I’d have to say to me, Rewilding takes a four point plan. 1) Learning the skills and lore (plant and animal). 2) Developing thought, mind, and spirit (rewilding language, mind etc). 3) Forming a group, -family-, friends, to support, share, experience with, and learn from. 4) Creating a plan, a solid way, path, to break from civilization, and freely, and I mean freely, and becoming a new ‘nation’.[/quote]
The way I see it… Civilization is a slow death of enslavement, humiliation and hypocrisy.
If I had a choice, I would rather make my stand dying on my own two feet then on my knees in the service to someone else.
[quote=“Ando, post:10, topic:373”][quote]I already am going in about two years time from now. I’m basically saving money to do so at this point.
[/quote]
Yeah, I’m actually doing the same thing.
[quote]Isn’t that just a cop out though? There is risks in everything that people do and the only way people will know anything for certain is by taking the risk of their goals.
I have read all the internet articles of the nay sayers who preach rewilding but still live in cities with the very things they oppose at the same time and frankly I don’t understand a bit of it.
Now if you have a family to attend like some members here that is the only thing I can fully understand but if you don’t , what exactly is stopping you besides fear?[/quote]
I pretty much agree Joker. I’ve taken some heat from some of my fellow rewilders for wanting to live in the wilderness, which seems strange to me. I’ve talked about living alone in the wilderness, but actually the ‘alone’ part has nothing to do with it. I’ve just always assumed no one will come with me, so I say ‘alone’. If someone wants to join me, and I know and like that person or perhaps several people and they have good skills and can contribute well to living, I’d love to go out there and live with them. But that’s just not going to happen. Very, very few people would seriously consider doing it. And that’s why I usually talk about being ‘alone’. I just want to be out there, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Yes, I realize it’s far from perfect; community is so very important. But living with community(and a somewhat fucked up one for that matter) while living completely disconnected from the natural world in a city isn’t any better in my opinion.[/quote]
Everytime I have talked about rewilding there is that alone factor too because I don’t know of anyone else who is serious enough about it themselves.
I think being alone in the wilderness would be quite alienating and dehumanizing which is one of the reasons why I have been looking for others of the same mind. 8)
[quote=“jason, post:11, topic:373”]You’re right, everything in life requires risk, and you never know until you try.
So go jump off a bridge.
C’mon … oh, you don’t know you’re going to die until you try it!
Well isn’t that just a cop out, though?
Risks are not all created equal. Some risks are worth taking; others are sure to turn out badly. Running off into “the wilderness” alone, or while civilization is still growing, is no more a “risk” than jumping off a bridge. You will fail, just like the long, long, long line of people who tried it before you.
Does that make rewilding useless? Of course not! You can make yourself a little more feral every day without buying into the Romantic nonsense of running off into “the wilderness.” (And, as I said before, just using the term “the wilderness” should raise a huge red flag that whoever said it doesn’t understand what they’re talking about.) Because if you’re becoming more feral every day, and civilization is tipping a little more every day, then you’re eventually going to reach the point where that risk tips, and then it’s time to make a break for it.
So if you believe in rewilding, is it a cop out to pursue rewilding thoughtfully, effectively, in a way that will work, when you could make a suicidal break for it and get crushed? No, I don’t think it is.
Fenris, your plan sounds an awful lot like mine. I guess you’re copping out, too. That approach is sensible, but following that won’t have you running out into “the wilderness” any time soon.
Ando, you sound as if you think community is just a great thing to have. That’s a very civilized attitude to have, the kind of attitude that gets you killed if you try to wander off into “the wilderness.” Ask a native person, and they’ll tell you the exact opposite: the community is all that matters. Living in civilization to keep your community? So what, at least you still have your community. No native would ever think it a good idea to abandon their community for “the wilderness,” no matter what kind of mess their community was in.
Of course, the lone outdoorsman striking out into the wilderness is the icon of Romantic mythology that stirs the Western imagination, so it’s hardly surprising to hear it invoked and yearned for. But pursuing that gets plenty of people killed, because it’s a myth. That’s not how native people lived, and out there, all the civilized notions you never knew you had will get you killed.
Did you hear they’re making a movie out of Into the Wild? That makes it onto every primitivist reading list for good reason.[/quote]
Why are you so hostile to people here who are considering going into the wilderness making a stand against the civilized world?
Forgive me if I am wrong but, I was under the impression that this is a primitivism website.
On Into the Wild:
I used to think McCandles was a dumbass until I read the book. Then I realized he actually knew his shit–really knew it. He made the mistake–born out of a civilized mindset–of eating potato seeds, and died of the inability to digest carbohydrates.
It serves as a perfect example of how the things you never even thought to think about can knock you down.
On community:
Community consists of more than people. A whole network of suppport systems exist in civilization. It’s a pretty shitty system overall, but it does a remakable job of keeping you alive (granted–while it kills you slowly).
I don’t disagree very often with you, jhereg. I’m glad we’ve found something.
“Wilderness” does not actually exist. It describes a common myth from Romantic philosophy about the “untrammeled” parts where humans don’t belong. Maybe by “human” you only mean “real humans,” or “civilized humans,” but that doesn’t change the story. Read Cronon’s essay, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” or my own treatment, “Wilderness & Its Troubles.” “Wilderness” has more to do with chauvanistic, colonized notions that spring up from domesticated thought than anything a wild person would recognize. In order to have wilderness, you have to first have the farm to contrast it to. If you don’t recognize the farm, all you see there just looks like a constant disaster area; as soon as it starts to heal, another disaster hits.
What would be a better thing to call it? First, to recognize that there is no “it” to call. It’s just the world.[/quote]
I’m afraid our disagreement here may be a tad superficial. I certainly do recognize farms, and I do have a number of things to compare it to. I’d be happy to forget that contrast, but I actually find it useful to keep at the moment. Why? 'Cause I’m sharing this world with a lot of people who don’t view the world that way, and I need to be able to keep lines of communication open with them. So, when it comes to this forum, my base assumption of “wilderness” is those areas that “civvies” deem “unfit” for long term human occupation. Being able to see the world as is? Pretty damn important. Being able to see how others see the world? Also pretty damn important.
As I've said many times, it's far from ideal, but there have been people who've lived alone in the wilds.
Be very, very careful about definitions here. It’s all too easy to come across info that suggests that so-and-so spent all this time out “there” (or whatever). But 1) that doesn’t mean it was contiguous, 2) that doesn’t mean they were alone. From my research, I’d say a season or two was generally the longest the vast majority of people you’re referring to stayed “out there”, and it was generally not spent alone.
Uh, actually, Chris McCandless was probably better prepared than anyone on this board. He spent a pretty long time surviving from one small town to another, including some pretty scary close encounters, before embarking on his “Alaskan Odyssey.” He was an accomplished outdoorsman, probably better than any of us here.
He was a dumbass, but only insofar as he thought he could make it alone. And all he wanted to do was a little trip through Alaska; he wasn’t even trying to live there.[/quote]
Actually, there was one other way in which McCandless was a dumbass: he didn’t use all available resources to learn about the area. If he had, he wouldn’t have died, there were certainly ways for him to get over the river, not to mention stored supplies nearby. All of which appear to have been clearly marked on a map he turned down. IMHO, that’s a dumbass move, pure & simple. Tho’, I agree w/ the rest of your remarks on McCandless, he was generally far more prepared than most (if not all, but I’d hate to speak that much for others) of us here.
We’re serious about it, but most of us have come to the point where we recognize that community needs to be a part of it. Building communities is where the real strength of this site is, imho.
Look at the community building that’s happening cross region that involves this site (or somewhat related sites): Urban Scout & Penny Scout, Patricia & Ran, Rix in the Ozarks is calling Willem & Peter in the PNW, not to mention the rewild camps and countless other events large & small. A community is forming here; if you want it, it’s here, join in. I kind of suspect that you’re unintentionally creating boundaries where none really exist.
If you want to head out to BFE for a season, more power to you. My only suggestions are: take someone with you (Ando seems interested), make sure you learn the area, and, seriously, don’t plan on it being a permanent thing. Not yet, at any rate.
I second Andrew’s request. Please, take the time to answer all the replies you want to in a single post.
In case you didn’t know, you can quote multiple previous posts by scrolling down to the topic summary below your edit window and clicking the “insert quote” link in the top right hand corner of each post you want to quote. It will insert a full quote of the post in question wherever the cursor sits in your edit window.
Also, I think we would all appreciate it if you would trim your quotes down to the pertinent lines you want to reply to instead of quoting the entire post and then repeating the specific lines in an extra quote box.
Another option for quoting is to use the quote button up above your edit bar and just paste the lines you want to quote between the [nobbc]
[/nobbc] tags. If you want to quote more than one person that way, you can insert the person’s name inside the first [nobbc][quote][/nobbc] tag like this [nobbc][quote=wilderix][/nobbc].
There is no place on earth where you can escape civilizations effects. There is no place you can go where it won’t follow you. In fact, leaving like that sends up all sorts of red flags among the sorts of people watching, and could increase the chance of a bad encounter with the man. How may standoffs have we heard of between the feds and a lone man or family in a cabin? How many of those ended well for the family?
Now if you simply prefer a less urbanized local, that’s one thing. It’s great to minimize the amount of things you hate in your immediate surroundings.
But there’s nothing about rewilding that actually requires that you leave the city. The city has it’s wild spots too, has it’s own ecosystem, and honestly needs our help more. Yes, they remain unsustainable, but someone needs to convert them to sustainable forms, take down structures, encourage the plants and animals to return, clean the toxins out.
Incidentally, Ando, you stated earlier that “I don’t judge your choices, so don’t judge mine” or something to that effect. That’s a fairly popular attitude these days, regarding lifestyle choices. And yet, it’s exactly what we’re here to do, isn’t it? How can we have meaningful discussions about how to live if you make certain topics off-limits? I’ve found that when I feel the urge to say “don’t judge me”, I’m really saying “I cannot defend my actions or opinions to you.” Which isn’t the same as saying “I’m wrong.” It just means I’m not prepared to debate. It means I need to reexamine my position so that I am prepared to justify it. Then I can skip the “don’t judge me”-s and instead make meaningful discussion.
Why are you so hostile to people here who are considering going into the wilderness making a stand against the civilized world?
Because rewilding takes commitment and commuity. “Running off into the woods” has always had its Romantic appeal, and it’s never actually worked. This is a pivotal moment, one that requires forethought and strategy. We don’t have the luxury of mucking it up with a bunch of Romantic non-sense. If would-be rewilders run off to get themselves killed on some fool’s quest, that would be bad enough, but with the world in the situation it is now, that means we won’t have their passion or their help when we need it.
Used to be that somebody like Daniel Boone could write about what a great frontiersman he was, when he actually spent what, two years, total, spread out across his entire life, actually living in “the wilderness”? We can’t afford that kind of stupidity now. The survival of the human species is on the line.
Imagine you want to get down to the river. You can jump off the bridge, or you can walk to the end of the bridge, find a path down, and walk down to the river. Both will get you to the river; only one will get you there alive. Running off now, alone, will you get you into “the wilderness.” But not in a way that can last.
This site’s about rewilding, and what you’re talking about isn’t rewilding. It’s a cheap, ineffective knock-off. Running off, fully civilized, into “the wilderness” so it can chew you up and spit you back out does not make you feral.
I’ve quoted this several times in the past, and I’ll probably quote it quite a few times to come, because I agree with this.
I’m going to give you all some straight talk, in hopes that it will help to steer you on to a track might get you somewhere. The reality of the situation is that I have not met, or heard of, a single person in the past 40 years who has used the approaches that we have been talking about, who has been able to return to primitive living. This includes the authors of the popular books. Yeah, they might talk a good talk, but look at what they’ve actually doneâ€â€a month in the mountains, a solo year in the woods, some time in Alaskaâ€â€is that really living the Old Way? Where is the clan? Where are the elders? The children? Where is the example and clan memories to learn from?
Why didn’t it work for them, and why won’t it work for you? Because they carried civilization with them into the wilderness, and you likely will as well. You can learn all the skills you want, and The Mother will spit you back out just about as fast as you went in. The more stubborn individuals will last a few months or maybe a year, but rest assured, they’ll be back.
Why? Because they didn’t do their work. We come from a technological society, so we naturally think that substituting primitive technology for civilized technology is our doorway. The only problem is that Native people are not into technology. They spend only a couple hours a day providing for their simple needs, and they mostly use simple means. Look at their toolsâ€â€few and crude, and their craftwork  basic and utilitarian. What a Native person excels at is what I call qualitative skillsâ€â€how to sit in a circle with your clan mates and speak your truth, how to find your special talent so that you can develop it to serve your people, how to use your intuition, the ways of honor and respect, how to live in balance with elders and women and children, how to speak in the language beyond words, how to befriend fear and live love. Without these skills, you will surely die. Or else you’ll go back to the life that shuns these skills.
So, when it comes to this forum, my base assumption of "wilderness" is those areas that "civvies" deem "unfit" for long term human occupation. Being able to see the world as is? Pretty damn important. Being able to see how others see the world? Also pretty damn important.
True, but there’s a difference between a view you can see and a view that you take, isn’t there? It seems to me that a good part of having a feral/wild mind should be getting past this notion of “wilderness.” So if it’s always part of a view you understand, rather than a view you accept, then “wilderness” always needs quotes and a somewhat derisive tone.
In fact, leaving like that sends up all sorts of red flags among the sorts of people watching, and could increase the chance of a bad encounter with the man. How may standoffs have we heard of between the feds and a lone man or family in a cabin? How many of those ended well for the family?
I don’t know about that. It’s not like Randy Weaver wasn’t heavily involved with the Aryan Nations or involved in arms trading. Whether or not Ruby Ridge was all above board, I can’t say, but Weaver wasn’t exactly laying low, either. For the most part, the government has way bigger fish to fry than us. They see the world through an entirely different lens. Now, if you start stocking up on weapons or drugs, yeah, you’ll get their attention. But the laws tend to be more arbitrary nuisances than deal-breakers, and if you just follow those, they don’t really care what you do.
Be very, very careful about definitions here. It's all too easy to come across info that suggests that so-and-so spent all this time out "there" (or whatever). But 1) that doesn't mean it was contiguous, 2) that doesn't mean they were alone. From my research, I'd say a season or two was generally the longest the vast majority of people you're referring to stayed "out there", and it was generally not spent alone.
True, but there’s a difference between a view you can see and a view that you take, isn’t there? It seems to me that a good part of having a feral/wild mind should be getting past this notion of “wilderness.” So if it’s always part of a view you understand, rather than a view you accept, then “wilderness” always needs quotes and a somewhat derisive tone. :)[/quote]
Ha! Fair enough.
I’m comfortable leaving it up to context (ie, in the context of this site, the quotes & derisive tone is more or less a given). I may have very well mis-assumed TheJoker’s meaning, but my take on it seems natural given the context of this forum.
Actually, I think here it’s a pretty important point. TheJoker’s original question pretty much presumes a lot of Romantic stereotypes, from the lone Mountain Man to the flight into “the wilderness.” So I don’t think we can take that for granted here, since that kind of Romantic mythology seems to lie at the very heart of this whole matter. I see this shaping up into, basically, a question of whether those myths are true or not.
Edit: Hey, the REWILD.info Field Guide should have a new subcategory under Rewilding concepts for “Romantic misconceptions.” “Noble Savage”, “Wilderness” and “Mountain Man” would make a great start, don’t you think?
I think the fact that threads like this keep popping up indicates that the matter will never sit fully behind all of us–even if quite a few of us have moved past it.
I appreciate both your view points. I tend to use the term like jhereg mentioned, to point out what the civies would call wild. But I agree that the myth behind the civie concept needs some busting.
Hey, the REWILD.info Field Guide should have a new subcategory under Rewilding concepts for "Romantic misconceptions." "Noble Savage", "Wilderness" and "Mountain Man" would make a great start, don't you think?
Yeah, I’m probably being paraniod. And yet, the feds are cracking down on eco-anarchist groups, and there’s being profiled as a Kazinsky, and there’s simply being in the way when they come to extract the resources from wherever you are, etc. Maybe they’re unlikely, but I think the risk needs to be thought about.
[quote=“Andrew Jensen, post:38, topic:373”][quote author=jason link=topic=400.msg4070#msg4070 date=1187881693]
I don’t know about that. It’s not like Randy Weaver wasn’t heavily involved with the Aryan Nations or involved in arms trading. Whether or not Ruby Ridge was all above board, I can’t say, but Weaver wasn’t exactly laying low, either. For the most part, the government has way bigger fish to fry than us. They see the world through an entirely different lens. Now, if you start stocking up on weapons or drugs, yeah, you’ll get their attention. But the laws tend to be more arbitrary nuisances than deal-breakers, and if you just follow those, they don’t really care what you do.
[/quote]
Yeah, I’m probably being paraniod. And yet, the feds are cracking down on eco-anarchist groups, and there’s being profiled as a Kazinsky, and there’s simply being in the way when they come to extract the resources from wherever you are, etc. Maybe they’re unlikely, but I think the risk needs to be thought about.[/quote]
As do I. But, really, there’s a lot of very simple things you can do to reduce these risks. It might sound a little wierd, but one of the best ones is to, you know, kinda get to know the enforcement officers in the area. If you have legitimate (by their standards) business in an area and they know that, they’re much less likely to intrude on whatever other illegitimate (again, by their standards) business you have in the area.
It seems to me, that one of the best ways to enjoy large sections of “wilderness” is to have someplace “legitimate” to call home that’s close to said “wilderness”. That’s pretty much what Anthropik is headed towards, and, well, I’m not afraid to say that it struck me as a good enough idea to ape :). It looks like it should work pretty well in my area, southeastern OH has a plethora of state & national parks.
That approach is sensible, but following that won’t have you running out into “the wilderness” any time soon.
up above your edit bar and just paste the lines you want to quote between the [nobbc]