The crash - pivotal moment?

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#1

I wish to garner personal opinions on a certain matter, to see how people feel about their primitivist goals and how and when they believe they will accomplish those goals.

Specifcially, how does the crash of civ play into your plans for actually kicking into action and moving much quicker toward a primitivist lifestyle? Say for a moment that civ manages to survive through to 2015 and beyond. Will you forever reside as a part of civ, waiting for the crash to happen, honing your skills and beliefs until the day arrives? Or does there exist a point at which you believe you will decide to take the leap and segregate yourself entirely from civ, even though it has yet to crash? When does waiting turn hypocritical (ie: “We stand against anti-civilization, we have learned the skills necessary to sustain ourselves, but we will not let go of precious civilization until we have to”)?

My curiosity wants to know how many people have thought beyond adopting a primitivist lifestyle simply because civ will possibly/probably find itself dismantled in a matter of years. How many people have truly thought of plans outside the zone of “surviving the collapse”? Who has plans to execute, even if their execution makes no difference in physical survival? For you, does primitivism offer a new lifestyle for the benefits of the lifestyle itself, or does it more or less just provide you with a “way out” and a means of survival when civ collapses?

#2

I actually make all my efforts on the assumption that civilisation will never collapse (which of course it will, but there are a lot of variables as to when) That way I can get on with certain things without waiting needlessly for a given prompt. To me, a collapsing civilisation and the breakdown of control mechanisms it provides is a handy bonus, rather than the lynchpin of my plans.

#3

It happens when we make it happen!

#4

Scavenger, by “it” do you mean the collapse of civilization or your own personal rewilding?

I don’t think there is anything I can do to hasten the collapse of civilization. I liken the civ to an immense storm–a hurricane or tornado, perhaps. I can do nothing to stop it; I can do nothing to hasten it. The only think I can do is prepare myself for it so that I can survive its passing and pick up the pieces around me when it is gone.

I wanted something primitive in my life before I ever heard of peak-oil and the impending collapse, but I could never see the way out. Then when I realized that the civ has already passed its prime, I saw not only that escape might be on the horizon but that I could start getting ready for it now, as others were already doing. So the impending collapse started my active rewilding phase, but it has a life of its own now, despite the civ.

But my concept of living primitively probably differs from what you envisioned as you started this thread. Surviving, living off of primitive skills, used to be the only way in which I could conceive of the primitive life. Now, I realized that there are so many more facets to feral living. To live alone in the woods or on some land would be a relief in terms of escaping civilization’s turbidity, but it would not compare the least bit with what I really want: the support network of indigenous life.

I will keep trying to hone my survival skills, but I have no plans to leave civilization in order to live by survival skills alone. The primitive life I want, the tribal community that grows as its own organism, will only be possible after the civ collapses. Otherwise, the civ would eat it up and clamp it in and relegate it to such a tiny island of unsustainability that the tribe would be forced back into wage slavery.

#5

Whether it crashes or doesn’t is not stopping my plans of being in the wilderness of Washington state at the end of the year in 2009.

#6

Not wanting to split hairs, but I think there is no “pivitol moment” for the downfall of civilization. Civilization is slowly crashing all around us right now, and has been probably since WWI, just after the fin de siecle of its high point in the late 19th century when optimism about (western) civilization peaked.

#7

you bring up a good point, Paleo Boy. the “pivotal moment” will look more like depression era opportunities–it will be less weird for folks to eat weeds out of their yards or for them to want to live in a shelter outside the city because people will start realizing that sometimes you just have to do weird things to survive (“weird” from the civilized point of view).

i see the “pivotal moment” as the time when gaps will start opening up in the wall of the civ. when the government agencies that would normally harass “homeless” campers will either be out of a job because the tax funding no longer exists, or else they will be too busy putting out fires–literally–to care about somebody trying to get by in a feral fashion.

#8

good questions.

a collapse of civilization would be terrible, i do not want to see that. i want to see us either walk away, or move onto a system that works. but i do not want collapse, a collapse will only come when the ecological structure that sustains us collapses.
i did not get into green-anarchy, anarcho-primitivism for the end. i wanted a way out of civilization, i want to seperate myself from it as much as i ca, apart from actually leaving, which i get closer to day by day.