Читать книгу Another End of the World is Possible - Pablo Servigne - Страница 12

Faced by these catastrophic announcements, a frequent (and logical) reaction is to start preparing for the situation in practical terms. How do we eat when there is no food in the shops? How can we get safe drinking water if the taps are no longer working? How do we keep ourselves warm without oil, natural gas or electricity? It is not difficult to find information about these topics; there are thousands of books available.¹¹

The word ‘survivalism’ is generally used to refer to this ‘reaction to surrounding anxiety’¹² which leads us to prepare for major disasters by seeking self-sufficiency, in other words, independence from industrial supply systems. In recent years, this movement has developed in a dramatic fashion and in many forms. But the term ‘survivalist’ now brings together approaches and ways of understanding the world which are so varied that it has become difficult to use the word at all.

In fact, until the 1980s, ‘survivalists’ mainly meant leftwing ecological communities who were preparing for a nuclear winter. Today, ‘survivalism’ can just as well refer to people who want to learn to live in wild environments. It can also refer to groups who reject and resent the State, and seek self-sufficiency by withdrawal from its institutions, and hostility to anyone who might threaten their autonomy. These latter groups of ‘survivalists’, often politically on the far right, are not the only voice within the movement, but they contribute to survivalism’s bad reputation. This has led to a vicious circle in which the label is now used more to discredit than to describe anything specific, and this further reinforces the mistrust and tendency to withdrawal of some survivalist groups.

We don’t intend to provide here a psychological, sociological or historical analysis of survivalism. However, let’s build on the image that many people have of this movement, and the caricatures and clichés that have developed about it, and present the three aspects of our book in the form of stories.

We start with Robinson Crusoe, the famous hero of Daniel Defoe’s novel of 1719. Thrown off course by a hurricane, Crusoe’s ship is wrecked in South America, not far from the mouth of the Orinoco. He is the only survivor on a deserted island which he calls Despair Island. Despite his misfortune, Robinson manages to build himself somewhere to live, he makes a calendar, grows wheat, hunts, raises goats, and learns to make his own pottery. Cannibals regularly visit the island to kill and eat their prisoners there. When one of the prisoners manages to escape, Robinson welcomes him and they become friends. Robinson had desperately missed one thing: human relationships.

Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’, often depicted as a pyramid, is a theory of motivation developed in the 1940s.¹³ This theory argued that the needs of the human being are first of all physiological (hunger, thirst, sleep, breathing, etc.); then came the needs for security, then for belonging and love, then for esteem, and finally, at the top of the pyramid, the need for self-actualization. The survivalist posture essentially puts the emphasis on the base, on the first two floors of the pyramid (physiological needs and security), as a sort of logical, caricature extension of modern thought. One could see it as a reflection of a materialistic, individualistic world, separated from nature and in permanent struggle, seeking the best means (material, that is) to live in a world populated by potential competitors and by living beings of which we ultimately do not know very much. In this world, food, firewood and weapons are obviously the way to safety.

Now let’s compare two fables. The first refers to the symbol of the French survivalist network, the ant, as in La Fontaine’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant spends her summer preparing food in anticipation of difficult times, while having to put up with the mockery of the grasshoppers who see no reason to worry about anything as long as the oil is flowing freely … But the ant grits her teeth. She becomes resentful and begins to delight in the pleasure that she will have when the hordes of hungry grasshoppers (and city dwellers) implore her forgiveness and pity far too late, and she tells them to get lost. A well-deserved revenge!

Our second fable is that of the Three Little Pigs. All three are preparing for the arrival of the Big Bad Wolf with more or less seriousness, and with a different vision of the threat he will pose. When the wolf destroys the two weaker houses, the first two pigs (or grasshoppers) run to their super-survivalist brother … who opens the door for them. Of course, he may well say, ‘I told you so!’, but this does not prevent them from subsequently sharing a brotherly meal together. The difference between the two fables is that in the second case there was a sense of brotherhood before the disaster.

A last story will give some extra colour to our picture. It is told by our friend Kim Pasche, who has been organizing wild nature immersion courses for many years. Despite his remarkable skills, he refuses to be called a ‘survivalist’, and mischievously says: ‘If you put ten survivalists in a forest for a few months, they will kill each other and destroy the forest. If you put ten Native Americans in the same forest, not only will the forest be more beautiful and productive, but they will have formed a tribe, a true community of humans in connection with other living beings.’¹⁴

We take it for granted that physiological and safety needs are important. Anyone who has not thought of preparation of this kind is only half awake. Yet survival is a precarious, transient state. It is ‘a list of facts without a vision’.¹⁵ We can survive for a few days, for a few weeks, but after that? Worse, if we find ourselves in a really bad disaster with this materialist attitude, with the objective of surviving a few weeks at the expense of our neighbours, it’s a safe bet that we will all be dead after a year.

These four stories highlight the reasons for writing this book. These are the desire to get ready for living through the consequences of disasters that are happening and will happen in the future, above all by looking for connections between human beings, connections with non-human life, and a meaning for what is happening. For people who cannot imagine continuing to live without a feeling of achievement, of other people’s esteem, trust and love, without reasons to share, Maslow’s pyramid is apparently turned upside down. Perhaps it would be better to speak of ‘Maslow’s table’,¹⁶ of which each leg is essential for the overall balance of the person …

Cultivating edible plants in one’s garden, learning to do without fossil fuels and preparing one’s family for emergencies are certainly necessary, but they are not enough to ‘make a society’, that is to say to make us into human beings. As the American psychologist Carolyn Baker puts it: ‘In fact, could not a budding society of emotionally myopic survivalists produce a culture as terrifying and devoid of humanity as Huxley’s Brave New World?’¹⁷

We have no desire to see the continued existence of a violent society that selects for the most aggressive individuals. Wanting to live beyond the shocks, and not just survive them, is already to start our preparation with a different attitude, one that looks towards joy, sharing and fraternity.