Preparedness vs true resilience

As western Alaska recovers from the storm, Alaska Dispatch has reprinted an article from New York pointing out the importance of true community: Toilet paper preparedness vs. True resilience

"With all of these artifacts of our lives stripped away, I see the true resilience. We have remained a community. We stay connected with each other. Check-out counters hold collection jars; local benefit dinners and concerts abound; schools send buses out of district to bring students back to their local classmates; farmers work to cover each others’ crop and product shortages; families and friends continue to help each other repair and rebuild. True resilience is not in having a fortified home that can stand in isolation with an abundance of toilet paper. True resilience is in our relationships to each other. Because wherever those relationships exist, home will rebuild itself."

That is a good column, AKSAR, thank you.

I could happily own an entire Costco worth of supplies, and see merit in doing so, but would prefer not to live as if on an otherwise deserted island.

As the column's author notes, individual preparedness is not at odds with community - it's just not the end-all be-all. Her preps, she observed, helped neighbors and she did not have to compete with others for limited supplies.

This may seem a non sequitur, but I'm going to risk it and relate a personal story from last Sunday. It provided me, some neighbors and strangers a glimpse into how much more effective we can be as a team than individually. My dog and I had driven just 30 feet from our home when she barked at a dog on the sidewalk. The light had turned red so I stopped and glanced toward the unleashed dog which was sniffing a tree in front of our house and toward the corner where I anticipated his owner(s) would soon be appearing. They didn't, and then the dog ambled across the street, against the light. I flipped on my emergency flashers, took my dog's leash, locked my car and went after the pup. He wasn't running but he wasn't stopping, either, so I got the attention of some pedestrians, slowed down approaching traffic and we herded him to a standstill and I got the leash on him. English bulldog, intact male - strong fella!

I needed to re-park my car and get my dog back in the house (lunch outing cancelled) so I called a friend on the next block, who came running to hold the lost dog while I did so. We then walked the dog around the block to start knocking on doors and asked passerby if they recognized him (no one did). In route back home we ran into some other neighbors, strangers and other dog people we recognized from our dog walks. I took photos and e-mailed them to my neighborhood list, some of whom in turn posted the photos on neighborhood blogs and list-serves. A neighbor offered to keep the lost dog for the night if we didn't find the owner. Another neighbor took a pic with her i-Phone and within minutes had printed flyers and we began posting them on light poles (the norm for posting notices in our 'hood).

It was while we were out posting those flyers (keeping the lost dog with us) that the dog's owner came running up with a dog person who we had asked to be on the lookout for anyone looking for a lost dog. The dog's owners, who live two blocks away, had just noticed that he had escaped from their backyard.

Just two hours elapsed between me noticing he was loose and his being reunited with his family - thanks to the efforts of over a dozen neighbors and strangers who dropped what they had been doing and pitched in. And also others in the surrounding blocks who were engaged in getting the word out via e-mail and blogs.

The experience reinforced my belief that if a crisis occurs, there will be a lot more of my neighbors helping one another than there will be looters and muggers. I hope I'd have the supplies and ability to pitch in.

Well said, the both of you.

Great article. Thanks AKSAR.

Dagny sums it up perfectly: "I could happily own an entire Costco worth of supplies, and see merit in doing so, but would prefer not to live as if on an otherwise deserted island."

Good article! I wish more people would think this way. Too many people, perhaps half-jokingly, imagine the survival scenario as "every man for himself" or as some sort of shootout fantasy. I saw on another survival forum a discussion about including an AK and a good amount of ammo in one's get home kit. Just exactly what scenario did this guy have in mind? No one even asked. Adding substantial poundage like that needs justification. And the guy didn't even have a map in his kit. (Maybe he planned on following the trail of zombies.) This sort of stuff seems to stem from the fear of fellow human beings.

But we don't have to be afraid of each other. We can survive better if we cooperate as a group, sharing our resources, supplies, labor, etc. That's what our distant ancestors did to compete with wild beasts that were physically much better equipped to survive. We're sharing knowledge and information on ETS, and that's the start of cooperation.

DB

Thanks for posting the article.

But I'm not sure how the sense of community would translate in larger metro areas. Don't forget, our society seem to reinforce a sense of narcissism and focus on the individual that may or may not translate well in a crisis.

I fully expect people to help eachother out after an earthquake. Thats why I encourage everyone I know to take a CERT class. But for how long?

Hopefully our level of cooperation is not directly dependent on access to basic necessities.

The answer is both obvious and difficult: we have to change the culture. Look at Japan. That's an example of an urban, highly developed nation that, during their latest disaster, did not display the sort of selfish behavior that we have come to expect of American society. I'm not sure whether the urban Japanese has any more of a sense of community than we do, but many of them certainly acted like they share their society with other people (a part of being in a "community," I suppose), instead of stooping to conduct that at best are unnecessarily asinine, and at worst are downright the criminal, for the sake of survival.

I have the feeling that everyone reading this will do the decent thing in an emergency. No one on ETS will jump the queue in a store, smash windows, loot, leaving the neighbors to rot when you can share an important piece of news without cost to yourself, etc. We will influence the people we know by the strength of our character, and hopefully they'll come to value preparedness and community. They, in turn, will influence others. This is slow, and maybe each of us will get only one convert every ten years. But that's better than the alternative.

Well, one can dream...

DB

This is an interesting article. I agree with the author's viewpoint, although I think she seems to emphasize community resilience at the expense of individual resilience. I doubt you can have a resilient community without a good number of resilient individuals. If you have too many individuals with the wrong mindset, it can spoil the attitude of the whole community/group.

I think this article fits nicely with the article I linked to back in August, primarily on developing the traits that promote individual resilience to adversity. One of the points emphasized in that article was building better social connections, which is where the individual resilience spreads to encompass community resilience.

I suspect that when we have our next big earthquake here in the USA, probably on the west coast somewhere, we will see basically the same pattern we have seen in the past. There will be some looting ( in some cases, survival scrounging) and there will be a lot of constructive ad hoc community action, which may not get as much attention as the more negative actions during the event.

With a well developed infrastructure, we can likely return things to normal fairly quickly without long term disruption. I seriously doubt we will ever approach the Japanese standard of behavior, turning in large quantities of loose cash found after the event, and other selfless acts.

Japan can Never be used as an example,at least here in the USA!I'll get right to the point,Have you ever seen a Japanese Bum,lol?Besides Japanese what other language is spoken in Japan on a normal basis?What diversity exists or ever did exist in Japan?How many years did Japan receive refugees from other countries?Any Illegal aliens there?Are there any cities,towns,villages,apt buildings that someone other than Japanese are the majority of residence? In other words Japan only has 1 culture,& that is Japanese!We in the USA will Never be anywhere near the mindset of japan,because we are diverse,& we will alway's have criminals,looters,etc. It is good to keep in mind, so one stays on their toes when factoring into their preparedness!

Yes, the homeless and the vagrant do exist in Japan. Yes, Japan has a serious problem with illegal aliens (many imported laborers from the Middle East and from Southeast Asia with no means of going home). No, Japan is not as uniform as most people think. There are some serious class divisions and ethnic tensions even in Japan (for example, burakumin and Japanese citizens of Korean descent). The depth of discrimination against such people has no analogue in the American context unless you are thinking of the KKK. There are some very nasty things in Japan like anywhere else.

But these objections you raise are beside the point. I'm not saying we should be like Japan in all ways. But Japan just provides an example of cooperation during times of crisis. The article in the first post of this thread is a good example of how such cooperation is possible at the community level in the United States. Why must we surrender to the bad elements of our culture, when we can strive to change it? I'm not asking anyone to change the world, but I'm just asking my readers to start with themselves. There are some preppers with a very selfish, almost paranoid "me against them" mentality. As likeminded hobbyists, the first thing we can do is help others realize they're not in danger of being impaled by their neighbors. ETS has mostly very level-headed people, but some of the other forum I belong to -- well, I guess that's where work can be done.

I think hikermor, who replied in an earlier post to the thread, is realistic in his expectations. In fact, I agree with him. But we can at least try to leave a place better than we found it, even if only in small, individual ways.

Now, I'll note you seem to think diversity means lack of cooperation, and uniformity means cooperation. If so, I fear you have underestimated our human capacity to be jerks. It wouldn't be too hard to find a relatively uniform society where people are self-centered, selfish, uncaring, etc. Self-centeredness didn't develop in the US because of immigration or cultural diversity, if so, we would have had a long history of it. It came as a result of our capitalist culture, which is responsible for all forms of entertainment that appeals to our baser impulses. On the other hand, we can also underestimate human generosity in a diverse society hooked on reality shows and young actresses acting like harlots on coke. Sometimes a helping hand will reach across barriers of race, language, culture, etc., without expectations of acknowledgement or reward. Welcome to the human race!

DB

Good Luck to you on your endeavours in New Jersey,& I will reply,Welcome to The real world!

And exactly what is that supposed to mean?

Freedom, prosperity, and the highest overall standard of living the world has ever known also came as a result of our capitalist culture for those who work for it. Although I love the daily dose of soci@lism, I can't help but notice the substitution of 'self-centered' for 'self-reliance'. We on this forum strive to be self sufficient and prepared. Soci@lists, on the other hand, love to shower the unprepared and unproductive with other peoples money so they can maintain power or calm their inner guilt.

There seems to be a misunderstanding. Self-reliance and self-centeredness are two different things. One does not imply the other. A self-centered person is not necessarily self-reliant. A self-reliant person can be quite charitable. In fact, how can one be charitable without being self-reliant first? Self-reliance should not be mistaken for the paranoid, selfish mentality of "every man for himself" and "all against all" that you sometimes see on prep forums. It is with this thought in mind that I wrote my post.

Capitalism is an economic system, and it is responsible for many things in our society today, both good and bad. The self-centered individuals, many of whom do not rely on themselves, are one of the bad outcomes.

I don't know why a discussion about soci@lism is relevant. It seems political, but I am interested in personal ethics, not politics. At the end of the day, it is my individual virtue that matters and what I have done to act right.

I sense this thread spiraling down the drain, so IBTL!

My one comment is that we don't even have the highest standard of living in the world now (maybe not even the highest in North America), much less the highest standard of all time.

Also remember that while we saw a lot of bad things happen in certain places in the US during recent disasters there were other states in the US hit by disasters where people did cooperate and help each other, those just didn't make the news. Those area are and were just as nice as japan through out their disasters.

I've seen my neighbors come together and help each other out on numerous occasions. We had the worst snow storm on record last year, coldest temperatures on record & we had a significant ice storm just a couple of years ago that left a huge percentage of homes without power for days to weeks. People who could stay in their homes kept watch over houses that were empty. People with generators kept food frozen for folks that didn't have power. Several people kept portable heaters running in empty homes to keep pipes from freezing.

The only troublemakers that I recall during all those issues was a carload of thugs who were obviously looking for easy pickings during the protracted power outages following the ice storm. The presence of those of us keeping an eye on things was enough to motivate them to move on. My experience has always been that there are more helpful people than harmful ones.

We all know that news agencies report issues that grab peoples attention. A group of people coming together and helping each other out just isn't very exciting I suppose.

Community resilience and individual resilience are intertwined.

The 'cowboy attitude' of every man for himself with a gun in each hand is more fiction than reality, mainly because it simply doesn't work out very well. For those who have read western (cowboy type) novels, there have been references to a gang of outlaws 'treeing' a town, but guess what? It's never happened. And the reason it has never happened is because the regular people refused to allow it.

Society exists because the individual can't do everything himself. He can't stand guard, sow/care for/harvest and preserve the crops, hunt for meat, treat the water, etc all by himself.

Even in our 'wild' west during the westward migration (such as the days of travel over the Oregon/Calif Trail), the people helped each other. Oxen and wagons would get stuck in mud, another family would hitch their oxen to the stuck wagon and with the two teams and men pushing, they would get the wagon out. Parents died of cholera and accidents, and other people picked up their children and took them along with them.

It is individual self-preservation that recognizes our inability to do it all ourselves. It has always been a matter of working together or failing, or dying, or dying out.

"United we stand, divided we fall" is more than just clever words. It's actually the bottom line.

Sue