mountain man myth 1 of 2-post 1 of 2 today

MOUNTAIN MAN MYTH

Let’s talk about lone wolf survivalism and the need for community.  Well, specifically the need for both and the dangers of both.  We all know that nobody except the most die-hard Stone Age practitioner can completely go it alone ( and, I’d wager that while it sounds good to go Stone Age as it alone is 100% self-sufficient, both scavenging and Ratchet Tech would in the end spell their demise as better armed hunters and gatherers invaded their territory-akin to the Neanderthals getting the short end of the Darwinian beatin’ stick ).  The Idaho dude that went Galt during the Great Depression, while able to feed himself and smelt his own metal for black powder rifles, still had to pan gold to come into town for the half dozen articles he needed from civilization.  I can’t remember them exactly as I read the book in the mid to late 80’s and the last time I checked on a used copy it seemed excessively priced ( just like the book on the Dallas fellow who killed FedGov agents in my neck of the woods ).  Although, I must say, for as often as I bring The Last Mountain Man up, I really should rethink getting another copy.  I’m sure salt was one of them, and I thought something for his rifles.  Anyway, you get my point.  A far more dedicated and trained ( he was an engineer ) individual than you or I ever will be still had to interact with society for trade. 

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The old timey mountain men  had no choice but to disappear into the wilds in search of the hairy gold that was their livelihood.  Due to the distances involved you had to live out alone in the middle of nowhere.  Okay, sure, there were Indians around.  Not that they took kindly to Honky’s trespassing, so those folks offered no support or trade opportunities.  But, they didn’t exactly support themselves other than with game meat.  They weren’t out there for anything other than to mine treasure and return.  They needed to return both to get paid and replenished.  They were far from self-sufficient.  So, obviously, nobody but glossy paper survivalist magazine writers thought hiking into the wilderness with just a backpack was a brilliant idea ( I’m specifically recalling a Soldier Of Fortune offspring survival magazine in the early 80’s ).  Living off the land with minimalist supplies was never a serious teaching or study of survivalism ( at least, not one that ever stood the test of time before being debunked.  Which it was been on a regular basis and will continue to be forever more until we get the real Apocalypse and in a thousand years archeologists from the first new post-Dark Age empire will discover all the corpses strung along all the old asphalt roads leading into the mountains and wonder what kind of idiot goes to live in an area that didn’t support all that many predators beforehand ). 

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Yet, that is what today’s experts use to try to convince you that you need to stay behind in civilization and support a village on freeze dried foods.  You can’t backpack into the woods and survive, they say ( the abortion clinic bomber that did so a few years back and eluded capture for a very long time in the Eastern woods raided dumpsters for food as a resupply tactic ).  Lone Wolf Survivalists never survive on their own since no one can be skilled enough to survive alone, they say.  You need to sleep sometime, they say.  All very well and good, I say.  They are not incorrect.  They are just incomplete.  Again with the on/off, either/or, black/white.  You need to do both, lone wolf and belonging to a community, to survive.  It ain’t rocket surgery.  Because while being on your own does indeed blow and is indeed fraught with dangers, the sad fact of the matter is that groups are not just beneficial.  They are also very dangerous.  Supporting a community through the collapse is not viable due to resource constraints.  Instead of taking a community through the looking glass with you, you need to form one afterwards.  After the collapse.  More in tomorrows article.

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