Up on the Soapbox: "Survivalist" Versus "Prepper"

This is one of those philosophical issues that probably would be of no significance or importance if it wasn't for the negative connotation associated with "survivalist" by the media. Some people call themselves "preppers" because they don't think they are "survivalists" in the traditional sense of the word. Some people don't like the term "prepper". Max Velocity has suggested using the terms "realist" or "rationalist" instead. I don't think there is a clear demarcation between a prepper and a survivalist, but I do think there are some basic philosophical differences and goals.

American Preppers Network discusses the difference between survivalists and preppers. (H/t KA9OFF Preparedness News). The author explains the basic difference as:

[S]urvivalists focus on wilderness survival skill sets like trapping, hunting, fishing and living in the wild. Preppers prepare for catastrophic emergencies and disasters in advance with supplies, gear, food and water, attempting to replicate a “normal” existence as much as possible.

Captain Dave also makes a similar distinction, writing: "If there is a difference between a prepper and a survivalist, it is that a prepper is more reliant on their preps, while a survivalist may have a greater ability to survive in the wilderness with little hardware." While I think they are close, it is not quite correct. I have friends quite adapt at wilderness survival that probably don't have a week's worth of food in their home. And the distinction doesn't hold up well with the history of the movement.

The term "survivalist" seems to have its roots in the 1970's and 1980's. People like Mel Tappan, Ragnar Benson, Howard Ruff, Kurt Saxon, Bruce D. Clayton, Joel Skousen, and Duncan Long were very influential on the survivalist movement during that time. In the 1990's, Kenneth W. Royce (aka, "Boston T. Party") and James Wesley Rawles became prominent in the survivalist movement. Although each of these authors were concerned with differing disasters, the common element seems to have been the belief in the establishment of a survival retreat. In fact, an alternate term for survivalists in the 1970's and early 1980's was "retreaters." These survivalists urge (or urged) moving to a rural location where a family or group could establish large scale gardening/small scale farming for food, independence from the power grid, home schooling of children (or at least planning for it in the event of a disaster), and, in most cases, preparations for armed protection from other small groups. In many ways, the survivalist movement took the quasi-hippy "back to basics" or "back to the land" movements, and added a new motivation for getting back to a simpler, rural lifestyle: surviving an apocalyptic disaster and the gangs that would inevitably follow.

But well before the survivalist movement, there were people and groups (including Mormons) advocating food storage and emergency preparation without the concomitant goal of establishing a retreat. 9/11 and Katrina gave a considerable boost to popularizing the storage of food and emergency supplies, having a 72-hour kit, first aid skills, and so on. The goal is not to establish a small colony surviving the collapse of civilization, but to weather more modest calamities (even if "more modest" is something like the Big One), or at least something less than the end of the world as we know it.

While it may seem trivial, the viewpoint concerning a survival retreat is critical to understanding the difference between the two philosophies. To the survivalist, a fully stocked and developed retreat is the ultimate goal. A prepper may recognize the need to evacuate (and may even have a "bug-out" plan), but is satisfied with storing food, water, etc., where ever they may be--even if it is an apartment in Manhattan. The survivalist expects and plans for a sudden collapse of civilization. The prepper does not. There is an anti-urban (not anti-social, but a dislike of the large urban centers) sentiment in the survivalist literature that is lacking among those that I would characterize as preppers. This is not say that preppers are urban while survivalists are rural or nature oriented; but that survivalists reject the notion of surviving in a city or suburb, whereas preppers do not.

So where do I fit on the spectrum? I'm not sure. My philosophy has definitely been shaped by survivalism, but as I've studied the collapse of civilizations, I've observed that civilizational collapses have historically taken decades, if not longer, particularly as the size of the civilization increases. I've also learned that rural retreats are not the end-all, be-all of disaster preparation. In many ways, one's security and food situation is more vulnerable in a rural location than in a developed area. My views now align less with Tappan or Rawles and more with that of Fer Fal.