It’s summer, which means time for camps! Here in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, survival camps are quite popular with kids and adults. Offerings run from the standard, such as archery and foraging, to the more exotic, such as “hiding in the woods” (my kids took that one) to “processing a goat” (my husband wants to take that one).
For my part, I have been trying to stock a larder in the garage. This is the extent of my conventional survival skills. Others of my faculty colleagues, however, take survivalism more seriously. One of our senior professors, in addition to becoming an expert at canning, has a cache of weapons in case things get dicey and she needs to protect her family. I imagine her holding a rifle next to a half-buried bunker, as the tall grasses blow in the breeze.
But most of us don’t live in solitude and wilderness (and neither does she, for that matter). If the big one hits, we won’t be out in the middle of nowhere. There will be people all around us, with varying needs and capabilities. Resources will be scarce. Communication and information channels will be disordered. No one will be officially in charge. Disputes will be rampant. Weapons may protect us against some dangers but will not help with the ongoing problems associated with surviving in communities. Surely among the most useful skills we could have in such a situation would be negotiation and conflict management!
It’s tempting to start joking at this point about two campers surviving the zombie apocalypse because they separated the people from the problem and explored interests rather than resorting to positions. But is it so far from the truth?
Sometimes I have my students do a pairs exercise in which one has a penny and the other is instructed to get the penny. It almost immediately devolves into one student trying to pry the penny out of the other student’s hand. Hardly ever does the penniless student think to negotiate for the penny or even ASK for the penny. (And when a student does ask for the penny, the other student almost always hands it over. It’s just a penny!)
I agree with you, Cynthia, that our culture has made us quick to assume that other people are enemies and we need to prepare ourselves to fight them. This othering cuts across the political spectrum — how tolerant or humanistic are our political parties right now? — and is an opportunity for ADR proponents and others to model different approaches to dialogue, disagreement, and survival.
Wow Jen, that is a fascinating exercise and one I plan to start incorporating. Thank you and thank you for a great post!
Jen, thank you for this and I agree, negotiation and conflict management are always key skills! Even in countries/communities that currently suffer much more violence and less rule of law, not every problem is “solved” with violence. Customary practices, such as arbitration by elders, are common (although not without serious concerns for the less powerful in those societies). Thinking about this closer to home, I worry about our glorification in the USA, especially through the media, of simple violent responses as the “solution” without any similar glorification of far more complex peaceful resolutions of conflicts. It strikes me that it is this simplified world view that contributes to some folks thinking that guns will be the only tool to help them in a crisis. But, that being said, I wouldn’t underestimate the value of learning the skill of “processing a goat”….