The myth of the lone wolf may be the most damaging one we have

This story crosses into territory a couple of my publications cover, but since I have been neglecting Dollar Survival it is going to live here.

The World in Turmoil

Right now we are in trouble as a species. We are doing some things that are long-term unsustainable and have a strong probability of creating some pretty extreme climate feedback loops. Those loops will create conditions that are chaotic. Chaotic is bad for us. Our environment being in chaos makes it hard to prepare, hard to maintain infrastructure, hard to survive.

There have been times in the past where conditions for humans have been chaotic. We have seen what works for surviving those conditions in our history.

The Myth, the Man, the Legend

In popular media, there is a myth. The lone man, he stands alone. He wears leather and has guns. He is the hero, the one who can handle any threat, win any fight. His name is often Max…

It’s a very appealing myth, that lone hero. It’s the myth of a saviour, a person who is better, greater, stronger. We imagine ourselves as that man (It’s a guy thing). We imagine ourselves not needing anyone at all. That myth has sunk into our consciousness through books, movies, comics, a million different pieces of fiction. It’s so deep that we buy into it completely. Other people take OUR resources, we have to carry them. Sure, maybe you keep around a very attractive female ER doctor who for some reason is madly in love with you and depends on you completely, but that’s about it. Sure, a kid too… even though the kid uses resources they are the legacy, they give us motivation to survive… but nobody else.

The Reality

Here’s the truth — humans have two advantages that have left us in the position we are in. The first is tool use. That’s huge, but alone it is not enough. The second is community.

There are obvious aspects of this. You need to sleep sometimes, so if you have to keep watch to keep the hyenas (or for bunker survivalists of the modern ilk, the golden horde which is totally not a racist term at all, nope) away you need other people. Two people can do an around the clock watch schedule, but it’s a challenge to manage. More people mean more people to take a watch.

More people also means specialization. That’s the biggest bit. Remember the pretty ER doctor lady from up above? Well, she learned to dress wounds and what types of medicine work for what things by not having to spend her days growing food.

The lone wolf has guns in most of our fiction. Those guns were created because we had lazy loafer types who spent all of their time just sitting around and thinking. I mean, how useless can you get? They didn’t hunt, they didn’t till the soil, they just thought and tinkered.

Other people who didn’t fight or hunt started growing food. That meant that there was almost always food, instead of only when you could find something good or had a successful hunt. Having a lot of people do that was a good thing because it’s hard work and the more people the more able to do it we are as a society.

Hunting Was a Group Activity

Then there’s the hunt itself. A common tactic for hunting wild boar is for some people to wander through the bush making noise, driving the boar in a particular direction. At the apex of that direction is someone with a spear (made for him by someone who does that as their specialization so the spear doesn’t suck as much as it would if it was made by a guy who spends most of his time sticking the spear in animals).

That means we have a hunter who is actually going to kill the boar, a bunch of beaters who are flushing the boar out of the woods so our hunter can find it, weapon makers who create the spear (in reality in a bronze age or better civilization the spear is made by two people, one for the wooden shaft and one for the head, although both of those people might have assistants), and in most cases different people will prepare the boar for eating once it has been killed.

If something goes wrong and the boar is better at sticking pointy ends into things than the hunter, we have another specialized human who helps keep the hunter from dying.

That’s a primitive boar hunt in a relatively benign environment.

Chaos

Our future is a lot more chaotic than that… now, civilization is probably going to keep ticking along, at least for the most part, but imagine if the survivalist fantasy situation does happen. Imagine that the engines of civilization do fall and we are in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic scenario. Personally I’m okay with a bow, okay with a handgun (I can do medium range with not completely terrible accuracy), good with a sword and hand to hand combat, and I have some other skills. I can build a simple shelter, identify some plant species well enough that I probably won’t poison myself (although I might starve to death because it really is a small number) and some other things along those lines.

I can’t do all of that every day. I need other people to take on a lot of those roles.

Real Wolves and Real Tigers

The lone wolf is a romantic notion. A dangerous predator walking alone through the wilderness. The reality (and I am talking about actual wolves here) is that the lone wolf usually follows the pack they were ejected from until they eventually succumb to starvation or disease. It’s less “I stand alone against the world” and more “Oh god, please, please let me back in. Please? I promise I‘ll be good this time.”

Tigers do the solo thing. They are good at it. A lone tiger has no romantic notions because tigers are solo creatures. They are among the best solo killers in the world.

We are more like wolves than tigers. Individually we aren’t very strong. A human vs. a tiger without community is pretty much a foregone conclusion, but as a group, we can beat almost anything. Every success humanity has ever had is because we can work together. Community builds resilience and allows us to better gather resources. If you think you can survive alone, you are mistaken. That’s a thing that only really works with a backdrop of civilization.

Conclusion

One of the best ways to build a community is to get to know your neighbours. Befriend them, work together, build them as your tribe.

In good times that means maybe you get to have some fun barbecues or chill time on a balcony or whatever works in your area. In bad times it can mean having someone to watch your back, someone who has skills you lack. It can mean the difference between life or death.