Survival on it's own as a word does not mean a lot?
What are you going to survive, a motorway pile up, a night stuck in a snow drift, a ferry capsize, major fire in a shopping mall, floods, power outages, widespread destruction due to natural disaster, a serious fall out on the mountains? the list goes on, and each situation demands it's own preparedness.
You can't be prepared for everything true, but would it be silly to have a mobile phone and a torch, a pocket knife, warm clothing, first aid kit, those sort of things, wouldn't they be reasonable to carry if you were out in the mountains or driving in bad weather, or even carried each day in your car perhaps?
Some events are too huge to make detailed plans for, You can't survive on your own living off the land when thousands of others are in exactly the same situation and they are all around you, as in Northern Japan, salvation has to come from outside, food must be brought in.
I'm not suggesting you can live off the land, you only have to live until rescue comes, might be hours, days, a week maybe.
Hunter gatherer lifestyles are not the most efficient for survival either, that is what agriculture is for. I see something like BBC TV's Tales from the Green Valley as more about survival in the long term, with primitive technology where you have to make and grow practically everything for yourself. It's light years away from the stock your house with 2 years worth of canned goods, and make sure you never sleep as you sit on the porch with your armoury fighting off the neighbours. Likelihood if you did behave like that in a major emergency, as soon as the army got in, they would take it all from you and redistribute it.
We live in a very peaceful country, so it's hard to imagine a situation where it would be reasonable to possess weapons to defend ourselves and our families, but I'm not sure you can totally rule it out in perpetuity. Sadly this aspect of so called survival seems to have attracted the nutters and the knockers in equal measure and sensible discussion of it is impossible. As for collecting a few canned goods, why not?
Survival is not about making it on your own, it's about preserving the society around you. Living around disability has taught me that dependency is no bad thing, another word for it is co-operation
As for Bushcraft, I am one of these people who does not think there is such a thing as bushcrafting, only bushcraft skills, most of which were everyday survival skills in the same way that opening a tin and cooking on the gas is now. To some it is a hobby, to others more a way of life, but it isn't survival and all the better for that.
You seem, like many other people, slightly hung up on the word 'survival' To me it means trying to overcome danger and adversity by taking sensible precautions and learning skills that might be useful. I think 'preparedness' would be a better description and hopefully won't have the negative connotations survival seems to engender :yikes:
I'm not sure our views are that far apart. I can agree with a lot of what you've written.
