4 ms·

Domsday prepping is a really interesting pyschological phenomenon. First, this seems to be way more common in the US than other countries. Second, there seems

by jmyeet 4y ago

Domsday prepping is a really interesting pyschological phenomenon. First, this seems to be way more common in the US than other countries. Second, there seems to be a strong correlation between preppers and certain politics (eg pro guns, anti government). Third, there are a lot of people who have imagined victimhood as a core part of their identity (eg [1][2]). So this brings up to a subset of these: the rich prepper. For me, rich people are the biggest reason why doomsday prepping is a complete waste of time because rich people (who have disproportionate power in politics) have the most to lose. So why would rich people be preppers? To me it shows the power of the underlying psychology (eg the persecution aesthetic). [1]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-white-victimhood-fuels-republican-politics/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-white-victimhood-fu... [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-evangelical-persecution-complex/375506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-eva...

harvey9 4y ago
Individual prepping might be more common in the USA but Sweden has a big public bunker programme which is being expanded at present.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  See the sibling comment I just posted. The philosophy behind these kinds of efforts is polar opposite of "preppers" in the US. Community driven and focused on social cohesion and working together instead of the "my family/religion/self above all else"
  - seanp2k2 4y ago
    We’ve had a preview of how this would play out with COVID — many idiots dying needless deaths because they were so adamant about being selfish, refusing to take even the most basic of precautions, and people who did care about others also dying needless deaths due to the selfishness of the first group.
spaghettiToy 4y ago
It's easy to think today is different, but historically- war/scorched earth tactics, famine, genocide, raiders, etc... Are all problems that humans dealt with for ten thousand years. It's hard to know if prepping for the next disaster will matter, but I think it's silly to pretend we are in a post-disaster time period.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
"Prepping" in North America is tied up with Book of Revelations apocalypse fantasy, settler-colonial "rugged individualist" entitlement, like you say, victimhood identity. Ted Kaczynski stuff, or "Red Dawn" or religious fundamentalist. Often with a nice tinge of "might makes right" and "I need to prep before the guvmint' takes over" But compare and contrast with the Swedish "preppers" in this DW documentary: https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-disaster/av-62514099 https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-d... The personalities and motivations of most of the people are night and day different from what you find among US "preppers." Neighbourhood preparedness groups. Using words like "solidarity." Talking about how important it is for communities to "stick together" in case of war or other problems. Government assistance in planning for emergency -- state produced pamphlets and rationing kits. Inviting Syrian refugees in to talk about their experiences in the civil war and strife, and what they can learn from them. Stuff that would make US preppers squirm in their seats. (FWIW I grew up rural Alberta, Canada and my parents were big into the outdoors. Backcountry camping, archery, guns, wilderness canoeing, etc. were a big part of my life. But my father was German and very left wing / social democratic. His tone and emphasis on these topics was night and day from many other people we'd meet.)
- jmyeet 4y ago
  > Neighbourhood preparedness groups That's really interesting. Thanks for posting this. You raise a good point: for people in Europe, the risks of war are much more recent and more likely given all the land borders and thousands of years of history combined with different cultures and languages. So what you point is not individualist prepping but communal prepping. It's also worth noting Switzerland where "prepping" is basically government policy. There are bunkers, stores, weapons caches, etc. American prepping is inherently anti-government so I'm not sure you'd qualify what the Swiss do as "prepping" per se.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Yes, though I'd say: Risks of conflict and history of recent conflict are potentially just as high in North America. But those risks are broadly internal or civil rather than external. And so that's how the form the "prepper" ideology takes. Swedes fear the Russians; North Americans fear themselves or their own oppressed internal populations. What I mean by this is: North America has a very recent (and actually still current) history of the seizure and occupation of internal "unsettled" lands by force -- from the indigenous people that lived there. And also I guess in the US from Mexico. 200 years ago this took the form of explicit physical genocide -- physical warfare and displacement of the natives. 50-100 years ago the form of explicit social genocide (residential schools, reservation system &the Indian Act in Canada, the Potlach ban, forbidding indigenous languages). These days its economic. So the frontier settler mentality is strong and tied deeply into North American culture. The idea that this is a "land for the taking" in which the strong survive and the model of successful individuality is to carve out a piece of self-sufficiency in it. Combine with the history of slavery in the US south and the ongoing cultural/racial war built around racial ideology there. imho the self-sufficiency meme in North American culture has always fantasy been mostly cover for what is really a form of organized state violence and racial injustice. (FWIW my own family on my mother's side was granted [or sold for very cheap] a section of land on the Albertan parkland by the British crown as long as they cleared and settled and farmed it. From which my grandfather had his subdivided section and a portion of the extended family still owns. The sale of my grandfather's farm directly funded at least a year of my university education (and my sibling's), and also the purchase of my first tractor here on my own hobby farm.)
analog31 4y ago
My impression is that prepping is about the future, in the same way that science fiction is about the future. It's about the here and now. It also involves a social consensus about what's going to happen, that isn't necessarily grounded in reality. For instance there's no reason to believe that warp drive will be achieved, but it's a necessary plot device in most sci-fi movies.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Yep, it's an ideology in the broad sense. A description of the person's experience of the material forces of the present, projected out into a fantasy of the future. Parent's link about the persecution complex in modern evangelical Xians is dead on. I grew up in this community. Despite being one of the most powerful lobby forces in North American society -- with their fingers in every aspects of public life -- they are constantly crowing about their persecution and using language reminiscent of martyrdom of the early Churches or the crucifixion of Christ. To them, the physical world will always be a corrupted and sinful place that they must only endure while waiting for the next -- and to bring as many people with them to that next world as they can through evangelism. And a significant wing of them believes strongly that we're in an end-times scenario. Or desires to be in that situation, because that scenario involves the return of their Messiah. In its worst form, it is a death cult, and the "prepper" community in large part circles around that. Or around virulent anti-communism/anti-socialism. Many of these people are the exact opposite of the kind of people you'd want managing a transition into an actual society-wide crisis -- because they are anti-society itself.
  - seanp2k2 4y ago
    Pretty fun situation we’re in with the highest court in the US composed of these people.

by jmyeet 4y ago

harvey9 4y ago

Individual prepping might be more common in the USA but Sweden has a big public bunker programme which is being expanded at present.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
See the sibling comment I just posted. The philosophy behind these kinds of efforts is polar opposite of "preppers" in the US. Community driven and focused on social cohesion and working together instead of the "my family/religion/self above all else"
- seanp2k2 4y ago
  We’ve had a preview of how this would play out with COVID — many idiots dying needless deaths because they were so adamant about being selfish, refusing to take even the most basic of precautions, and people who did care about others also dying needless deaths due to the selfishness of the first group.

spaghettiToy 4y ago

It's easy to think today is different, but historically- war/scorched earth tactics, famine, genocide, raiders, etc... Are all problems that humans dealt with for ten thousand years. It's hard to know if prepping for the next disaster will matter, but I think it's silly to pretend we are in a post-disaster time period.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

"Prepping" in North America is tied up with Book of Revelations apocalypse fantasy, settler-colonial "rugged individualist" entitlement, like you say, victimhood identity. Ted Kaczynski stuff, or "Red Dawn" or religious fundamentalist. Often with a nice tinge of "might makes right" and "I need to prep before the guvmint' takes over" But compare and contrast with the Swedish "preppers" in this DW documentary: https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-disaster/av-62514099 https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-d... The personalities and motivations of most of the people are night and day different from what you find among US "preppers." Neighbourhood preparedness groups. Using words like "solidarity." Talking about how important it is for communities to "stick together" in case of war or other problems. Government assistance in planning for emergency -- state produced pamphlets and rationing kits. Inviting Syrian refugees in to talk about their experiences in the civil war and strife, and what they can learn from them. Stuff that would make US preppers squirm in their seats. (FWIW I grew up rural Alberta, Canada and my parents were big into the outdoors. Backcountry camping, archery, guns, wilderness canoeing, etc. were a big part of my life. But my father was German and very left wing / social democratic. His tone and emphasis on these topics was night and day from many other people we'd meet.)

jmyeet 4y ago
> Neighbourhood preparedness groups That's really interesting. Thanks for posting this. You raise a good point: for people in Europe, the risks of war are much more recent and more likely given all the land borders and thousands of years of history combined with different cultures and languages. So what you point is not individualist prepping but communal prepping. It's also worth noting Switzerland where "prepping" is basically government policy. There are bunkers, stores, weapons caches, etc. American prepping is inherently anti-government so I'm not sure you'd qualify what the Swiss do as "prepping" per se.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Yes, though I'd say: Risks of conflict and history of recent conflict are potentially just as high in North America. But those risks are broadly internal or civil rather than external. And so that's how the form the "prepper" ideology takes. Swedes fear the Russians; North Americans fear themselves or their own oppressed internal populations. What I mean by this is: North America has a very recent (and actually still current) history of the seizure and occupation of internal "unsettled" lands by force -- from the indigenous people that lived there. And also I guess in the US from Mexico. 200 years ago this took the form of explicit physical genocide -- physical warfare and displacement of the natives. 50-100 years ago the form of explicit social genocide (residential schools, reservation system &the Indian Act in Canada, the Potlach ban, forbidding indigenous languages). These days its economic. So the frontier settler mentality is strong and tied deeply into North American culture. The idea that this is a "land for the taking" in which the strong survive and the model of successful individuality is to carve out a piece of self-sufficiency in it. Combine with the history of slavery in the US south and the ongoing cultural/racial war built around racial ideology there. imho the self-sufficiency meme in North American culture has always fantasy been mostly cover for what is really a form of organized state violence and racial injustice. (FWIW my own family on my mother's side was granted [or sold for very cheap] a section of land on the Albertan parkland by the British crown as long as they cleared and settled and farmed it. From which my grandfather had his subdivided section and a portion of the extended family still owns. The sale of my grandfather's farm directly funded at least a year of my university education (and my sibling's), and also the purchase of my first tractor here on my own hobby farm.)

analog31 4y ago

My impression is that prepping is about the future, in the same way that science fiction is about the future. It's about the here and now. It also involves a social consensus about what's going to happen, that isn't necessarily grounded in reality. For instance there's no reason to believe that warp drive will be achieved, but it's a necessary plot device in most sci-fi movies.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Yep, it's an ideology in the broad sense. A description of the person's experience of the material forces of the present, projected out into a fantasy of the future. Parent's link about the persecution complex in modern evangelical Xians is dead on. I grew up in this community. Despite being one of the most powerful lobby forces in North American society -- with their fingers in every aspects of public life -- they are constantly crowing about their persecution and using language reminiscent of martyrdom of the early Churches or the crucifixion of Christ. To them, the physical world will always be a corrupted and sinful place that they must only endure while waiting for the next -- and to bring as many people with them to that next world as they can through evangelism. And a significant wing of them believes strongly that we're in an end-times scenario. Or desires to be in that situation, because that scenario involves the return of their Messiah. In its worst form, it is a death cult, and the "prepper" community in large part circles around that. Or around virulent anti-communism/anti-socialism. Many of these people are the exact opposite of the kind of people you'd want managing a transition into an actual society-wide crisis -- because they are anti-society itself.
- seanp2k2 4y ago
  Pretty fun situation we’re in with the highest court in the US composed of these people.