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You can credit this at least in part to advertising that plays on decades of that Americans-as-rugged-individualists sentiment. Like we're all just cowboys, re
by Frondo 12y ago
You can credit this at least in part to advertising that plays on decades of that Americans-as-rugged-individualists sentiment. Like we're all just cowboys, ready to ride off into the hills and watch out for ourselves.
Prepper supply companies see big dollar signs in reinforcing that; "don't rely on your neighbors, don't look to local governments to organize for you, watch out only for yourself! Oh, and buy a bunch of stuff to make sure you'll survive!!"
For decades now we've been hit with this marketing propaganda, and it divides us politically, makes some people waste a ton of money on prepper supplies, all of which (as usual) enriches business interests big and small.
Obviously, both looking at it historically and just plain thinking about it, we all have to work together (excepting those rare few who really live totally off the grid, in the middle of nowhere) to get civilization back in order.
- happyscrappy 12y agoI knew some preppers and it is pretty frightening. They practice one day a month and apparently the first order of business is to capture and defend a Walmart or similar. These guys are going to be a liability in a crisis.
- Frondo 12y agoYeah, I know, right? Defend a Walmart from what? What exactly is the plan there?
- pjc50 12y ago"Looters". The people coming to the Walmart to "defend" it while taking stuff presumably don't count themselves as looters. Again, hidden racial elements to the discussion. The question of what happens if two preppers or groups of preppers decide to "secure" the same Walmart is not addressed either.
- alphapapa 12y agoWhat's racial about it? I agree that it's rather absurd and short-sighted--not to mention selfish and smacking of hubris--but what's racial about it?
- Frondo 12y agoWhat's racial is how the terms are applied in the media (and how this reinforces people's unthinking internal racial stereotyping): White people "find" things in the aftermath of a disaster, black people "loot" them. Here's an example: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blkatrinalooting.htm http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blkatrinaloot...
- wyager 12y ago> Americans-as-rugged-individualists As someone who's lived all over the US, this description is quite accurate in rural areas. Americans (and, I suspect, people in most sparsely populated areas) do have a strong culture of rugged individualism. Take someone from rural Idaho or Montana and drop them off in the mountains with a gun and a knife, and I'll put money on them surviving.
- Frondo 12y agoSurviving until what? They get back to civilization, where their family and friends all still live? We all live in community of one scale or another, excepting, like I said, those rare few who live entirely off the grid. We're not just individuals, we're also members of that community. That's part of the human condition. It just makes a lot of business sense to propagandize the individualism (so we buy more junk we don't need, placidly take working conditions instead of banding together to change them, etc), so that's what you see.
- alphapapa 12y agoI think you're both right. Those rugged rural folks may live a few miles apart, but they know their neighbors better than people who live in apartment buildings, and when bad things happen, they pull together. In contrast, many people in apartment buildings wouldn't trust their neighbors to pick up their mail.
- Frondo 12y agoDepends on the apartments, depends on the rural community, I'm sure. Most places I've lived, I've made an effort to get to know people, and I'd trust them to pick up my mail, I'd feel like I could pull together with them. But, I've always lived in medium-to-large cities, and mostly in apartments, so from my perspective, this image of cities-as-isolating-rural-as-friendly seems more like a sentimental anti-city caricature than anything matching reality.