Excerpt from the Publication We Will Survive
Preface of Anniina Koivu and Jolanthe Kugler
Preparedness is the state of being ready for something to happen. That “something” could be a natural disaster, a health emergency, or a war. Thanks to measures they have taken, or are prepared to take, a prepared person is ready to face a catastrophic event. A prepper exercises their preparedness to a heightened degree. Preppers are convinced that not only are disasters worth preparing for, they are also highly likely to occur. Preppers believe that our world is doomed and that doomsday is imminent. However, in the face of the inevitable collapse of all our systems, and therefore of society, preppers don’t succumb to fear. Rather, they choose a coping strategy which affords them a sense of control over the uncontrollable. Preppers are survivors.
From an evolutionary standpoint, preparedness has been crucial for survival. Those early humans who anticipated threats and took proactive measures against them were more likely to survive and reproduce, embedding this survival instinct deeply into human behaviour over millennia. Prepping was essential for survival. Well into the twentieth century, people living in agrarian societies had to prepare for bad times, or face dire consequences. However, this has been largely forgotten in the industrial and post-industrial societies of the west. Since the second half of the twentieth century, we have trusted that supermarkets will always have everything we need, that we are insured against every possible disaster, and that the state will ultimately take care of us should a major disaster occur. But this societal confidence has been overshadowed by growing fears and disappointment with state aid during recent disastrous events. Why rely on help that may never come? What if the disaster is so great that the state ceases to exist? These real fears drive more and more people to take the matter of their own preparedness into their own hands―and join the prepper movement.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to prepping that covers all the potential disasters threatening our existence: nuclear annihilation, climate change, economic collapse, cyberattacks, social unrest, the impact of an asteroid, extreme solar storms, and pandemics, among others. Thus, prepping necessarily encompasses a diverse range of approaches. With every new fear, imagined or real, preppers have diversified. New prepping subcultures have appeared, each with its own distinct focus, strategy and philosophy. There are the sustainable preppers, who ready themselves well in advance by investing in remote properties and adopting self-sufficient lifestyles. Retreaters aim to become invisible in secure locations stocked with supplies. Homesteaders, inspired by the simple life, focus on sustainable food cultivation and energy autonomy. Off-grid activists, or “eco-preppers”, completely disconnect from modern infrastructures, renouncing modern commodities so that they can live entirely and self-reliantly off the land.
Then there are the more reactive preppers, who prepare to respond immediately to a crisis. This group includes survivalists, who can quickly adapt to extreme situations and master both urban and wilderness survival. They are the combative heroes of popular reality shows and movies. Urban preppers specialise in surviving emergencies in the city: they are ready to switch into guerrilla mode and navigate newly hostile city infrastructures. In contrast, bushcrafters are lone renegades, deeply attuned to the natural world. They favour self-sustaining practices in nature: they can make fire, hunt, and build a refuge from scratch.
Given the diversity of the prepper movement, it would be reductive to offer a single, comprehensive overview. Instead, the essays and commentaries in this book highlight various aspects of the movement. They provide insights into the reasons, motivations and ways of thinking behind the “better safe than sorry” attitude of the prepper movement.
Why should we be interested? After all, it would be easy to dismiss prepping as a fringe movement of conspiracy theorists. But prepping can be understood as a consequence of modernity―and, at the same time, as a means of understanding modernity itself. That is the perspective of American sociologist Richard G. Mitchell Jr, who has spent more than a dozen years among survivalists at public conferences, private meetings, and clandestine training camps across America.[1] For Mitchell Jr, survivalism―or prepping―is a political and social act that challenges the rationalised world of global capitalism. Preppers’ fear of the apocalypse can be read as a diagnosis of the present, offering a profound and meaningful critique of contemporary society. Their actions make visible society’s fears and fault lines. Amid the noise of opinions and self-fulfilling prophecies, preppers’ concerns about today’s world and its future emerge as significant―and unsettling.