By way of introduction
Before we get down to business, I would first like to explain how I approach the terms discussed here, because in Polish they are spelled in all sorts of ways.
I have come across many spellings and forms of these terms in Polish: survivalism, surwiwalizm, surwiwalista, prepper, preppersi, przepperzy, surwiwalowcy and so on. In this article, and across the whole site, I intend to stick to the following convention: I treat the words preppers, prepper and survivalist as meaning the same thing. The Polish word surwiwalowiec, roughly a bushcraft or wilderness survival enthusiast, has a slightly different shade of meaning from the words above, so I will try to keep these ideas reasonably clearly apart.
I accept both “survivalism” and the Polonised “survivalizm” as correct. If anyone has objections to this approach, please leave your opinion in a comment under the article.
I have approached the subject of this article mainly from the perspective of Western civilisation, and more specifically from the American perspective, because it was in the States that prepper organisations began, and that is where they are still developing most rapidly today.
Let’s get to it. To begin with, it would be good to answer the question…
Who is a prepper / survivalist?
Survivalism is a term for a group of people (known as survivalists or preppers) who actively prepare for crisis situations, including possible disruptions to the social or political order, on anything from a local to an international scale.
The main emphasis is on self-reliance, stockpiling supplies and gaining survival knowledge and skills. Preppers often train in guerrilla warfare, self-defence and basic medicine, and they also stockpile food and water.
A prepper tries to be as self-sufficient as possible, so as to depend as little as possible on outside factors. Some survivalists build shelters or look for natural ones (caves, abandoned mines and so on), which they take over and adapt as shelters and stores for their supplies.
A bit of history, or where preppers came from
The modern survivalist movement began in the USA and Great Britain. Its roots lie partly in popular culture, mainly in literature describing real or fictional disasters, including the collapse of the world economy and economic crisis.
The biggest contribution to spreading awareness of the need to be prepared came from the Cold War, when there was a real threat of a nuclear conflict on a global scale.
Civil defence programmes in the USA during the Cold War promoted public fallout shelters, private nuclear bunkers and training for children, such as the classic film Duck and Cover.
The Great Depression, which hit the USA in 1929, was held up by the forerunners of today’s preppers as an example of how disaster can strike at any moment and how you need to be ready for it.
How the prepper movement developed
In the 1970s, Howard Ruff warned of socio-economic collapse in his 1974 book “Famine and Survival in America“. Ruff’s book was published during a period of rampant inflation following the 1973 oil crisis. It contains most of the elements present in the modern prepper movement, including advice on storing food.
In his book Howard Ruff also argued that precious metals such as gold and silver have an intrinsic value that makes them more useful than paper money (so-called fiat money) in the event of a socio-economic collapse. Ruff later published milder variations on the same themes, such as “How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years“, which turned out to be a bestseller in 1979.
The Cold War and the threat of nuclear conflict
Interest in the survivalist movement peaked in the early 1980s, thanks to Howard Ruff’s book mentioned above and to “Life After Doomsday” by Bruce D. Clayton, published in 1980. Clayton’s book came out just as the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union started up again.
This unfavourable turn in relations between the two nuclear powers shifted the focus of survivalists’ thinking. Until then they had been preparing to survive economic collapse, famine and energy shortages. Those were the main worries of preppers in the 1970s. In the 1980s they were already getting ready for a potential nuclear war.
The next wave of interest in survivalism began after the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the bombings that followed in Bali, Madrid and London. Fear of war, bird flu, energy shortages, ecological disasters and global climate change, combined with economic uncertainty and humanity’s visible helplessness after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, boosted interest in survival topics.
Many books were published after the Great Recession of 2008, offering advice on surviving all kinds of potential disasters, from energy shortages and breakdowns to nuclear and biological terrorism. Besides books, blogs and internet forums became popular ways of spreading survival information. The internet became a kind of forum where preppers all over the world swap views and ideas.
An outline of views and possible scenarios
Followers of survivalism approach the subject in different ways, depending on their circumstances, their way of thinking and their personal predictions about the future.
Below is a description of the main types, although most (if not all) preppers fit more than one category:
Focused on general safety
People in this group of preppers learn the principles and techniques needed to survive any life-threatening situation. They prepare for disasters that can cause physical injury and call for an immediate response or defence against threats. This group focuses on preparing to counter the effects of disasters and on fighting to prevent and limit the damage they cause.
Survival in wild and hostile terrain
This group puts the emphasis on the ability to stay alive for an indefinite time in life-threatening conditions in the wild #pdk
This is mainly about plane crashes, accidents at sea and getting lost in the forest. They put a strong emphasis on overcoming the dangers of surviving thirst, hunger, a hostile climate, difficult terrain, illness or injury, stress and fear.
Self-defence
This group focuses on surviving sudden acts of violence, including personal protection and its legal consequences. Awareness of potential threats and practising various martial arts matter a lot to them. They also train in tactics and in using whatever means of defence are available. This group of preppers is often oriented towards using firearms to defend themselves against attackers or against intruders breaking into their homes.
Natural disasters (short and violent)
This group is made up of people who live in areas prone to tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes or heavy snowfall and want to be ready for possible emergencies. They often build safe shelters that can withstand the forces of nature. They assume that society and civilisation as a whole will survive, so they store food, water, medicine and enough supplies to last only a relatively short time, until contact with the rest of the world and order are restored.
Natural disaster (long-term)
This group focuses on the long-term consequences of weather events lasting 2 to 10 years, which could, among other things, wipe out crops. Preppers in this group may lay in as much as several tonnes of food for each member of the family and store other supplies that could last them for years.
An open-ended, multi-generational natural disaster
This group believes the end of civilisation as we know it is likely, as a result of factors such as global warming, global cooling, environmental degradation, or the warming or cooling of the Gulf Stream. Some also foresee a period of hard, severe winters caused by a supervolcano eruption, an asteroid strike or a nuclear conflict spreading on a global scale.
The biochemical scenario
This group prepares for the effects of the spread of deadly diseases and biological and chemical agents, including swine flu, E. coli O157, botulism, dengue fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, SARS, rabies, anthrax, plague, cholera, HIV, Ebola, the Marburg virus, the Lassa virus, sarin and VX. Many of them own full-face NBC gas masks, polyethylene suits, PVC boots, nitrile gloves, tarps and duct tape.
Added later: a year after this text was written, this very dark scenario came true before our eyes. The whole world changed in front of us, and in just a few weeks. The COVID-19 epidemic is not just a virus: it will bring many other consequences with it, for example…
Financial crash
Survivalists preparing for this scenario believe the global financial system is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable in the long run. They invest in gold and silver bars, coins and other precious metals, and more recently in cryptocurrencies too. They expect paper (or rather electronic) money to become worthless soon because of hyperinflation. This scenario has won many followers since 2009.
The biblical Apocalypse
These people study biblical prophecies about the end times and believe one of several scenarios could come true. This group holds a wide range of beliefs and views. Their attitudes vary enormously: from pacifists to armed camps, and from not stockpiling food at all (leaving their fate in the hands of Divine Providence) to storing enough food to survive for decades.
Peak oil (the point of maximum oil production)
This group believes that reaching and passing peak oil production is a real threat to Western civilisation. People in this group often move with their whole families to the countryside to farm the land and so become self-sufficient.
Focused on keeping civilisation going
This group focuses mainly on maintaining some form of legal system and social cohesion after society’s technical infrastructure has collapsed. They draw their inspiration from books such as “The Postman” by David Brin, “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch” by Lewis Dartnell or “The American Common Law: The Customary Law of the American Nation” by Marcus B. Hatfield
Changing fears and changing preparations
Survivalists’ fears about their own future and that of their families, and the ways they prepare to deal with the problems a potential disaster would bring, have changed over the years. In the 1970s the fears were mainly about economic collapse, hyperinflation and famine.
Preparations mainly involved storing food and moving to an area where you could farm the land yourself. Some stockpiled precious metals and goods for barter, such as ammunition, which they believed could become a kind of currency in the future. They assumed paper money would become completely worthless in the near future.
In the early 1980s the threat of nuclear war became a widespread fear, so some preppers built fallout shelters. They prepared to survive nuclear strikes and to live on in a world destroyed by atomic war. This scenario inspired many books and films, both documentary and fictional. A whole post-apocalyptic pop culture grew up around it.
Religious beliefs
There are also preppers with more specific fears that stem from their apocalyptic religious beliefs.
Some Protestants rely on an interpretation of biblical prophecy known as the “post-tribulation rapture”, according to which the world will have to go through a seven-year period of war and global dictatorship called the “Great Tribulation”. Jim McKeever helped popularise preparing to survive this scenario in his book “Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, and How To Prepare For It“.
Some Catholics are preppers too. Their beliefs are based on a number of Marian apparitions that speak openly of a great punishment sent upon humanity by God. This applies especially to those associated with Our Lady of Fátima and Our Lady of Akita (who states plainly that “fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity“).
Terminology
Survivalists keep their group identity by using specialist terminology that is not widely understood outside their circle. They often use military acronyms such as OPSEC and SOP. They also use expressions that are unique to their own survivalist groups. I am planning to put together a glossary of the terms and expressions survivalists use. If you would like to see such a glossary, let me know in a comment under the article.
How the public sees the prepper movement
In popular culture, preppers are often seen as having links to paramilitary activities and groups. Some survivalists take an active part in military-style training, often involving firearms, and the media sometimes play up this aspect.
The potential collapse of civilisation is often given as a reason for being well armed. As a result, some non-militaristic preppers have unfairly been given a militaristic image.
Survivalists around the world
Individual survival preparedness and survivalist groups and forums, both formal and informal, are popular all over the world. They are most active in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Germany (often organised under the guise of “adventure clubs”), the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States
So who are preppers and survivalists?
They are simply a more or less formal group preparing for “hard times” to come, whatever might cause them. That kind of foresight seems sensible and worthwhile.
And what do you think? Do you have enough food at home to last you at least a week? Do you have a safe shelter where you could sit out the hard times?
Leave a comment