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LITR 5431 Literary & Historical Utopias
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1st
Research Post 2019
Sara J. Stevens
February 17, 2019
Prepping for the Millennium:
Doomsday Preppers as a Utopia
As a fan of
The Walking Dead television series
and of young adult dystopian novels, I wanted to research and find information
on utopias or dystopias formed before a millennium or apocalyptic event.
Much of our readings thus far have been based on the formation of utopian
communities arising from some disastrous event.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
Herland is based upon a community of women which was formed after a
destructive war and natural disaster.
In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, we have
a utopian community formed because of destruction that occurred in “evil times.”
I began to think about doomsday preppers and if they could be considered
a utopian community.
According to Jacob Hunter, in his
article “When did Doomsday Prepping Get a Bad Rap? The History of Prepping,”
Americans have been prepping since the Pioneer Days.
In the Pioneer Days, Hunter explains, prepping had no name.
People were resourceful; they grew their own food, made medicines, mended
their own clothing, and generally did what they did to survive for the
long-term. Hunter states that
during this period, this action was not called prepping—it is just
what was done. Moving forward to
the industrial revolution, people moved from a pioneer lifestyle to one in
factories and cities, and forgot or lost their basic survival skills.
According to Hunter, prepping became a forgotten skill that regained its
popularity and necessity during World War I and World War II.
The final historical prepper account, before the 21st Century,
was during the Cold War. Hunter
explains how prepping during this time period was especially rampant.
During the Cold War era, many people were concerned with a nuclear attack
and the fallout. According to
Hunter, people stockpiled food, built bunkers, and even ran drills to make sure
their plan was sound. Given the
history of prepping, especially Cold War era prepping, the doomsday prepper has
a bad reputation of being paranoid.
Prepping in today's society shares many
attributes with historical preppers.
Americans have been concerned with some type of disastrous event for
awhile now. We have those concerned
with the biblical apocalypse, fallout from war, and climate change causing major
destruction; to name a few. Since
9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other major disasters that have occurred in our
recent history, the idea of doomsday prepping has become even more prevalent.
Some people prep for their own families and some form a kind of
utopian-like community to prepare for what they believe is to come.
Chad Huddleston, an anthropologist, published an article in response to
observations he made on a group of doomsday preppers.
According to Huddleston’s article “For Preppers, the Apocalypse Is Just
Another Disaster,” Huddleston recorded a meeting held with preppers in 2008.
Huddleston stated he was nervous about attending the prepper meeting; he
like most people assumed preppers were “doomsday-obsessed, right-wing,
anti-government extremists who want nothing more than to wade into an apocalypse
with guns blazing in an effort to protect their families and ideology”
(Huddleston, 2018). What Huddleston
stated he found instead was “that most individuals are simply normal people
preparing for adverse events—whether that be a power outage, a flood, or, on the
outside chance, a terrorist attack” (Huddleston, 2018).
Huddleston, also relayed, he joined a group of preppers in the Midwest,
and not only do they stockpile supplies, but they are educated people who are
teaching basic survival skills to those in their community.
While conducting my research, I came
across a website for the Torrance Art Museum.
Museum posted and exhibit titled “Prep School: Prepper & Survivalist
Ideologies and Utopian/Dystopian Visions” curated by
Max Presneill and Lisa DeSmidt.
In the text, written by Presneill, “Prep School-A Feedback Loop,”
Presneill equates doomsday prepping to Darwin’s theory of “Survival of the
Fittest.” Presneill’s research had led
him to believe that those who participate in “prepping” do so because they are
just trying to prepare for whatever may arise.
I have mentioned several disasters that have occurred to heighten a
response for prepping such as 9/11; Presneill also mentions Y2K, and the
mortgage crisis of 2007. Presneill
correlates this type of future prepping by stating “these
future Utopian or Dystopian scenarios predict the coming of a new era.
Perhaps destruction is necessary in order to build something new, for better or
for worse” (Presneill, 2014). The
Torrance Art Museum’s focus was to document and exhibit doomsday prepping by
Americans from the past all the up to current day.
There have
been many different fictional shows and books depicting how Americans will live
after an apocalyptic event. Most
people write it off, laugh because it sounds preposterous, or only think of it
as being fictitious. Prepping is a
real thing for many Americans, and it is “in our face” without even realizing
it. Emilie Friedlander, in her
article “I Lived Exclusively Off Doomsday Prepper Food for a Week,” explains how
accessible prepper food really is.
Friedlander explains she began her journey after 9/11.
Friedlander gives an account of how her father began stockpiling food,
medicine and other necessities after the attacks that took place on 9/11.
Out of curiosity, Friedlander began looking for foods and other prepper
“necessities.” Friedlander found
that major grocery chains such as Costco, Walmart and Target sold items such as:
freeze dried meals, survival kits, etc.
Some of these stores even sold these items by the pallet (Friedlander,
2018). In addition, Friedlander
found that “Wise Company’s
products proved lifesaving in a very urgent sense: Strapped for rations
following the double whammy of Harvey in Texas and Irma in South Florida, FEMA
placed an order for 2 million servings of food to relieve Maria’s victims in
Puerto Rico. On a typical day, though, its selection of 72-hour, one-week, and
one-month survival kits, packaged in boxes that can easily fit under a bed,
seems more geared toward everyday Americans looking to prepare for the unknown”
(Friedlander, 2018).
I now know, in
fact, Doomsday prepping is a very real thing that is experienced by many
Americans. Some people prep in
small quantities to sustain their families during a natural disaster, such as a
hurricane or a snow storm, while others prep for a millennium type of event.
Preppers can be found in intentional communities; although most keep
their locations secret to prevent outsiders from stealing from them, while
others lead normal lives. Some
doomsday preppers are, in fact, attempting to create their own utopian
community, before, not after an apocalyptic event occurs.
Works Cited
Friedlander, Emilie. “I Lived Off Doomsday Prepper Food
for a Week,” April 2018. Retrieved
from
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/vbx399/what-does-prepper-food-taste-like-v25n1.
Huddleston, Chad.
“For Preppers, the Apocalypse Is Just Another Disaster,” March 2018.
Hunter, Jacob.
“When Did Doomsday Prepping Get a Bad Rap? The History of Prepping,”
Presneill, Max.
“Prep School-A Feedback Loop,” March 2014.
Retrieved from
http://www.torranceartmuseum.com/prepschool.
