Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
What do you suppose Custer thought as he saw the increasing number of Indians circling his position and his own forces dwindling under their attack? I mean, yeah, he probably thought “Crap, I shouldn’t have left those Gatling guns behind” but do you think there was a point where he figured there was no way out and that any further fighting would be pointless? I imagine there was a point where he knew there was no way he could save himself or his men and that he was going to die. So, I wonder, why didn’t he just drop his pistols and wait for the inevitable end?
In the heyday of survivalism one of the common comments made about the possibility of a US-Soviet nukefest was the classic “If it happens I hope Im sitting right under where the missle hits”. Another great standard of stupidity was “If it happens we’re all dead anyway”. These statements were usually given by people when confronted with the option of preparing for surviving a nuclear exchange or doing nothing. The worst of the bunch not only resigned themselves to the defeatist attitude of “we’re all dead anyway” but would discourage others from preparing because if no one was prepared to survive such an exchange, the logic goes, theyd be more likely to avoid one. Those who thought they could survive a nuclear war would, they said, be more inclined to participate in one…remove their chances of survival and they won’t throw nukes around. (A fascinating idea that only really works if both sides play by the same rules.)
Fact of the matter is that regardless of what you do, youre gonna die eventually. Superstitions about an afterlife aside, once your dead you’re pretty much done with existence. The only variables, really, are how long you live and how well. (And, to a degree, how well you die. Technically, we’re in control of that to some degree but theres still plenty of room for the unexpected terminal event.) Personally, Id rather die fat and well-rested in my sleep in a warm bed, in a nice house, on a quiet, cool peaceful night than to die emaciated and filthy, on my knees, coughing up blood as I watch joyous thugs ransack my house before setting it ablaze.
So, if we accept the fact that we are gonna die someday (and if you can’t accept that fact, boy are you in for a surprise someday) whats the point of preparing to weather life’s disasters? You die two years from now or thirty years from now youre still dead, yes? So why go through all these expensive and elaborate steps that we take to preserve our safety and comfort? Same reason that, as I read it, Custer kept going until he was dead – our number one motivational imperative is to survive.
Look at what goes on in the animal kingdom…pretty much every animal’s number one priority in life is to survive, at least long enough to ensure a new generation of that animal. Only under the most extreme circumstances do animals willingly risk their survival … almost always in defense of their young or defense of their social group (hive, pack, whatever). When we see animals exhibit behavior that is counter to their survival we usually discover those animals are diseased or deranged in some way. Theyre ‘mad’.
So what does it say about people who refuse to prepare against threats to their own survival? Or about people who actively discourage or disparage people who take measures to protect themselves? Are they diseased and deranged? Are they somehow twisted in their thinking that they are going against their own instincts of self-preservation? I doubt it. I think that the people who do these things aren’t delusional, they’re either being purposefully ignorant of the threats against them or they’re quite aware of them but choose to pretend they don’t exists and prefer not to be reminded that they do exist. And, as Rand pointed out, reality exists whether you choose to believe in it or not.
On the other hand, one could argue that one thing that separates us from animals is our ability to control and regulate our instinctual behavior. If we were unable to do that, we’d be living in a fairly anarchistic and chaotic world. Those crazy preparedness freaks are people who can’t rationalize or intellectualize past their lizard brain instincts..theyre no better than primates in a jungle. Two sides to every argument, I suppose.
Reality has a predictable way of bending people to its will. (Or it crushes them completely.) I would bet you that there are less people today ‘against us’ and more people ‘with us’ in terms of being prepared. There will be huge differences of opinion as to just what exactly it is we are preparing for, but I think it is the rare individual these days who looks at the person cutting their debt, stocking up on food, cutting their living expenses and asks ‘why’.
