“The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue” famously wrote the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. To the English mind, the stereotypical American is brasher, bolder, brassier, and altogether louder than the stiffly upper-lipped Englishman.
Is anything like that distinction apparent in our respective approaches to “prepping”?
Stereotypes
The initial incarnations of Preppers and prepping seemed only to confirm the received stereotype of a tribe too way-out, too off-the-wall, to have much of an appeal to the typically English mindset.
Preppers and prepping in the USA seemed to be confined to a handful of fringe and conspiracy theorists, represented by weirdoes and crackpots awaiting a zombie apocalypse in isolated and chemically-insulated bunkers far from any beaten track.
Redefining the stereotype
It’s a stereotype firmly undermined by the practice of an increasing band of level-headed, well-educated, rational, and perfectly “normal” Americans – as illustrated in a report by the BBC on the 10th of December 2020.
The report describes how prepping is becoming more mainstream rather than appealing only to extreme or fringe elements. It is a trend driven by a more widespread concern about what seem to be increasing numbers of natural disasters coupled with a declining confidence and faith in the institutions of the American infrastructure to manage the fallout from those natural – and manmade – disasters.
To that extent, both American and British preppers may be finding common ground – with any differences between the two groups diminishing accordingly.
Differences Persist
Yet differences persist, of course, and here are some of the reasons that might help to explain why they do:
America First
- Americans were, by and large, first to emerge onto the prepping scene – and being first typically lends any movement a distinctive character;
Mindsets
- the US is a large country, so has more regions where extreme weather can become the norm – contrast this with most parts of the much smaller British Isles, where even the unpredictability of local weather patterns fall within moderate limits;
- preparing for the next natural disaster might come more easily to the American mindset;
Faith in Government
- America is still a young country – it didn’t gain its independence until well into the 18th century;
- the historical background and experience is rather more geared to the individual, free of government constraint – and, indeed, an ingrained mistrust of government in general;
- the tradition of representative democracy may be longer-established in the UK, with greater faith in governments somehow coming up with the necessary solutions in times of crisis – although the days of the Englishman’s blind faith in government knowing best have probably now gone;
God and Guns
- backing up the greater reliance on personal independence is Americans’ seemingly unremitting attraction to what one website describes as “God and guns”;
- the UK is a far more secular place than the United States – where church on Sundays and God’s blessings on the righteous are still clear articles of faith;
- it is not directly related to that belief in God, of course, but Americans also have a far different attitude towards and exposure to guns – and, indeed, weapons of any kind;
- the picture of the gun-toting American Prepper is likely to be a definite turn-off for his or her counterparts in the UK.
At first sight, there might appear more that separates the American Prepper from his or her counterpart in the UK. But times are changing – on both side of “the Pond” – and there may soon be little to distinguish the two.
