re: #302 The Ghost of a Flea

At the core of the post-collapse gun fantasy are a lot of presumptions that recapitulate existing privilege structures. Gun owner/survivalist types posit themselves as the rational “civilized” and that everyone else will descend into barbarism post-collapse because that’s how they already view themselves versus the “other.” The pleasure comes from the projected confirmation that their tribal distinctions and subsequent prejudices about race, politics, religion, et cetera wil be true…they will be strong and organized and win, and the “other” will be wicked and incompetent and lose.

More scarily, it’s also taking the fantasy of having a legitimate excuse to be violent towards people you don’t like and cranking it up to eliminationist levels. It’s taking existing political rhetoric and making it literal: there’s an existential threat that can only be dealt with by wiping out the opposition.

Their thinking goes back at least as far as the 1950’s fallout shelter fad, through the Clinton-era militias, Y2K survivalists, and now the Preppers. Earlier than that it blends into the frontier Injun fighter mentality. We’ve always had them.