Fear of a seedless planet

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Sometime last year, after I finished reading ‘Emergency’ by Neil Strauss, I decided that if there were to be a cataclysmic event nearby, I’d most likely be one of the first to die. In Emergency, Strauss chronicles his intense foray into becoming a survivalist – someone who could be autonomous, as the slang goes, WTSHTF, and simultaneously taps into a growing faction of the population: the ‘preppers.’

Preppers are those among us who are slowly amassing the tools and knowledge in order to survive if there’s a disaster. And, to be honest, a lot of it sounds like a good idea – things like learning first aid, or how to survive in your own home after a disaster long enough to be rescued (where do you find water if none comes from the tap?). But, as one might expect, a lot of what the preppers are prepping for seems to have a rather apocalyptic slant.

Take, for example, the Survival Seed Bank. Those of us who were watching the bizarre interview that Glenn Beck had with Eric Massa were lucky enough to see an ad for the Survival Seed Bank, which informed us that when everything goes to hell, the only way to survive will be to plant non-hybrid seeds. The Survival Seed Bank site comes with user testimonials about successful crop yields, and reminds buyers that with the seeds, “you’ll have confidence knowing that you and your family will be able to eat if the Insiders trigger some huge meltdown.”

There are a couple of weird things about this (I’m going to ignore the blatant ignorance of the fact that a violent, hungry mob would probably head directly to the nearest vegetable patch and kill whoever owned it):

Anyway, what’s wrapped up in the promotion of things like non-hybrid seeds and precious metals is the notion that those who buy in now will not only will be able to survive a complete meltdown, but will profit from it. The reminder at the top of the Survival Seed Bank site that the seeds will be “more valuable than silver or gold in a real meltdown” suggests that a). Nothing matters more than being able to eat, and b). You might be able to barter them for profit.

Or take Rosland Capital, a company that presents gold as a virtually bulletproof commodity (second only, apparently, to seeds) – one that will only increase in value once the inevitable occurs: the dollar become obsolete. At that time, of course, you’ll be rich. “During tough economic times,” states spokesman Gordon Liddy, “gold is the time-tested currency that goes up, not down.” Well, except for this week.

It’s slightly jarring to watch these ads as they frame Glenn Beck’s endless diatribes about government consolidation and the alleged second coming of communism. Surely, if the Obama administration is successful in instigating a regime that Beck often suggests might be similar to the reign of Stalin, owning gold would be a liability, wouldn’t it? After all, you wouldn’t want to look too bourgeois.

But of course, it’s the constant underlying narrative of personal autonomy (a warped ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality) that they all simultaneously encourage and pander to. It’s a never-ending, perfectly astute, marketing barrage, centered on the fact that you’re fucking terrified. And the suggestion from each part (the ‘news’ reinforcing the ads reinforcing the ‘news’) is that you need to come out on top; that there’s a war going on somewhere nearby – in your bank account, in your child’s school – and that you need to win it. Under this constant, intentionally multi-faceted threat, non-hybrid seeds seem like they might be a solution to… something. But in reality, you’ve just purchased a thousand vacuum-packed placebos.

A while back when I discussed the film 2012, I made the point that there is a certain type of arrogance that comes with not only believing that the world will end in your lifetime, but that you’ll be able to survive it. The combination of Glenn Beck’s rhetoric with advertisements for disaster commodities, equates to one giant ego-stroke for the viewer, suggesting that only they are privy to this information. Not only that, but if they act now, there might be profit to be made – the rest of us be damned. Every man for himself: the way America was formed.

After he learned everything he can on how to survive on his own, Neil Strauss ended up becoming a member of the California Emergency Mobile Patrol (C.E.M.P), a non-profit agency that was set up to help police and fire departments in case of “unusual occurrences and in times of disaster.” With all that survivalist knowledge, Strauss eventually began running toward the problems, not away from them.