A nice deconstruction, thanks! I really like the analogy.
My perspective on US preppers is mostly based on the materials they publish - websites and a book I read - which often tend to paint very fatalistic scenarios (understandably so; most people don't apply to their lives everything from a book or article). And then, honestly, a lot of works of popular culture paint it this way.
I try to cut through my biases, but I think I failed. I don't want to say America is fatalistic per se, but - as far as I know from all the reading and watching I did over the years - the American mythos still revolves around self-made men and women, pioneers and colonists. It's different in Europe; there've been mostly stable settlements here for over a thousand years. Most of our history curriculum focuses on that. We're used to rules and borders changing, but not to having to bootstrap civilization.
That said, I think the increased focus on "partition tolerance" part in the US compared to Europe may be in big part a result of US having lots of areas that are very sparse. In Europe, especially the western part, there isn't enough space. The whole continent has twice the population of the US but the same land area. Most rural communities are still pretty close to towns and major cities.
My perspective on US preppers is mostly based on the materials they publish - websites and a book I read - which often tend to paint very fatalistic scenarios (understandably so; most people don't apply to their lives everything from a book or article). And then, honestly, a lot of works of popular culture paint it this way.
I try to cut through my biases, but I think I failed. I don't want to say America is fatalistic per se, but - as far as I know from all the reading and watching I did over the years - the American mythos still revolves around self-made men and women, pioneers and colonists. It's different in Europe; there've been mostly stable settlements here for over a thousand years. Most of our history curriculum focuses on that. We're used to rules and borders changing, but not to having to bootstrap civilization.
That said, I think the increased focus on "partition tolerance" part in the US compared to Europe may be in big part a result of US having lots of areas that are very sparse. In Europe, especially the western part, there isn't enough space. The whole continent has twice the population of the US but the same land area. Most rural communities are still pretty close to towns and major cities.