Some Reading and Podcast Recommendations
I’ve been on vacation the last few days. I was soaking up some much-needed sun in the desert of Southern California while also wondering how much longer people will actually want/be able to retreat to such places. Nonetheless, it was a much-needed respite from the February cold and the rain and gray skies of Oregon. As such, my ability to generate new/interesting content was also on vacation. So I thought this week’s issue would be an appropriate time to share some articles and podcasts that have caught my attention recently (some of which I’ve noted on Instagram as well).
The People Cheering Humanity’s End By Adam Kirsch
The Atlantic’s January/February 2023 issue was a must-read-now kind of issue with the subject “Notes from the Apocalypse.” The article that gave me holy-shit-this-is-a-thing kind of vibes was Adam Kirsch’s article about the distinct but interesting groups hoping, in some way, for the end of humanity.
While the hope for humans nonexistence connects these groups, they couldn’t be more different from each other in every other way. The first, those in the Anthropocene anti-humanism camp seem, at least to me, a bit more understandable. As Kirsch describes them, they’re “inspired by revulsion at humanity’s destruction of the natural environment.” Capitalism and industrialization have only been bad for nature, so I see why some have thought the eventual self-imposed destruction of humankind is welcome. While I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that humans shouldn’t be here anymore (and the concept kind of skips over the fact that humans lived in harmony with nature for millennia), I do get it to some extent.
The other group are those in the transhumanism camp. These folks believe, as Kirsch writes, “that the only way forward for humanity is to create new forms of intelligent life that will no longer be Home sapiens.” I don’t know about y’all, but what I first thought of was Battlestar Galactica. To those who didn’t binge this sci-fi thriller, the main plot point is that human-looking cyborgs called Cylons destroy the 12 human-populated planets leaving the ship, the Galactica as the last remaining human battleship that spends the entire series with the surviving human refugees jumping lightyears through space trying to evade the pursuing Cylons in search of a new colony, Earth. (yes, yes, to those who are BSG superfans, I didn’t do this history justice in this one sentence, so for way better history and details, you can read this article). So hearing that there are people who are actively trying to create a future with more intelligent/AI lifeforms, I’m adamantly in the no-fucking-way camp.
That all being said, read the article for yourself and I would love to hear what you think.
Clutter is Good for You by Rob Walker
Right as I was getting into my No-Buy Year, I came across Rob Walker’s New York Times opinion piece, Clutter is Good for You. I was in the midst of a purge that is all a part of the anti-consumerist journey I’m on and that the No-Buy Year is helping me kickstart. So when someone argued almost the opposite of the Marie Kondo method, my ears perked up. Not necessarily because it was a way for me to justify purchases that I’m making, but almost in some way it’s a call to appreciate the things I have or do an assessment of what’s there. A full scale purge or stuff maybe isn’t exactly the direction I need to take.
While I’m on board with purging the unnecessary things, the duplicate kitchen implements, the five similar orange sweaters in my closet, the useless knick knacks taking over the junk drawer, it hit me harder when thinking about getting rid of things such as my beloved books or CDs I haven’t listened to ages, or one of the approximately 2,000 quilts lying around our house.
Walker argues that those things bring a person joy. If they still do or you think that they do, then why not keep them around. Just recently, I came across a box of old mix tapes my friends made for me in high school (for those counting, those will be close to 25 year-old mix tapes). I was inspired to borrow a friend’s boom box to give them a whirl. But even if I wasn’t able to play them, they still bring me the joy of nostalgia.
Walker’s op-ed made me rethink what the stuff around me means to me. I’ll still work on getting rid of the things that I don’t need or are truly just creating clutter for the sake of clutter. But I won’t be so quick to get rid of the things that bring me joy.
The Cult of Preppers from the Sounds Like a Cult Podcast
One of the things I have loved about this newsletter and my Cramming for the Apocalypse Instagram page is that whenever a reader/follower comes across anything about the apocalypse or preppers, they send recommendations to me (I love it and keep ‘em coming). That’s how I came across this fantastic podcast, Sounds Like a Cult hosted by Amanda Montell & Isabela Medina-Maté, when an Instagram writer friend sent me The Cult of Preppers episode they did a few weeks ago. And not only was it a great episode, it was a discovery of a now regular-rotation podcast listen (because, y’all, if you think about it every community you’re a part of could totally be a little cult-uy).
In some ways I’ve thought about the cult-ishness about doomsday preppers, but never in those terms. Throughout the episode they dissect different aspects of prepping trying to get into what parts of it really are cult-y. They note that throughout human history there have been doomsday scenarios at every turn. From unexplainable natural disasters (which felt especially unexplainable in pre-modern science days) to the fear of nuclear war during The Cold War, this apocalyptic fear is not new. “Reckoning with collective doom, personal doom, is a journey,” said host Amanda Montell who wrote “Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism.” “And that is a type of anxiety that cults have famously exploited. Doomsday ideology is something that goes back to the dawn of religion.”
“I think fearing doomsday or fearing an apocalypse is, itself not necessarily cult-y or dangerous, but it’s when that fear becomes weaponized and institutionalized as a religious tenet by an organized faith that it can be very cult-y,” she goes on. “I would also way when you take actions on those beliefs,” says Isa Medina in that conversation. “You can believe in the end of the world, but once you start taking steps every day to prepare for it, and those steps get in the way of your everyday life.”
All of this made me think about the preppers I follow on Instagram. While I appreciate their tips and suggestions (I really do want to have a “go bag”–which I’m actively not calling a “Bug Out Bag” a la doomsday prepper speak), there is a fantasticism about their approach to prepping that is, at least for me, off-putting. It feels like they’re speaking a language of fear and urgency that distrusts what the outside world is telling them. That the world is lying to them in some ways. It feels, well, cult-y.
There’s so much in the episode because they talk about climate activism and the self-centeredness of humans and real-world fear of nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War. I highly recommend checking it out (and thanks Kelley for the recommendation!)
And I’ll close by posing the question the Sounds Like a Cult hosts ask of their listeners about that week’s topic: What do you think is the most culty think about doomsday preppers?