Are you a Survivalist or Prepper?

by Jonathan Hunt
From The Urban Dictionary - 1. Prepper: Someone who focuses on preparedness, generally for various worst-case scenarios like peak oil or Armageddon. Sometimes used to avoid the more loaded term survivalist.

By all indications political correctness has found its way into the ranks of the preparedness movement. In the late 1980s those preparing for an uncertain future embraced the term survivalist - a term Kurt Saxon claims to have coined.

Whether he did or not is beside the point as it appears that most survival planner's are now embracing the more politically correct term "prepper."

It appears that the term survivalist has been effectively demonized by the mainstream media and the liberal left. With survivalists themselves falling victim to this latest ideology toward political correctness.

It has always peeved me off when the mainstream news media lump together the terms white supremacist, militia and survivalist as if one and the same. When in fact they are very different.

According to the news media if you are a survivalist you are also a white supremacist, a militia member and may be even a skinhead or Klan member.

It is an effective tactic that has swayed the opinion of the public, as well as that of survival planers who are now trying to distance themselves from the politically incorrect term survivalist and the stereotype attached to it.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the terms prepper or prepping - I've use them here on the survivalist blog in the past and will continue to do so. Not for purposes of being politically correct, but in an attempt to rank for those terms when people enter them in google search.

Who knows perhaps these new, less offensive labels will attract more people to the preparedness movement. At-least until the media starts a new smear campaign...

What do you consider yourself - a survivalist, prepper or both? Why