© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“No matter how many centuries of culture have preceded, the new man always finds himself standing on the brink of chaos, always in a crisis. Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870
Throughout my lifetime there have always been doomsayers forecasting that our nation was going to Hades in a hand basket. Sigmund Freud wrote an interesting article in 1925 about our brain’s inability to deal well with negative images. As people shooting free throws to win a game know, negative images are dysfunctional.
I find it odd that our society is so inundated with negative images from the media. Every day in every way the messages from the media are that bad things happened to these people and you might be next. Yikes!
Still, as Henry Kissinger so aptly put it, “Even a paranoid has some real enemies.” So, they might really be out to get you whether you are a paranoid or not.
I was thinking of this as a radio pundit was talking about the need for families to stock up on enough food “for the hard times ahead.” This commentator said we had better go to the stores and buy up the food supplies before the hoarders get them.
What can be more disturbing than going to the store to find the shelves empty? Some people have those nightmares while the rest of us ignore the hoarding clamor by putting our fingers in our ears and blowing spit bubbles.
This brings back the images of the Y2K preparations. Where did those eight years go? Back then the pundits were sure life on this planet was going to stop because computers run everything and there was this tragic computer flaw.
People did not know how long society was going to be upside down so they stocked up on essentials like toilet paper and whiskey. Both are useful if the lights go out.
I did not stock up more than usual in front of that Y2K New Years Day for a reason that most people did not consider. If I had a generator and lots of food while my neighbors did not, how soon would it be before the first neighbor came knocking on my door? And then what?
In short, was I prepared to defend my hoard from my neighbors? I was not. You see, shooting a neighbor who just wanted a PB&J sandwich was going to cause long-term hard feelings in the neighborhood. The block parties would never be the same. Yet, if I gave away all of my food I would very shortly be in the same condition as they were. So I took my chances and only bought a couple of extra rolls of toilet paper. Everything turned out fine.
It is the same now as then. People are talking about hoarding food and I wonder how they wish to defend their stash of food. I like my neighbors. I have known some of them for most of 40 years. Naw, shooting them to keep them out of my peanut butter is out of the question.
Don’t get carried away
Do I advocate that we have only a one day supply of food and water at all times and hope that there is no national conniption in the food supply? No, I think a couple of jars of extra crunchy would not be out of the question. But quickly this sort of thing can snowball into a large pantry like my parents had.
They were products of the Great Depression in the 1930s and were always squirreling away cans of food here and there. Those cans became quite bulgy with age and probably more deadly than a land mine. I have resisted any urge to do that kind of stockpile. But I do have some urges. No, this isn’t about Viagra; it is about planning so I could go a couple of weeks without missing a meal. And those who know me know I have not missed a meal since Nixon was president.
Governments need to assure us that there will be backup food and water supplies in case of some disruption in the supply chain. And it would not hurt us to have several cases of bottled water, just in case. As long as it does not turn into a mania. But how can it not? When someone saves something and then saves some more, before you know it the ark is full of animals.
It comes back to this: If you have several cases of water, just in case, and your neighbor pounds on your door wanting you to share your water, do you have a plan?
Maybe all of this is just negative thinking and all we have to do is keep good thoughts in our minds and nothing bad can happen. It works for me better than putting my fingers in my ears and blowing spit bubbles.
Stockpiling a few things for the possible hard times is fine if you do not get carried away. Peanut butter, water, toilet paper and whiskey for sure.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.