DANCING AT ARMAGEDDON: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times

The survivalist movement gets a partial makeover in this revisionist study of America's backwoods doomsayers. Sociologist Mitchell begins with a simple thesis: survivalists are not necessarily crazy or stupid. Rather, he writes, survivalism is a creative response to the stresses of modernity. Its adherents practice a kind of "radical skepticism" about our cultural and economic structures, which leads them to predict civilization's collapse (through race war, economic ruin, plague, nuclear holocaust, etc.). The more notorious proclivities of survivalists—collecting guns, building bunkers and the like—are merely sensible responses to these dire forecasts, which may have seemed far-fetched before September 11. Mitchell spent years among his subjects, even participating in some "guerrilla" training himself (a farcical weekend in the woods with men too chubby to march very long and too drowsy to fight very hard). Survivalists can live in nice suburbs; they can even make prudent investments like buying land to use as a tax shelter and, "when needed, a fallout shelter." In fact, says Mitchell, sometimes survivalist cadres resemble nothing so much as eccentric hobby groups. But there is also a darker side to the movement, chronicled by Mitchell's visits to Idaho's Aryan Nations compound and other militant survivalist centers around the country. In these places, survivalism is inextricably tied to resentment, racism and hate. The Aryan Nations material is well worn, but the rest of Mitchell's account is provocative and surprising. His book is an important attempt to clarify and contextualize a movement that thrives on mainstream society's fringes. (Jan.)