Thursday, November 4, 2010

Robinson Crusoe, the Master Story

This is a very, very long but excellently written thesis on Robinson Crusoe as the Master Narrative of the white Protestant ethic of exploration and enslavement and how, through the book's popularity that meme infects all modern culture to keep perpetuating that story throughout history.

The political echoes of the White Man's Burden began long before Kipling and have echoed long after. What's particular interesting is also the idea of Crusoe being the "man alone", away from the cloying nature of others, where he can make the world anew, to his ethics and his standards. Crusoe is, clearly, a maverick, not a Washington insider. He's also, of course, John Galt and his disciples, the Tea Party. We don't need society, because I'm Alright Jack. I've got my island. And that's the problem with homosexuals of course - they can live how they choose but when they come into your island, that's crossing the line.

America is the Man on the Frontier, and The Man Alone there, like Gary Cooper at the end of High Noon. Yes, he'll save the women, because, like the black folks and such, they can't save themselves - but of course just like a woman, Grace goes and gets herself captured. That's why Ethnic Sidekicks are better than women: the ethnics have the good sense to die in your arms thanking you for freeing them. Gary saves Grace (because he's a bleeding heart in the end) but John Galt would leave her and the town to die. They made their own bed by being pacifists, ethnics and women.

As always, there's Futurama:
Leela: Fry, one of these men will be the ruler of Earth!
Fry: What do I care? I live in America!
Leela: Fry, America is PART of the Earth!
Fry: Wow. I have been gone along time!

America is an island from the world; its inhabitants islands from each other. While many in the left hated Obama's centricism there were a lot of people who responded to his message of healing a divided country (another Master Story, of course). And that's because either consciously or unconsciously, they (and we in the rest of the West are not immune to this in our mad dash for individualism) can see their islands may kill them all.

E Pluribus Unum, indeed.

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