Over at  Lawrence Auster’s View from the Right, in an interesting thread on whether traditionalists should withdraw to safe territory or fight it out at home, commenter Vivek G., in advocating the latter option, talks like a true Crusoe:

 And we need to begin wherever we are. There can be informal co-operation amongst various traditionalist movements even across national boundaries, but that may just be desirable, not a must. If we fail in this, we have to fall back on the John Galt option. Since the necessary homework is more or less the same for both of these options, it can be advantageous to try the take-over option before the other. 

I concede that this may sound fascist to Liberals, Muslims, and Commies; but what can one do if this is the only option? And Liberals, Muslims, and Commies call anything and everything they dislike, fascism. But I firmly believe that our society has as much right to survive, if not more, as Liberal, Muslim or Commie societies have. And if they threaten our survival, we must take adequate measures. We have been blind until now to their taking us over. Now it is time for us to be strong enough to take over them.

I couldn’t agree more. Don’t wait for others to join you. Start now, on your own island. 

You are far from civilization. It’s pointless to ask why or how you got here. Like Crusoe, you must survive. Perhaps you have a few fellow shipwrecks along with you, your family or chosen friends. If not, the island is yours alone.

You rescued some supplies from the ship before it broke apart on the shoals. You have these saving vestiges of the civilized world.  An axe, some saws and knives; a musket and ammunition; a hogshead of stale bread – these things and a few more. A lifetime stretches before you. Never have you felt so puny. Never have you examined the horizon or viewed the waves upon a beach with such hostility and incomprehension.

Take a walk. Pummel the sand. Pull your hair and weep. Then put aside your rebellion.  You are alive.  Assuming that a bare subsistence can be had from this island, what is it you most need? Make a list.

1.  Your sanity.  The area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. The fourth president of the United States was James Madison. The longest river in the world is the Nile. You see. Your mind works. This is not genius. This is sense. One thought proceeds from another. There is a cosmos within, orderly and rational, at your beck and call.

2.  Your hands.  They seemed as quaint as spinning wheels and covered wagons. Now you know the truth. You can plant barley, skin a goat, make a hat, dig a hole, mold a pot, knead bread, sew a pair of breeches, chop wood, write a diary. You can lean your head on your palm and look at the surf, trying to studiously recollect the world as it should be, or you can make a city all your own, laying it brick by brick.  Barring tragic injury, your hands will never desert you.

3.  Gratitude.  Every grievance you rightfully possess, all sense of injury undeserved, pales beside the fact that you and this island exist. You never cease to hope that a ship will appear and take you to civilization. But, you begin to look back on your pre-shipwreck life as vain and stupid. Run through all the arguments for ingratitude. They are lacking. You are alive.  You are rational. You are not alone even in the middle of the sea.

N.C. Wyeth's Crusoe

One of the greatest books ever written about homemaking – in the physical and metaphysical sense of the word – is The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. This is the strange and surprising story of making a home in a hostile world.

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