Might Is Right

Might Is Right
2005 Dil Pickle Press cover
Author Unknown, see authorship
Ragnar Redbeard (pseudonym)
Country United States
Language English
Subject Social Darwinism
Publication date
 1890
Media type Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages 96 (paperback)
ISBN 9781682040232

Might Is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest, is a book by pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard. First published in 1890, it heavily advocates egoist anarchism, amorality, consequentialism and psychological hedonism. In Might Is Right, Redbeard rejects conventional ideas of human and natural rights and argues that only strength or physical might can establish moral right (à la Callicles or Thrasymachus). The book also attacks Christianity and Democracy. Friedrich Nietzsche's theories of master–slave morality and herd mentality serve as a clear inspiration for Redbeard's book written contemporaneously.[1]

Individualist Anarchist historian James J. Martin called it "surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere."[2] This refers to the controversial content such as the viewpoint that weakness should be regarded with hatred and the strong and forceful presence of Social Darwinism in the text. There are also controversial parts of the book that deal with race and male–female relations, claiming that the woman and the family as a whole is the property of the man and proclaiming the innate superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. The book also contains many strongly anti-Semitic statements.

Some have suspected that the work is at least partly intended to be a satire of Social Darwinism. It has also been characterised as "proto-fascist white power manifesto".[3]

Authorship

S. E. Parker writes in his introduction to the text: "The most likely candidate is a man named Arthur Desmond who was red-bearded, red-haired and whose poetry was very similar to that written by Redbeard."[4]

The Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and white supremacist publisher Katja Lane (wife of The Order member David Lane) both believed noted novelist Jack London was substantially involved, if not the author of the entire book; the latter based her judgment on London's distinctive grammar and punctuation.[5][6] However, Jack London scholar Rodger Jacobs said, "the notion is as ludicrous as suggesting that the author of 'White Fang' was a cross-dressing hermaphrodite who buried his sexual shame in manly exploits".[5] London was born in 1876, so he would have written the book in his early teens by the time it was first published in 1890.

Response

Leo Tolstoy, whom Might Is Right described as "the ablest modern expounder of primitive Christliness", responded in his 1897 essay What Is Art?:

The substance of this book, as it is expressed in the editor's preface, is that to measure "right" by the false philosophy of the Hebrew prophets and "weepful" Messiahs is madness. Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero.

Expressed in the form of a doctrine these positions startle us. In reality they are implied in the ideal of art serving beauty. The art of our upper classes has educated people in this ideal of the over-man, --- which is in reality the old ideal of Nero, Stenka Razin, Genghis Khan, Robert Macaire or Napoleon and all their accomplices, assistants, and adulators --- and it supports this ideal with all its might.

It is this supplanting of the ideal of what is right by the ideal of what is beautiful, i.e. of what is pleasant, that is the fourth consequence, and a terrible one, of the perversion of art in our society. It is fearful to think of what would befall humanity were such art to spread among the masses of the people. And it already begins to spread.[7]

S. E. Parker wrote: "Might Is Right is a work flawed by major contradictions." He particularly criticised the inconsistency of the book's central dogma of individualism with its open sexism and racism. However, he concluded that "it is sustained by a crude vigor that at its most coherent can help to clear away not a few of the religious, moral and political superstitions bequeathed to us by our ancestors."[4]

Influence

Portions of Might Is Right comprise the vast majority of The Book of Satan in Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible, the founding document of the Church of Satan.[8]

Though it is no longer included in current printings of The Satanic Bible, early printings included an extensive dedication to various people whom LaVey recognized as influences, including Ragnar Redbeard.[9]

Editions

YearPublisherNotes
1890Auditorium Press[10]
1896A. Uing Publisher
1903A. Mueller Publishers
1910W.J. Robbins Co. Ltd
1921Ross’ Book Service
1927Dil Pickle Press
1962unknown publisher18-page abridged edition
1969same unknown publisherExpanded 32-page edition
1972Revisionist PressReprint of 1927 Dil Pickle edition. ISBN 978-1478225171
1984Loompanics Unlimited ISBN 0-915179-12-1
1996M. H. P & Co. Ltd.Centennial edition, with intro by Anton LaVey.
199914 Word PressSt. Maries, Idaho
2003Bugbee Books
200529 BooksReprint of 1927 Dil Pickle edition. ISBN 0-9748567-2-X
2005Dil Pickle PressEdited and annotated by Darrell W. Conder. ISBN 0-9728233-0-1
2008Zem Books ISBN 978-1-329-41381-8
2009Edition EsoterickGerman hardcover edition. ISBN 978-3-936830-31-6
2012Kustantamo Vuohi JulkaisutFinnish edition. ISBN 978-952-92-9531-9
2014Camion NoirFrench edition. ISBN 978-235779-620-1
2014Aristeus Books, ed. Dragan NikolicSecond ed., Eng. edn. ISBN 978-1682040232
2018Zem BooksHardcover ed. ISBN 978-1-387-51811-1
2018Noir AnthologieSpanish edition ASIN B07DH2QWS8

References

  1. ↑ Chris Mathews (2009). Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-313-36639-0. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  2. ↑ EGO No 6 1985 Twenty Five Pence, at the Wayback Machine (archived August 18, 2010) archived from the original
  3. ↑ Mathews 2009, p. 65
  4. 1 2 S. E. Parker, Introduction to Might is Right
  5. 1 2 RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES: JACK LONDON, THE CULT OF MASCULINITY, AND "MIGHT IS RIGHT", Rodger Jacobs, Jack London Online Collection, Sonoma U
  6. ↑ "Foreward" (sic) by Anton LaVey, to Might is Right, pub. Shane Bugbee (2003)
  7. ↑ What is art? Leo Tolstoy
  8. ↑ Gallagher, Eugene V. (2013). "Sources, Sects, and Scripture: The Book of Satan in The Satanic Bible". In Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen. The Devil's Party-Satanism in Modernity. Oxford University Press. pp. 103–122.
  9. ↑ LaVey, Anton Szandor (1969). The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-01539-9.
  10. ↑ "Might Is Right (The Logic of To-day) / by Ragnar Redbeard". National Library of Australia Catalogue. National Library of Australia. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
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