Might Is Right

Might Is Right or The Survival of the Fittest is a book by pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard, generally believed to be a pen name of Arthur Desmond. First published in 1896,[1] it advocates amorality, consequentialism and psychological hedonism. In Might Is Right, Redbeard rejects conventional ideas such as advocacy of human and natural rights and argues in addition 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 served as inspirations for Redbeard's book which was written contemporaneously.[2]

This article is about the 1896 book. For the concept, see might makes right.

Might Is Right
2005 Dil Pickle Press cover
AuthorRagnar Redbeard (pseudonym)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectSocial Darwinism
Publication date
1896
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages406 (paperback)
ISBN9781943687039

James J. Martin, the individualist anarchist historian, called it "surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere."[3] This refers to the book's assertions that weakness should be regarded with hatred and the strong and forceful presence of Social Darwinism. Other parts of the book deal with the topics of race and male–female relations. The book claims that the woman and the family as a whole are the property of the man, and it proclaims that the Anglo-Saxon race is innately superior to all other races.[4] The book also contains anti-Christian and anti-Semitic statements.[4]

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 Bulletin, a journal associated with the Australian labour movement, reported in July 1900 that Desmond (a former contributor to the publication) was Ragnar Redbeard.[5][6]

However, the Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and white supremacist publisher Katja Lane (wife of The Order member David Lane) both believed 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.[7][8] Rodger Jacobs, a biographer of London, 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".[7]

The Monist journal stated that "Ragnar Redbeard is a most ardent admirer of Nietzsche."[9]

The author sums up his work as follows:

This book is a reasoned negation of the Ten Commandments–the Golden Rule–the Sermon on the Mount–Republican Principles–Christian Principles–and "Principles" in general. It proclaims upon scientific evolutionary grounds, the unlimited absolutism of Might, and asserts that cut-and-dried moral codes are crude and immoral inventions, promotive of vice and vassalage.[9]

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.[10]

S. E. Parker wrote: "Might Is Right is a work flawed by major contradictions." In particular, he criticized the inconsistency of the book's central dogma of individualism with its open sexism and racism (both requiring a membership in a collective). 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]

Author Chris Mathews suspects that the work is at least partly intended to be a satire of Social Darwinism, and he also characterizes it as a "proto-fascist white power manifesto".[11]

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.[12] 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.[13]

Santino William Legan, the perpetrator of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in Gilroy, California, mentioned Might is Right in an Instagram post. The work is regularly cited by White supremacist groups online.[14]

Editions
YearPublisherNotes
1896Auditorium Press[15][16]
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 UnlimitedISBN 0-915179-12-1
1996M. H. P & Co. Ltd.Centennial edition, with intro by Anton LaVey.
199914 Word PressSt. Maries, Idaho
2003Bugbee Books
2005RevolvaRussian edition with commentary. ISBN 5-94089-036-5, released online
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 BooksISBN 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
2019Underworld AmusementsThe Authoritative Edition, with intro by Peter H. Gilmore. ISBN 978-1943687039
2020Pentabol N. E.Spanish Extended Edition ISBN 978-0244274757

References
  1. Gilmore, Peter H.; Introduction, Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition, Underworld Amusements, April 23, 2019, 406 pages. ISBN 9781943687039.
  2. 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.
  3. EGO No 6 1985 Twenty Five Pence, at the Wayback Machine (archived August 18, 2010) archived from the original
  4. S. E. Parker, Introduction to Might is Right
  5. "Personal items". The Bulletin. 21 (1067). July 28, 1900. p. 14. How singular that the author of the most extreme and brutal presentation of the 'Might is Right' doctrine ever written in English [...] should turn out to be Arthur Desmond, author of such stirringly democratic verses as 'The Leader of the Future' and other Bulletin contributions.
  6. "Parley concerning politics". The Worker. Wagga Wagga. August 4, 1900.
  7. RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES: JACK LONDON, THE CULT OF MASCULINITY, AND "MIGHT IS RIGHT" Archived August 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Rodger Jacobs, Jack London Online Collection, Sonoma U
  8. "Foreward" (sic) by Anton LaVey, to Might is Right, pub. Shane Bugbee (2003)
  9. Immorality as a Philosophic Principle - Nietzesche's Emotionalism. The Monist, Volume 9. 1899. p. 608.
  10. What is art? Leo Tolstoy
  11. Mathews 2009, p. 65
  12. Gallagher, Eugene V. (2013). "Sources, Sects, and Scripture: The Book of Satan in The Satanic Bible". In Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen (ed.). The Devil's Party-Satanism in Modernity. Oxford University Press. pp. 103–122.
  13. LaVey, Anton Szandor (1969). The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-01539-9.
  14. Ingram, David; , Zadrozny, Brandy; Siemaszko, Corky (July 29, 2019). "Gilroy Garlic Festival gunman referred to Might is Right manifesto before shooting". NBC News. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  15. Might Is Right (The Logic of To-day) / by Ragnar Redbeard. National Library of Australia Catalogue. National Library of Australia. 1896. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
  16. Gilmore, Peter H.; Introduction, Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition, Underworld Amusements, April 23 2019, 406 pages. ISBN 9781943687039.
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