Might Is Right

by Ragnar Redbeard

  Every age and nation must interpret Right and Wrong for itself. So must every man. It is each man’s manifest duty to invent his own Ethical Credo. If he neglects this duty, and supinely (without thinking) adopts the Credo of the herd into which he is born; then his individuality is merged and lost. Other men with more personal will-power, may then set up fallacious, maladroit Dogmas — counterfeit twenty-four inch gauges — and compel him to “conform” against his wish. They become rulers and proprietors, while he descends to the position of a dependent or vassal. Here is the permanent menace to freedom that lies imbedded in all ethical, political, and religious Codes.

  He who “keeps the commandments” of another, is necessarily the servant of that other. He who curbs his own thought, to please a majority; has already lost his mental liberty. He who implicitly relies upon “public opinion” becomes a mere marionette — a bloodless dummy. Professing independence, he is practically a prisoner in his own domain.

  The pride of life is in deciding and doing — in taking the initiative — not in obeying the dictation of others. He who “keeps the commandments” is, and must always remain a subordinate — in a beggardom of rules and regulations. He who disobeys “the commandments” becomes himself a Commandment-Maker; that is to say, a ruler over the minds and bodies and property of inferior organisms. Obedience is characteristic of the menial. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero. “Man is the measure of all things.” — (Protagoras.)

  “He who takes no initiative, and determines no issues, however intelligent and trustworthy” plays a subordinate part.”[17] All great deeds are the result, not of Majority Votes, but of Individual Activity.

  Every man who is free (and freedom means something more than the mere privilege of dropping regulation pieces of print into a Majority Box) should judge ‘all things’ by his own personality. He should regard himself as the measuring rod — the determinant — the unit of value, and carefully abstain from blindly adopting other men’s measurements, without personal verification and reasonable tests.

  The easiest way for a band of public robbers to plunder a nation, is for them to issue counterfeit currency, and exchange it for intrinsic values: and the easiest way to enslave a Race is to wheedle it into, or impose upon it counterfeit Ethics, that is to say, fraudulent standards of morality.

  When the weighing scales (or measures) are falsified, all subsequent exchange becomes marauding. Then foreclosing bankers become cattle-lifters, and machine politicians develop into pirates. Thus it happeneth that the words ‘politician’ and ‘thief’ are now interchangeable terms; more especially in America, France, and Australia. “Government is the Great Blackmailer.”

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  Better far, for a free animal to be killed outright, than to be mastered, subordinated, and enchained.

  Mentally, morally, physically, a full-grown man should swear allegiance to no extraneous moralism, custom, or arbitrary rule-of-conduct. He ought to take a special pride in developing his own individuality; independent of all other men whatsoever. In the maxim “union is strength” there lies an abiding fallacy. Very often, in practical affairs, he is greatest who stands most apart. “Every man for himself” is the law of life. Every man for an Institution, a God, or a Dogma, is the law of death. “Mind your own business” is a line of thought very much neglected in this infirm age; when every sodden degenerate fancies that it is his “business” to be every other degenerate’s keeper, guardian and nurse. Cain’s wrathful retort “am I my brother’s keeper?” contains a far reaching practical philosophy, that is deserving of calm consideration, in the light of contemporary socialistic maladjustments and biological evolutionism. Only the terrorized repent, but non-moralists found families, build cities, rule the earth and laugh at the Gods.

  Each individual should think as he pleases — as “the spirit moves in him” — without the least respect for what others think or do — the only limit to his actions being (of course) the materialized opposition he actually meets with: for the Strong are the natural limit of the Strong. No one is bound to obey another (or a majority) except “the other” can coerce obedience; and to do that at all times, under all circumstances, would be terribly troublesome, expensive, and — dangerous.

  When actualized antagonism is met with, it is every dauntless man’s business to surmount it — if he can. Should he find that beyond his strength (or the massed power of his friends and supporters), then death or submission are the only reasonable alternatives. If he has not the nerve to fall (as the much maligned Catiline fell at Pistoria[18]), then he and his posterity to the third and fourth generation must sink to subjectivity.

  If he is coerced by superior Strength (or strategy) into temporary retreat; he then owes no allegiance whatever to his triumphant adversaries: and he should be ever ready (when time and tide seem propitiatory) to overwhelm and destroy their dictation. ‘Get there!’ I say, get there! — Get there at any cost!

  Be thou a True Knight. Save thyself by thine own high deeds. If a man wound you on one cheek, lay him low — smite him hip and thigh. Self preservation is the first law of thy being. Hate for hate, ruth for ruth — scorn for scorn and tooth for tooth. Get there, I say! — Get there! Get there at any cost!

  Let him no longer boast of his bravery who merely weeps with his Dear-Ones, when his Dear-Ones weep for bread. The gallant and the brave, have never yet been known to want for anything. Women shed tears; men shed blood. Cowards serve masters. Bold men make themselves Masters.

  When passing through the Valley of Humiliation, slaves and dastards, exposing their sores, sob aloud for consolation and sympathy. Brave men stand apart and ponder vengeance or conquest.

  The fear of death is the beginning of Slavery. Majority-Box despotism can only be maintained, by making a sudden and violent death its final sanction. “Civilized” men are terrorized at the idea of death, and as long as that is so, those who wield sudden death in the hollow of their hand, are masters of the world.

  Hence a small body of disciplined fighters (if protected by the death penalty) are capable of dominating a nation of ten thousand times their number.

  Hence also, in accordance with the “fight-fire-with-fire” principle, all secret associations aiming at the destruction of established tyrannies, in Church or State, have ever been organized (from the most ancient times) upon a “death penalty” basis. When successful, these societies become “Government” in their turn; merely re-forming as defence forces instead of aggressive forces. On this account the inner workings of ‘government’ are unknown to the outer world.

  Every ministerial Cabinet is oath-bound and all the higher officials are pledged and obligated under a death penalty, to the most strict secrecy. Indeed under the cover of Popular Government, the Financial Empire of the World is an established Fact.

  * * *

  No man has (or ever had) any inherent right to the use of the earth; nor to personal independence; nor to property, nor to wives, nor to liberty of speech; nor to freedom of thought; nor to anything except he can (by himself or in conjunction with his allies) assert his “rights” by Power. What are (in popular parlance) called “rights,” are really “spoil” — the prerogatives of formerly exerted Might: but a “right” lapses immediately, when those who are enjoying it, become incapable of further maintaining it. Consequently all “rights” are as transient as morning rainbows, international treaties, or clauses in a temporary armistice. They may be abrogated at any moment, by any one of the contracting parties, holding the necessary Power.

  Broadly speaking therefore, Might is incarnated Right, and rights are metamorphosed mights. Power and Justice are synonyms; for Might is mighty and does prevail. They who possess the undisputable Might (be they one, ten, or ten million) may and do proclaim the Right. Government is founded on property, property is founded on conquest, and conquest is founded on Power — and Power is founded on brain and brawn — on Organic Animality. Just as parents dictate right to their children, so masterful animals dic
tate right to millions and millions of sodden-livered, baby-minded men. Monarchic rulers are the gaudy jumping-jacks, and representative institutions the tax-gathering mechanism of the Mighty-Ones. Banks and safe-deposits are their treasure-stores, and armies and navies their sentinels, executioners, watchmen.

  ‘There is much to be said for the opinion’ writes Professor Huxley, ‘that Force effectually and thoroughly used, so as to render further opposition useless; establishes an ownership that should be recognized as soon as possible.’ Professor Jevons expresses a parallel thought: — ‘The first step must be, to rid our minds of the idea that there are such things as abstract rights.’ “Spiritual right” and “moral right” cannot possibly be explained, because they are merely verbalisms without solid substance. They are not even shadows; for a shadow implies a materialized actuality. It is somewhat difficult to define what is non-existent. That task may be left to University professors and Sunday school divines. They are adepts at clothing their mental nudity in clouds of wondrous verbosity.

  Right, in its broadest and deepest sense can be logically defined however, as the manifestations of solar energy, materialized through human thought and thew, upon Battlefields — that is to say, in Nature’s Supreme Court. Might is victory and victory establishes rightness. Might is cosmic power in chemic operation; and Man (in his own sphere) is heliocentric force on two legs. Might is mighty and must prevail.

  It does prevail for verily it is as the Law of Gravitation — Nay! it is the law of gravitation.

  8

  All arbitrary rules of Right and Wrong are insolent invasions of personal liberty. He who would maintain his manhood, must ignore them and abandon them, wherever and whenever possible; except he has investigated them — paralleled them with Nature, and without coercion agrees to abide thereby as a modus-vivendi. If he accepts them (on other conditions) as his life-long load, that is — his funeral. If he is eager to handicap himself or commit suicide, why shouldn’t he? That is his own business.

  A sensible man should never conform to any rule or custom, simply because it has been highly commended by others, alive or dead. If they are alive he should suspect their motives. If dead they are out of Court. He should be a law unto himself in all things: otherwise he permits himself to be demonetized to the level of a domesticated animal.

  The real man must depend upon himself absolutely, determine his own ends, decide his own plan of campaign; and savagely resent any authoritarian interference (especially if it takes the form of socialistic officialism). He must be resolutely on his defence, against all those meddlesome “dogs” who dare to impose their squalid ideals upon his private or public life.

  It would be well for him also to be a thorough-going and dangerous adversary; as well as an unswerving friend. To his foemen he should be as pitiless as ‘the gods’ to his friends in all days of difficulty and danger, he should be, as — ‘an army with banners.’

  Therefore I say be manly! — be both manly and wise! Be fearless, tenacious, resolute, and bold; for (as Von Clausewitz sagaciously insists), “boldness, directed by an overrulling intelligence is the brand of the hero.”

  A mans first duty in this world is to himself, and the word ‘himself’ includes those near and dear ones who have twined their tendrils around his heart. A man’s kindred are part of himself. He should not forget that when fighting for his own hand, he is fighting for them. His strength is their rampart. Their strength is his glory. The family and the individual are a unit.

  Henry Watterson, an insolent editor of the New Dispensation, in a studied oration before the divine-right of Communalism over the fates of men: — “We are to teach the lesson that the citizen exists for the government, not the government for the citizen.” Ignatius Loyolos; Calvins; Dukes of Alva; Torquemadas; and Piuses by the score; have been equally eloquent in expounding parallel diabolical sophisms. For ages those Destroyers of Liberty proclaimed that the individual existed for the Holy Church; not the Holy Church for the individual. However the despotism of socialistic-sacredotalism has been thoroughly tamed — blown to fragments as it were; and the right of private judgment fully maintained. Its cunning recrudescence under the guise of State Infallibility, by the Jesuits of journalistic Diablrie must be met as resolutely, and smashed as savagely relentlessly, as its infernal theocratic prototype.

  The majesty of the Individual first, foremost, and above all things. “Hells blazes” are realized among us, when “the individual withers and the State grows more and more.”

  Should the Wattersonian ideal triumph, every man who then dares open his mouth (except to extol Authority) will run the risk of having streams of lead pumped into it, as a gentle hint to be constitutional.

  He who acts upon self-denial principles in his dealings with rival carnivores casts himself down that they may climb over his prostrate personality to their success. He abdicates his inherent royalty who bends before any human being or any human dogma — but his own. Humbleness is a crime in a man, though it may be a virtue in a menial. The ‘modest’ man permits his rivals to occupy all the High Places and make him their footstool — nay, their very doormat.

  Of course there are certain Higher Laws, which no one can even try to rebel against, without being quietly executed. The transgressor of a natural Ordinance may think he has escaped, even while the noose-knot is under his chin and the bolt about to be sprung. Nature has a very long arm and a vengeful one. Many a “city of the plain” has been incinerated, besides Sodom and Gomorrah. Individual transgressors of nature are always driven mad: and nations that organize defiance to the nature of their being become regimented hordes of incoherent manlings, sootily perspiring downward to their “heaven” dancing the dance of death, shrieking the songs of “Progress.” Observe for example the working classes of civilization and the utter lunacy of their doings. Undoubtedly their god has struck them blind or mayhap they are ‘possessed of a devil.’ Certainly they are not sane. The day is near at hand when they shall cry out with shame “O, would that we were dead!”

  As rapidly as machinery can be perfected, to perform the work now being done by these animals; they are being “dispensed with,” — turned adrift in hordes to find fodder and shelter as best they can. Hired-men are rapidly becoming cheaper than horses and dogs, but as yet somewhat dearer than electric motors and steam engines. The average workman therefore feels instinctively that his ‘virtues may not, after all, preserve his throat from the knife — that is to say, from the logical consequences of his own, or his forefathers’ defeat in the struggle. His “virtues” (as he calls them, poor devil) are extreme laboriousness, extreme docility, extreme political and religious credulity — together with extreme pusillanimity in his own defence. As long as Power requires these hordes of slave-hirelings, they will be provided with enough necessaries to keep themselves in proper trim; but when their Labor Force is no longer a profitable investment, they will assuredly be eliminated.[19] Why should prisoners of war be kept alive anyhow at vast expense; when it becomes cheaper and more convenient, to turn them adrift — to perish as valueless stock perish on the ranges in winter time? Already many of these “freeborn citizens” are cutting their throats daily in despair, at being unable to find a master. Millions are also slowly drugging themselves with succulent poisons, in the shape of alcoholic and other stimulants. Scientific sterilization is an established custom; infanticide a regular trade; and celibacy increasing by leaps and bounds. The fact is that the industrial world is run on business principles and ‘business principles’ are a synonym for ‘woe to the vanquished,’ ‘hell takes the hindmost,’ ‘the survival of the fittest’ and ‘might is right.’

  Right , like water, finds its own level. Man’s consent is not necessary to the operations of Natural Forces. It is not required. It is not even asked. He is like unto a patient strapped firmly upon a dissecting table. He may feel the surgeon’s lance sinking through his quivering flesh — he may shiver in terror and break out into a cold sweat — he may groan in
convulsive agony and pray to his Idol — but, he cannot escape.

  Knowing all this, why not let Nature alone to work out her own silent ends? Why should communities of creeping-things try to safe-guard their incapables? Why obstruct the drastic and significant removal of corrupted organisms. The Jesus type of men were clearly made to be crucified and flogged. The Buddha type were (evidently) born to die of pestilence and famine — poor weak cowardly swarms of rotting vermin that they are! Behold them in the distance there, with their ribs sticking through their hides, accepting with doleful thankfulness the alms of their Conquerors.

  Brahma! Buddha! Confucius! Juggernaut! Christ! — Behold — Your glorious handiwork!

  Let the cowardly and the vile die off — let them annihilate themselves: — that is the logic of the spheres. The atmosphere of this terrestrial ball will be purer, when these “heavy laden souls” are gone; and there will be elbow-room upon its surface, for the regeneration of Purity and Cleanliness of mind and body.

  At the banquet of life, let no seat be reserved for those who cannot win it — who cannot break into the enchanted circle, by force of character and force of deeds [See page 13]. The impotent and the brainless, who call themselves “the righteous” are better dead anyhow — better for themselves, and better for their successors. Is it not the height of madness, for communities to deliberately nourish and foster, the bacteria of hereditary degeneration?

  Superiority can only be decided by Battle. Conflict is an infallible method of Selection and Rejection. Evolution has no end. That is undoubtedly, the logical deduction of Darwin’s famous pronouncement: — “if he (man) is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence; and the more gifted men would not be more successful than the less gifted.”