Ragnar Redbeard - Might Is Right

Nearly all the prophetic demi-gods of Democracy from Paul and Isaiah to Carlyle and Ruskin, have ever been madly screeching by the roadside, vainly endeavoring to stay the march! march! march! of a world of bannered armies; striding grimly, sternly by. What are these howling prophets of Evil but dogs eloquently baying at the moon? “Right wheel there! Right wheel! Turn back! Turn back! You are going to the devil!” is there resounding ear-splitting chorus. But the human flood sweeps on silently, scornfully, confident, inspired as it were by some over-mastering instinct. “We may be going to the devil,” is the unspoken retort of these thundering legionaries — these Nations “but even so! is not the Devil honest — the Destroyer of Deception! — the Disobedient One?”

Can you lasso the stars with a green-hide lariat? Can you block the march of Might with magnificent howls of declamatory despair? No! No! Skyward or hellward, man moves on and on and on. If there are barricades in his way, he must surmount them or blast them aside. If there are Wild Beasts ready to spring upon him, he must destroy them or they will destroy him. If the highroad leads though hells, then those infernos must be besieged, assailed and taken possession of — aye, even if their present monarchs have to be rooted-out with weapons as demoniac and deadly as their own.

This world is too peaceful, too acquiescent, too tame. It is a circumcised world. Nay! — a castrated world! It must be made fiercer, before it can become grander and better and — more natural.

Fools indeed are they who would arrest the unfolding process with “humanitarian” Cagliostroism, and “rescue the perishing” mummery. Maniacs are they who would ward off the suns blazing rays from withering souls or the blighting frosts of winter from hearts that are already broken. For, I doubt not, through the ages, one tremendous purpose runs; and maturing crops are ripened with the process of the suns — to be sickled down, threshed and rolled away.

Undoubtedly the Black Magic of the Christ Myth, combined with the subterranean sorcery of medieval sacredotalism has partially succeeded, not only in sapping individual initiative, but also in suppressing in our Race many of its ancestral leonine traits and superb Barbarian Virtues. But as yet, it has not wholly triumphed in its emasculating necromancy. No! it has not transfigured us all into teams of contented oxen and bunches of earmarked sheep, although that is its final hope. There are some of the grand old stock, left alive. Few indeed are they amidst a world of slaves and swine.

The lion is still the lion, although his teeth have been most foully filed down by abominable moral codes; his skin made scrofulous with the mange and leprosy of caged peacefulness — his paws fettered by links of slave-voted statutes and an iron collar of State Officialism wound around his regal neck.

Someday, sometime, he is destines to break through the vile bonds that have been cunningly laid on him, escape from the wasting decline that originates from unnatural confinement and regain once more his primitive freedom of Action. The treacherous legislators and illustrious statesmen, who are now so eager to teach him the method of growing wool like sheep and how to fit his battle-scarred shoulders to a horse collar, may then be sorry and sad (if they have time) — for he will probably chew them up.

Great and powerful governments, Commanding Peace, come into existence only in ages of decadence; when nations are on the downward grade. If the human animal lives a natural, cleanly life, out on the plains and forests, away, where oceans rollers crash along the shore, or on the banks of the pouring rivers he requires no police-force to “protect” him — no usurious Jew to rob him of his harvests — no tax-gathering legislators to vote away his property, and no ‘priests of the Idol’ to “save” his soul.

It is false standards of morality that debase and enfeeble individuals, tribes and nations. First, in obedience to some sovereign code, they lose their hardihood and increase their numbers. Then that all may live, they become laborious, submissive to Regulations; and finally — with Death held up by priestcraft as a fearsome Terror, all personal valor fades away. Thus nations of spaniels are manufactured.

The normal man is the man that loves and feasts and fights and hunts, the predatory man. The abnormal man is he that toils for a master, half-starves, and “thinks” — the Christly dog. The first is a perfect animal; the second, a perfect — monster.

Every belief that makes a duty of humility — that inspires a people with “moral” courage only, enervates their fiber, corrupts their spirit, and prepares them first for thralldom and then for — throttling.

It is not possible to conceive of Grand Life without incessant rivalry, perpetual warfare and the implacable hunting of man by man.

Terror, torture, agony and the wholesale destruction of feeble and worn out types, must mark in future, as in the past, every step forward, or backward in evolution, homo-culture and racial displacement.

The soil of every nation is an arena, a stamping ground, where only the most vigorous animals may hope to hold their own. What is all history but the epic of a colossal campaign, the final Armageddon of which is never likely to be fought, because, when men cease to fight — they cease to be — Men.

This old earth is strewn to the very mountain-tops with the fleshless skulls and rain bleached bones of perished combatants in countless myriads.

Every square foot, every inch, of soil contains its — man.

The evolution (or de-evolution) of mankind demands the perpetual transfiguration of one man into another, continuous re-incarnation, eternal re-birth and re-construction. Scientifically considered, the “resurrection of the dead” is not an illusion. Every living organism is formed from the decomposed essence of pre-existent organisms. The “man” of to-day is actually built out of the grave-mould of his prototypes; perhaps of ages long forgotten. Thus, without death there could be no birth-material; and without conflict, fierce and deadly, there could be no surpassing.

But to individuals foolishly trained to bewail their fate, all these commonplace facts are agonizing.

“When we solemnly look upon this perpetual conflict,” writes Schelling with true theocratic pessimism, “it fills us with shuddering sorrow, and with boundless alarm — but how can we help it? Hence the veil of sadness that is spread over all nature, the deep indestructible melancholy of all life.”

Like many other philosophers, deceived by appearances, Schelling fancies savage and dreadful that which is pure, mischievous that which is preservative, and calamitous that which is benign.

The flow of Destruction is as natural and as needful as the flow of water. No human ingenuity can destroy the Immolation of Man, nor prevent the shedding of blood — and why should it?

Majestic Nature continues on her tragic way serenely, caring naught for the wails of the agonized and panic-stricken nor the protests of defeat; but smiling sadly, proudly (yet somewhat disdainfully in her passing stride) at the victor’s fierce Hurrah. She loves the writhing of sword-blades — the rending of tradition, the crunching of bones, and the flap of shredded shot-torn banners, streaming out savagely (in the night, in the day), over the battle-weary, the mangled dying and the swollen dead. Christs may come and Christs may go, but Cæsar lives for ever.

Deep, permanent, and abiding is the elemental antagonism between the Sociology of “the Man of Nazareth” and the imprescriptible Laws of the Universe. They are as fire and water to each other — irreconcilable. Indeed our planetary system itself shall melt with fervent heat ere the Galilean’s philosophy can conquer.