Lucifer and Ragnar Redbeard
"Might is Right" saith the author, “through all nature. The right of the strongest is immortal."
Lucifer and Ragnar Redbeard
Ragnar Redbeard's "Might is Right," a review, criticism, and angry correspondents.
From Lucifer, the Light-Bearer (Valley Falls, Kansas) Sat, Oct 1, 1898.
“Might is Right.”
A review by C. F. Hunt.
Having read further in “Survival of the Fittest,” by Ragnar Redbeard. LL. D., I feel more competent to say that it is unworthy to be encouraged by Lucifer’s readers. Not content with disputing everything obvious, Redbeard disputes himself. He urges boldness yet withholds his real name. “LL. D.,” forsooth! Why not Ph. D, or better still, D. Ph? He says only the mighty are right, yet all the writers he cites, Darwin, Spencer, etc., never dreamed of proving their fitness by fighting. He would have the biceps rule the brain. What he says about courage might help timid souls if they proceed with discretion, but for the rest of the book is random rot reiterated. He is 500 years behind the times. Principles of abstract right are now recognized; those who ignore them, making their own rights rest upon selfish desire, strength, strategy or expedient, are termed “unprincipled,” and are not classed among the fittest. With the advanced nations the civil power rules the military; this is evolution.
[Want to read about Redbeard's "LL.D., title? Get "The House of Gowrie and Thurland & Thurland: The Devil's Book Agents." Editor.]
Redbeard says of women: “Except in sexual matters a woman has no more brains than a cock sparrow.” p159. “Women of all ranks are still a remarkable commodity.” p160.
“Women are frail beings at the best of times, and in their secret hearts are probably lovers of the unlimited (whatever that may mean). For the welfare of the breed, and the security of decent, they must be held in thorough subjection. Man has captured them and it is necessary to keep them on the chain as it were. Woe unto him, woe unto them and woe unto our race if ever these lovable creatures should break loose from mastership, and become the rulers or equals of man.”
The daughters of the Strong “are not permitted to mate with every strumous Dick, Tom and Harry,” but are “given” forcibly to strong men, and then only to those that have murdered and eaten some other man. See page 99. Or perhaps the words used, “Carnivorous combat,” mean that the robust daughter is to be given to the victor in a quail-eating contest. Or perhaps Redbeard does not know the meaning of words, and is therefore too ignorant to teach us. Many other passages show him to be unfit as a writer.
2733 N. 45th Ave., Chicago.
From Lucifer, the Light-Bearer (Valley Falls, Kansas) Sat, Oct 1, 1898.
VARIOUS VOICES
W. G. Thorland, Manhattan Block, Chicago. —Your correspondent, C. F. Hunt, who criticizes the book “Might is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest,” acknowledges that he has not read it. His judgements are evidently based upon some condensation on the back of a publisher’s advertising card. The author of the book plainly affirms that all governments, all land titles, and all moral ideals are founded upon armed violence, supplemented deception, and the inference he draws from this is, governments may be justly, logically and scientifically destroyed, obliterated by a further application of their own method. Out of this would develop fierce, unending struggles whereby the strong man (i. e. the highest type of man) would prevail, rule, own, propagate, and be deposed when he became effeminate, unwarlike, degenerate. The fittest only could triumph. This book can not be judged by pre-existing books. Its projects an entirely new philosophy, or rather a philosophy that existed among our ancestors before the slavish virus of Christlingism was introduced into the brains and bones. “Might is Right,” saith the author, “through all nature. The right of the strongest is immortal.
[And just who might W. G. Thorland, Manhattan Block, Chicago be? Editor.]
From Lucifer, the Light-Bearer (Valley Falls, Kansas) Sat, Nov 5, 1898.
COMMENTS ON CORRESPONDENTS
By C. F. Hunt.
Mr. W. G. Thorland evidently thinks the way to answer a criticism is to repeat the matter criticized. Concerning Redbeard’s book, I pointed out that the strongest men are not the fittest, and that they are liable to be overcome by a weakling armed with modern means of combat. These points, though self-evident, are ignored. It may be that a reading of such an illogical book impairs the power to reason.
I noticed that Redbeard has a letter in “The Eagle and Serpent” which is dated “University of Chicago.” It is needless to say that such institution has no such “LL.D.” nor does the name appear in the Chicago directory. No LL.D. would retain the title while using a pseudonym. No LL.D. moreover would admit in the preface of his work that it contains many errors. He would correct the errors. But this “LL.D.” expects the errors to be discovered by critics, and then in a later edition he can manage to get up a rather decent sort of book as regards scholarship, but he should share honors with the critics. I want credit for discovering that appalling combination “Carnivorous combat.” It is to be feared that when the blunders are all rectified, the pretentions and fallacies of the book will be so apparent that fame and fortune for the author will be as far away as ever.
[Read more about Redbeard's "LL.D., title, and Adolph Mueller. Get "The House of Gowrie and Thurland & Thurland: The Devil's Book Agents." Editor.]
