THE APPEAL TO FORCE
"If men do not struggle, evolution ceases."
—Ragnar Redbeard.
THE APPEAL TO FORCE
THE APPEAL TO FORCE - A 1921 Review of Ragnar Redbeard's Might is Right.
Ragnar Redbeard contends that "if men do not struggle, evolution ceases." And in order to prove this theory, he gives us"Might is Right"— a volume ultra-radical in philosophy, heathen in religion, and super-masculine in morality.
Thirty-five years ago Nietzsche warned us that "the next century will bring the struggle for the Dominion of the World: the Compulsion to Grand Politics." Ten years later Redbeard laid down this declaration: "The world is to the Strong. Struggle is forever. They may take who have the power. They can keep who can."
And during the more recent years, kings, kaisers, imperialists, junkers, and militarists preached this same damnable doctrine of Force.
That is why no Pacifist, or believer in Right before brute force, can agree with the deadly arguments laid down by Redbeard in his audacious volume.
Withal, "Might is Right" is a remarkable book. It is unorthodox, unprecedented, and extraordinary. It stamps Redbeard as a man of wonderful virility and rugged primeval force, who shatters many popular ideals hitherto believed sacred and impregnable.
If, as Redbeard asserts, a false and depressing philosophy has held sway in the world for two thousand years, his "Might is Right" is a veritable religious and political earthquake, stabbing the twenty century-old philosophy.
"Might Is Right" has made a profound impression on some of the world's greatest protagonists of Force, who have found in its pages the necessary excuse for their "blood-and-iron" policy. It supplements the theories of Darwin, of Gibbon, and Spencer and its splendid epigrams are more Machiavellian than the writings of the original fifteenth-century Nick!
Three years ago ex-President Woodrow Wilson thundered: "Force, force to the utmost—force without stint or limit." Redbeard sets out to justify this theory of the "Survival of the Fittest" in a series of arguments that, to say the least, are as brutal as they are formidable.
But whether you agree with his theory that "the ideal animal is a destructive warrior and not a crucified Carpenter," this remarkable book is well worth reading.
An Australian edition has been published by Ross's Book Service, 184 Exhibition-street, Melbourne. The price is 3/3, posted anywhere in Australia.
W. F. A.
Australian Worker 8 September 1921
