REDBEARD’S ROUGH STUFF.
To the Editor of The Truth Seeker:
The Crucible, Seattle, Wash., advertised a book, “Might Is Right,” by Ragnar Redbeard, and seemed to approve of the fiendishness of Nietzsche and the frightful crimes which the Huns recently practiced as ordinary daily activities. Now The Crucible says the article (offering the book for sale) “was a clever bit of satire.”
I would strike out the word “clever.” The article was a clear recommendation of the book, and the advertisement still appears. Perhaps some kind of joke money is accepted for the book.
The love of horrors can be left with the followers of Moses, Samuel, Joshua and David. After exterminating whole peoples, the Lord told them: Thou hast done well. Unorthodox conquerors show clemency. Liberal papers must not disgrace themselves by beastly ethics, especially since murder, rape and robbery, as natural virtues, have been tried and found wanting ; have been crushed as menaces to civilization; and by their own principles are not Right lacking Might.
“Might Is Right” just as the preacher goes to the circus, to learn the evil of it. Redbeard is simply an ignorant cave-man who is sure the evolutionary process stopped with himself. Because beasts fight, the horrors of human fighting will always be beautiful; and kindness, benevolence, equality, which have somehow evolved, are vices of weakness. Read in the preface:
“The natural law is tooth and claw. All else is error, It rules all things; it decides all things. The victor gets the gold and land every time. He also gets the fairest maidens. And why should it be otherwise? Why should the delights of life go to failures?”
Thus maidens are mere “delights,” not humans with rights. Page 98: “Women are frail beings . . . they must be held in subjection. Man has captured them. Woe unto the race if ever these lovable creatures become rulers or equals of men.”
Ragnar’s ignorance is proved by his love of big words, used at random. Page 79: “Allegorically speaking, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, the food we eat, the books we read, have been carved (by force) out of men’s bones and fesh. Literally, they are the hides, sinews, flesh, pulp, and outer wool covering of captive animals, transmuted by human slavery into garments, lumber, implements, thoughts, shoes, dinners. And behold it is good. … This world is a gruesome butcher shop, where slain men hang in rows. Man is the fighting, roving, pillaging, lusting, cannibalistic animal. The King of the Great Carnivore.”
Page 99: “Daughters . . . are given to men who have proved their inherent manhood in carnivorous (flesh-eating) combat.”
He probably means “sanguinary” or “bloody”; but what can we expect of a cave-man? The social lesson is that fair daughters must be given into slavery to a superman who has killed and eaten at least one man.
Ignorance of medical facts appears on page 78: “The transfusion of blood of animals in human veins . . . is regularly practiced by medical men.” The Encyclopedia Britannica says of transfusion (vol. 27, page 939): “Only the blood of man must be used.”
Well, lumber is not made from animals; nor is humanity compelled to get its ideals from carnivorous animals. The mildest and most useful animals could not be induced to eat an organic creature, nor rend one unless in self-defense. If we must learn of animals, take for teacher the patient cow or playful horse. Combat has been found to exterminate, rather than preserve, the fittest.
C. F. HUNT.
