Ragnar Redbeard

Ragnar Redbeard wrote the eccentric, racist, individualistic tome Might is Right in 1896. In it, he declares: "The natural world is a world of war; the natural man is a warrior; the natural law is tooth and claw. All else is error. A condition of combat everywhere exists." The book goes onto praise the glories of social darwinism.

Some suspect Ragnar was a pen name for radical New Zealander Arthur Desmond, but it's hard to reconcile the strange difference in their politics. (Those who believe that Desmond was Ragnar generally believe the book to have been a work of satire.) Others believe that Jack London wrote Might is Right, but as with Desmond the difference in politics is so great (London's political activism started in the Marxist Socialist Labor Party and ended in the Socialist Party) that this too is highly unlikely, and no serious scholar has ever supported the notion of London being Redbeard. Claims that London was Redbeard come entirely from Satanists and neo-Nazis: Anton LaVey thought him "the most likely candidate", and Katja Lane (white supremacist publisher and wife of imprisoned terrorist David Lane), as guest editor of a centennial printing, stated that the book had two distinct authors: an original author writing in "a clean, technical style", expounded upon by London in passionate commentary interspersed throughout.

Might is Right has a strong appeal to Satanists -- both Anton LaVey and Boyd Rice have produced work heavily influenced by the book.

References

  • Ragnar Redbeard, LL.D., Katja Lane (ed.), Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest, M.H.P. & Co., Ltd, 1996, 224 pages, ISBN 0915179121
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