Item #69271 Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest. Ragnar Redbeard . New, Laurance Labadie, aka Arthur Desmond, Anton Szandor LAVEY: related works.

Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest.

Brooklyn NY: The Revisionist Press, 1972. Expanded reissue of the Second Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. viii +165pp, ivpp. Purple cloth with gilt lettering to spine. A very scarce reissue of this controversial work by "Ragnar Redbeard" generally thought to be the pseudonym of political activist and author Arthur Desmond (c. 1859 – 1929). "Might Is Right" was first published in 1897, this edition is reprinted, with additional material, from the second edition of 1927. The author expounds a social philosophy of "might is right" which is variously likened to "amorality," "consequentialism" and "Social Darwinism" and which has some similaritiy of thought, if not elegance of expression, in common with the work of Nietzsche. It also shares some of Nietzsche's less savoury aspects, such as an underlying misogyny and anti-Semitism. It is said that much of the material in the section entitled The Book of Satan in Anton LaVey's "The Satanic Bible" is drawn directly from "Might Is Right", a usage that would seem to have been confirmed by LaVey's identifying Redbeard as an influence in a dedication the was included in early printings of his book (for reasons unknown the dedication was removed from later versions of "The Satanic Bible"). More recently "Might Is Right" was cited approvingly by Santino William Legan, the perpetrator of the mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and has apparently been embraced by neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups. In rather strange contrast the Introduction to this edition is by Laurance Labadie (1898 – 1975) an American individualist anarchist author. Very light overall shelf wear, light bruising to upper spine, light mark to cloth at upper front corner of rear board - else a tight, unmarked VG+ copy (no dust jacket - likely none called for.). Item #69271
ISBN: 0877001871

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