The fact is that both sides are afraid of each other — afraid of the only rational solution.
My curse be upon the white-livered and the meek: the shameful dwindlings — who call themselves the “virtuous” the “law abiding” the “righteous” the “godly;” the “obedient ones!” May civilization pump its vile narcotism through the flaccid ventricles of their pigeon-hearts! May they inhale brain-leprosy through the open windows of their Temples-of-Soot; and may the open windows of their noisome swineries and splendid Ergastlui, be unto them living tombs! May they ‘earn’ their bread (also that of their conquerors) by the slimy sweat of dishonored brows; and may they perish at last like abandoned curs! May they vegetate in poverty and die in contempt. May the evil works of their ‘genius’ be ploughed under with Babylon and Ninevah; Anahuac and Rome! May the annals of their dismal domination become, as the folk-tale of a fearsome nightmare that once rolled over the brain of Mankind; — finally dissipating itself ‘midst thunders and lightnings and the breaking up of the great deep! Verily! Verily! let them have their Reward!
It is customary for atrophied minds (like Bluntschili) to urge that the promulgation of such grim thoughts ‘endanger the foundations of Society.’ Even supposing that to be so, what is Society anyhow, that its “foundations” should not be threatened? Is “Society” something immaculate, something divine, something anointedly ultra-human — something that must be safeguarded, right or wrong? Is it another sacred Mount Moriah Temple — a Urim and Thummim — an Ark of the Covenant — a Sanctum Sanctorum, or merely “an asses head hidden behind a veil?” Why should the phrase “Society in danger” be equivalent to the proclamation of a rigid taboo or a fanatical crusade? Why?
Society is altogether a matter of convenience — an implement — an expediency. It is the creation of man and what man manufactures he may modify or destroy.
Society may be defined as an agglomeration of carnivorous and herbivorous animals, seeking their natural prey and browsing along on whatever nutriment they pick-up. It is nothing more than a ‘herd’ of two legged cattle and there’s nothing supernaturally divine about a herd. Indeed the word herd always suggests Gadara. Human swarms have been integrated and disintegrated ten thousand times ten thousand by the centrifugal and centripetal energy of individuals.
Societies have risen and Societies have fallen; but man, the Unit — the germ-plasm — persists; with the rising of the sun, and the fall of the tides. Man is not only the ‘clay,’ but also the ‘potter’ — the paramount determinant. His fate is in his own hands absolutely, within the length of his tether.
“To the Strong all laws are cobwebs” (Solon) and when Society becomes irksome to the Strong they may dissolve it; nay it is their positive duty to dissolve it; otherwise it becomes their master and consequently their enemy and oppressor. “Society in danger” therefore is merely the hysteria of the megalomaniac.
Society (in some shape) must exist, as long as there are two human beings left alive; for companionship is as natural to the homo, as swarming is to the bee. When however the word “Society” develops into a synonym for socialistic restraint, then it becomes a menace to the Evolution of the Type and ought to be broken up accordingly — without over much ceremony. Friendship is necessary and ennobling, but impersonal despotism is destructive of all dignity and manly virtue.
The real danger is, that innocent and natural combinations for mutual pleasure, comradeship, profit, and defence, may transform themselves gradually into organized majority-box tyrannies — enslaving institutionalisms of the most dictatorial and obnoxious character. When Society is thus transfigured into a vast blackmailing corporation the lives and property of its component units are absolutely at its mercy, and it therefore ought to be disintegrated, consciously, deliberately, pitilessly, and at whatever cost. Freedom cannot be bought too dear, for life without liberty is pandemonium.
Government and Society are two distinct entities, and care must be taken not to confound them. Society is the growth of mutual tolerance, friendship, and physical obligation; but ‘government’ arises from physical force applied by the Strong to the control and exploitation of vanquished foes. The sanction of government, is the same that holds good throughout the whole zoological and heliocentric scale — the sanction of material might. That ‘sanction’ should always be under test; because the most abject weakling may brandish a sword; but we do not know he is a weakling until another sword in the grip of a Man is pointed at his throat.
Beowolf, a Saxon song-master, apostrophising “the Sword,” voices this primeval Organon as it was instinctively understood by our ancestors.
“The war-thing! the comrade! father of honor, and giver of kingship! the fame-smith! — the songmaster! Clear singing! clean slicing! sweet spoken! soft finishing! making death beautiful — life but a coin — to be staked in the pastime; whose playing is more than transfer of being. Arch-anarch! chief builder! prince and evangelist! I am the will of God! I am the sword!”
It is only in ages saturated in atmospheres of brain-wrecking artificialism — in consumptive communities steeped to the very lips in elemental error — that senile, degrading, anthropomorphic myths and manias are substituted for hard, bitter Common-Sense. (All great truths are “hard” and “bitter,” but Lies, to the morbidly inclined, are sweeter than wild honey.)
One by one we abandon Realisms — to follow fata morganas. We are mortgaging our destiny to the Pawnbrokers of Decadence. Behold! — the legerdemain of the Orient demonetizes the Manhood of the West!
And yet the world is beautiful — as beautiful as a blushing maiden dreaming of her first lover. “Fair laughs the morn and soft the breezes blow” and men only await Captaining to — capture and possess.
This little pamphlet has been issued not for private profit, but to assist in uprooting the alien and pernicious Ideals that have been for long centuries corrupting the blood and corroding the brain of Europe and America. Conventional moral dogmas and political standards-of-value are, like wooden idols, the work of men’s hands. They have no real basis in nature nor have they any supernatural sanction. Every one of them has been carved out of a wormeaten lie, a brazen assumption or a madman’s dream. They are impositions most insolent. Why should we bow down even in formal adulation before imbecile and unnatural principles invented thousands of years ago for the enslavement of oriental decadents? Have we not given lip-service long enough to false heroisms, and fool evangels? Why feign the possession of slave virtues?
Why continue to glorify untruths that we know to be untruths? Why should men of sterling worth obey any other man’s ‘thou shalt’?
Let us return to Nature for our moral standards!