The Right of the Stronger and the Better

This essay appeared some years ago in Man’s World. It was not online though, and maybe even many friends haven’t read it. I’m uploading it here for ease of access. It comes from the depths of the worst Biden years. I don’t remember whatever made me write it at the time, but I think it holds up well now, and will continue to.

Lee Kwan Yew addresses ancient Grek aristocratic hetairia (fraternity)…plotting…

Nature knew of no right but the right of the stronger and the better. All the moral and political laws which were at variance with this natural law were nothing but an invention of the weak by which they tried to deprive the strong of their natural right and prerogative. The born aristocrat must shake off the fetters of these effeminate moral and political doctrines - and by force or deceit or whatever means he sees fit to use - regain the rule which is his by nature

This simple and naive sound formula is from a not very profound article written in 1941 during height of war passions against Nazism. The writer was trying in understated way to draw analogy between ideas of ancient Greek anti-democratic factions and the doctrines of Hitler. How important was this view for Nazism actually? Nazism was, like most successful political movements, an incoherent mix of many programs, policies, slogans, half-philosophies, representing the need to keep together factions; or phrases and ideas accumulated over time to mobilize now this part of the population, now that, and so on. It’s mostly useless to judge the truth of a purely political philosophy from its texts; the intellectual base of Confucianism, as of Islam, not to speak of Marxism, are flimsy and rotten, but their weed-growth in the political world is strong. What does Schopenhauer say about Islam?

Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all countries and ages, in their splendour and spaciousness, testify to man's need for metaphysics, a need strong and ineradicable, which follows close on the physical. The man of a satirical frame of mind could of course add that this need for metaphysics is a modest fellow content with meagre fare. Sometimes it lets itself be satisfied with clumsy fables and absurd fairy-tales. If only they are imprinted early enough, they are for man adequate explanations of his existence and supports for his morality.

Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need for countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value. Such things show that the capacity for metaphysics does not go hand in hand with the need for it…

Even more so can be said about Marxism, which can never stand on intellectual merit alone and I think never intended to. A grotesque Oriental misreading of Hegelianism refracted through the prism of one man’s ethnic neuroses and resentments against his father: the most complete intellectual takedown of Marxism is in Cuddihy’s book The Ordeal of Civility, supported by unanswerable biographical detail from his letters and so on, which reveal his intentions in own words; but neither this nor its repeated failures when put in practice—unlike Fascism, which at least always has to be violently and quickly suppressed from outside, Marxism flamboyantly always rots from inside—but none of this will lessen its fortunes among a large portion of the new humanity. Because it answers a deep emotional and biological need in many types, so it will always be considered without regard either to inherent intellectual value or to consequences. And where Marxism is rejected by name because Marx himself or his theories fall out of favor temporarily, it’s replaced with still dumber, more incoherent theories from Marx’s successors, interpreted now in terms of gender, now of race, which show themselves flimsy loincloths over the gaping wound—the primal hatred of the defective for the better.

The decline of racial thinking in the European tradition, which was at bottom a revival of the ancient thinking in every way, the thinking about types, which means always biological types, this disappearance of thinking according to nature results in intellectual men and men of letters misunderstanding the role of thoughts, ideas and texts in political life; for example, Samuel Huntington with his idea of civilizational spheres defined mostly by texts, by the texts of Confucianism, or Buddhism, or Islam. If literary traditions alone determined the right demarcations of mankind, the Koran would be sufficient to understand, say, Afghanistan. And I suspect that many intellectuals believed this. In fact the Koran is insufficient to understand even professed Islamic radicals or terrorists; or the Islamic ulema in general. Nothing that reproduces itself through textual pedagogy ever is profound path to understand human character or deep alignments of mankind. This isn’t thought about man and nature, it’s superstition—level of penetration at that of college socialists who are still mad over Lumumba.

Nazism, as a pragmatic amalgamation, was then not defined only by the amoral aristocratic radicalism represented in quotation above, but for a while during the war and right after, this was felt to be its most dangerous idea. The formula is repeated in an even more naive and popular way in the 1948 Hitchcock movie Rope, where it is this time directly associated with the name of Hitler. This was then soon forgotten, or rather, covered up. I think the Allies would have preferred to ban Nietzsche in same way Machiavelli claims the early Christians would have liked to ban Latin and Greek—but they couldn’t and therefore had to preserve also the ideas and traditions of an antagonist. In same way, they couldn’t ban Nietzsche—it would have meant banning Schopenhauer as well, and then so much of European literature and art since the late 19th Century. Maybe they left this mass burning of books and art for a bolder and stupider future descendant. Regardless, having to still reckon with Nietzsche, an entirely defanged castrated version was peddled first of all to academia and then to intellectuals: an ironic, liberal skepticist whose antinomianism was to be strictly applied only to the “individual’s quest for self-realization,” but would otherwise leave egalitarianism and democracy mostly untouched. Distortions of Nietzsche and suppression of those of his followers who truly understood him were typical of Walter Kaufmann’s commentaries, full of half truths such as, “Nietzsche didn’t like nationalism”—which is true, he liked Pan-European racial supremacism. But the abounding distortions, the silent treatment and ultimately if necessary the censorship of the true meaning of Nietzsche’s aristocratic radicalism or amoralism began in full awareness of this; that it is a politically explosive claim.

There was an earlier frank expression of aristocratic radicalism in the ancient world. After the excesses of the Athenian democracy during the Peloponnesian War an oligarchic faction took over the city, under Plato’s uncle Critias. He and his friends believed and wrote things very much in the spirit of the simple formula: “right in nature is the advantage of the stronger. Laws, customs, and the myths around these were made by the many weak and their shamans to bind the stronger and better, against the way of nature.” Their government didn’t work out and they ended up killing a lot of people; maybe more Athenians were killed during their rule than died during decades of the war. That this event is somehow analogous to the anti-democratic reaction of Hitler is claimed also by Leo Strauss, who quoted Plato’s Seventh Letter when at beginning Plato says that Critias’ anti-democratic government, which he was at first enthusiastic about, ended up making the democracy seem like a golden age. So the moral homily goes, according to Strauss, to Hitchcock—or whoever wrote the screenplay—and a host of other academics and so on, “You see boys and girls if you play with Nietzschean aristocratic amoralist strength-worshipping fire, you get HITLER.” As to the path Strauss himself took from reaction to these events, I think the story of the joke he played on the American “Jewish intellectual proletariat” (to use his own words), a joke of which they still seem to be unaware, this story remains to be told. More interesting is the glimmer of realization here, among various writer around World War II, that the Western philosophical tradition as it ended up—as descent from Plato, Aristotle, the Socratics—developed in decades following an analogous ancient Hitler-like event, that is, in the shadow of its own demonic “Hitler” Critias; and therefore consists in much hedging, much what Nietzsche calls moral tartufferie, otherwise known as moralfaggotry bullshit. “We may say this, but…we are not like THAT evil guy!” Maybe this feels familiar. But later generations didn’t read it knowing this was the constraint under which “Western philosophy tradition” began.

I believe this formula of amoral aristocratic radicalism is the the key solution to all moral and political problems facing us. I am aware of the various theoretical counterarguments advanced against “might makes right” over time, most of which are sophistic; and it would be tedious to get into a back and forth over that. It’s funny though, some say this is already the ideological position of the ruling classes now. That we are ruled by bloodsucking (in some case literally) Globalists who believe in an aristocratic supremacist ideology that manifests itself as “Neoliberalism,” the aim of which is to reduce the world to a homogenous slavery under themselves. Some go even farther and say that through Operation Paperclip the Nazis actually took over the Deep State of America and the West, so that NATO is the Fourth Reich. Others don’t go that far but claim this “elite”—the likes of Bill Gates, Ursula von der Leyen, Gavin Newsom, and similar, are the “true Nietzscheans,” eugenicists who believe in their own supremacy, who live beyond good and evil, and so on. Alex Jones says mostly the same: the “elite” are child-eating vampires with ultimate provenance in Babylon, part of a thousands-years-old plot to subject mankind to demons; they are represented by the European noble and royal houses and by “Nazi eugenicists.” They are blamed simultaneously for the rapid increase in Third World population since the early 20th Century, for mass migrations into the West, but also for a “world depopulation” agenda. I’m so far describing the most vivid such positions but variations exist on both the left and significant parts of the right.

The “elite” themselves of course don’t believe any such thing, never professing such ideas publicly, nor in private, nor, I would say, is it in their minds, consciously or not, as their true motivation. Their motivation is humanitarian and egalitarian, just as they claim: to temper the excesses of the free market, to protect the weak, the minorities—especially blacks—and the poor from traditional oppressors; to fight everywhere emanations of distinction or “privilege,” to uplift the meek and the weak, to “make the last be the first.” To the extent they appear to be antidemocratic, it is in the name of a purer democracy and a more pure humanitariaism: thus they feel justified in crushing now the Dutch farmers who rise up against “climate restrictions” because they believe by doing so they are helping the far larger masses of poor in the Third World. It’s the same for all their behavior, the promotion of transsexualism, of the gays—it is part of protecting the weak. If they are cruel, authoritarian to some it’s because they believe they’re fighting bullies. If they often engage in corrupt behavior, hypocrisy and so on, well, that’s just human frailty and you can look the other way: “I still think I’m trying to do good, and that’s what matters.” In other words, they’re acting like almost any other ideological mandarin Party incompetent class in history, but, I would say, with less, far less self-conscious cynicism or nihilism than what you’d find among East Bloc apparatchiks. Not one embraces amoralism, Nietzscheanism, eugenicism, or any of the vampiric dark traits attributed to them by their political opponents. They are not gangsters or mad scientists. They are genuine moralists, and without that egalitarian moralism no one would accept their rule and none of their insanity would be possible.

This argument is a variation on one of the common attacks on amoralism or “the rule of the stronger,” that it is a tautology, or hard to define, or self-refuting. Thus if one hundred weak and cowardly men can subdue a stronger, smarter individual, this is taken to be a refutation, because an abstract “strength” still then technically ends up ruling. A funny but equally wrong restatement of this argument can be found in Borges’ story “German Requiem.” By this reasoning, the IMF, or international finance, or the banking “elite,” or the vague “Neoliberalism” are taken by these critics to be “the real Nietzscheans” simply because they are in power. By this reasoning “might makes right” becomes a doctrine of social stability: “authority is always just, respect authority.” It would be a strange thing if this trivial kind of Confucianism was the message of Nietzsche or Critias, who were seen as so shocking and explosive in their time. This is a doctrine of social and political instability.

Almost no society in history—almost—openly says it rules by strength and strength is good. This is an exception and a distinction. Almost all societies historically give many other reasons. They are morally good, or more equal, or more pious, or more holy. Nietzschean “might makes right” political skepticism punctures these self-righteous reasons. It shows social and political morality to be a word-game of womanly, priestly, and bureaucratic types of men to try to avoid a confrontation of quality in which individual excellences of supremacy—namely the traditional virtues of bravery, physical strength, and foresight—are given a chance to achieve political supremacy. A rare example of a society ruled by this principle might the Icelandic free state: a eugenic, truly eugenic state based on the duel and the natural right of the stronger. It might look like the Greek city state based on the similar principle of the agon, in this case the formal contest, the duel of natural superiority formalized, ritualized and somewhat pacified. It might look like any one of the traditional warrior junta-led Indo-European or Japanese ministates that have existed from time to time. In other words states that, respecting the intelligence and honor of free men, saw no reason to lie about the fact that their rule was based on strength or excellence, which, however then has to be manifested in acts and achievements to be believed and accepted. Indeed, contrary to what many think, “might makes right” isn’t purely a result of philosophical skepticism or nihilism; there are long traditional roots. Consider this from a Buddhist sutra in Tocharian, apparently still the language of steppe Conans:

The good fame of the strong spreads in the ten directions.

Reverence, respect, obeisance, and honor are to be attained through strength from everyone.

To be conquered quickly (are) enemies. To be obtained quickly (is) prosperity.

Of the strong (there are) great riches; of the strong (are) also many relatives.

Enemies bow down before the strong; to the strong come honors.

The strong (are) the protection of creatures; of the strong there is no fear.

Therefore strength (is) good (and) in every way the best (thing) in my opinion.

By means of strength thus, at an earlier time, the son of king Siddhartha, the Bodhisattva Sarvarthasiddha descended upon the ocean. He went to the island of jewels…

The rationalization arguments against aristocratic radicalism make sense as word games, “if a manikin like Chernenko or Bidan rule, they are the mighty by definition”; but everyone knows what is meant: that men like Nestor, Odysseus, Achilles, or even Diomedes or Agamemnon should rule, but not Thersites, not Helen, and probably not Paris, certainly not a product of the Confucian “meritocracy” or of the still-more-broken modern American one. That this is often not the case, that the weak rule by accident, by misplaced piety, or for any number of other reasons, is no contradiction. The strong are often subject to the weak, the better to the worse. But, as the doctrine states, a violation of this right of nature will have inevitable material consequences, whereas breaking the law of man doesn’t necessarily. There are natural costs to being ruled by the likes of Obama, Alberto Fernandez, Biden, Jens Stollenberg, or the other products of this system of elite selection, a process very different from the duel, the agon, or the roughly equivalent procedures in the few military aristocracies that have existed.

In Singapore a man of strength in every way—bravery, foresight, supreme foresight—ended up ruling and that country turned out probably the best way any modern state has, given its geographical and demographic constraints. It’s entirely possible that Lee Kuan Yew wouldn’t have come out on top though, but it would just have meant that Singapore would look now a lot more like Jakarta maybe. Again, there are material or natural consequences when the right to rule of the stronger is thwarted. I bring Lee Kuan Yew up because there is a certain video of him giving a famous speech, and you should watch not just the well-known end of this brief statement, but the beginning where he somewhat stumbles and seems not to express himself very well. Here is a founder of a state trying to put in words what is very hard to: trying to explain to new generation of Singaporean young, probably the elite young, that they have to find a way to “gel” together and believe in each other, or otherwise this whole project will come crashing down. The state and country is not a mysterious spirit that lives outside the quality and strength of its rulers; it can last for a while with very bad management, in the same way Thyssen-Krupp elevators can keep working for seventy years; but it will break sooner than otherwise if what Lee Kuan Yew calls for in the video doesn’t happen.

It’s hard to put into words, this, because…how do you get a core of men, an elite, to form together, to gel with each other, to be able then to act. This is very hard, maybe the hardest question. In Japan of the warring years, each warlord daimyo domain had two sets of laws. One was the House law, and it ruled the samurai, the retainers; the other was the people’s law, which was generally neglected and not of much concern. At village level and so on they could rule themselves as they saw fit. What was important was not the people’s law but the House law. In small facts like this is contained a lot of important truth for our situation now. The true act of political significance, of foundation: what is it that forms the elite and what is it that keeps it together. This has been my longest and only concern when thinking about politics, not just because of innate preference for elitism, but out of necessity. Many who talk about politics forget that neither we nor they rule a state or a country. We’re not in a position to make policy. The lives of the people are far outside our ability to rule, the reform of institutions outside our reach. We are simply powerless. The only relevant political question is how to forge a Party core, similar to the early Communist International, or to the factions that founded Zionism, and achieve similar success in founding a new order or a new state. Marxism and Zionism were in their beginnings ideologies for new elite formation, not for making policy for a country or a people; many forget this obvious crucial first step. Marxism and Zionism each attracted a certain kind of man. I find the doctrine hinted at here, of amoral aristocratic radicalism, to be an excellent identifying and rallying marker for a different type of man, and for a new counter-elite of our own time.

Our political-moral situation is in some ways very similar to that in which ancient Greek aristocrats in the age of the decline of the Classical era found themselves, and less so to that of the European right wing before World War II. In comparison to material situation of both we are in far more dire circumstances: both had significant sources of domestic or foreign support, while we begin from an utterly routed condition. But we are similar to the ancient Greek aristocrats of Critias’ time in the sense that we face an internal opponent who uses the language of morality, of egalitarianism and democracy, although now of course in a form far more mawkish and stomach-turning. We are like them in that we live in a time of exhaustion: exhaustion of all ideologies, creeds, beliefs, religions, institutions, states, countries, peoples. The exhaustion of our time is far more advanced, but for that reason it’s far more important for us never to place faith, trust or hope in any of these. If you are a nationalist, you must realize the nation you hold dear to is exhausted and “there’s nothing there” in a very concrete sense—if you place your hopes in “the nation” instead of your friends you will be let down; the same applies to those who hold dear to the race, or a faith, a religion, or a state. These are all exhausted now or corrupted. If they are to have a future they must have a new beginning, and that beginning can only be in what Lee Kuan Yew describes between the lines…that new beginning has to be in you and your friends. Simple and naive as it may sound, it was the inspiration that brought together aristocratic fraternities of Greece in its hour of decline, and of Nietzschean brotherhoods in the first part of the 20th Century. The doctrine of aristocratic amoral radicalism is one of new beginnings when the blood of ages is exhausted. It’s the only thing that can be the fuel and the key to restart other things—whether nations, states, or religions. But you may find in practice that it’s better to let some things perish and better form other new things. I promote these views because I see men of high power weighed down by moral baggage and duties to the lesser, who won’t and can’t return the benefit, and who will resent them; who put their trust, bodies, and energy in the service of dead states and institutions that will use them up. And for who it really is simply a conceptual or psychological baggage that holds them back from bonding in an effective junta with their friends and throwing off the shackles of these encrusted scleroses that have endured beyond their time. If you doubt me think of how well Trump or Bolsonaro would have acted and what they could have achieved if they weren’t held back by their pieties, misplaced loyalties, and old fashioned patriotism. They believed in a country or a faith or a system instead of their friends, they acted as governors and kings when they needed to act as fighters and revolutionaries.

It may be that the foundation of new states or the reform of religions is still outside anyone’s grasp for now, at least until some truly great crises come. But even until then it is possible for higher men to reclaim their own sovereignty and not let themselves be at the mercy of gynocracy—under whatever form. I hinted at this path in the last aphorism of my book, and it consists in the formation of mafias.