The Law of Bloody Tooth and Nail

To the right is a photograph of the American writer Jack London. London began life as a poor lad in Oakland, California and used his brains and experiences to make himself the highest paid writer in the world by the time he died. He was, as a man, what Hemingway aspired to be. A man of adventure, a man of rough culture and a damn good writer. In fact, in some ways London was a better writer than Hemingway for the simple fact that he wasn't afraid to lay his themes out in the open for the view of the reading public, while Ernie decided to cloak his themes with "art." This is an unpopular opinion among academics, but academics make their livings by spinning thread when there is no wool. And your faithful correspondent is not an academic. Academics love Woodrow Wilson (a pious pinhead despite his Princeton education) who lied worse than either Bill Clinton, or as is claimed by some, George W. Bush, and was as naive as Jimmy Carter. And they brush off Theodore Roosevelt as an American imperialist despite the fact that TR brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese War and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts and the fact that the only "imperialistic" thing that TR ever did was send the White Fleet on an around the world cruise to make clear to the world that the US had a claim to part of the Pacific Ocean. Most academics know nothing of the world simply because they have spent their lives in school, first learning from the age of five to sometime in their twenties, and then teaching in schools, colleges or universities. They live in a hothouse environment despite the fact they occasionally venture out to "study" during sabbaticals (and when was the last time you had a sabbatical? I'm due for four and haven't gotten one yet). Your average faithful and pious Roman Catholic priest has a better idea of the world than your average academic because the priest deals with people everyday outside the world of academia.

But I digress.

Jack London is an under-appreciated writer in this modern world. The reason may be due to the fact that he realized that much of life is dictated by the law of bloody tooth and nail. In other words, life is a struggle, civilization is a thin verneer that once scratched, reveals the basic savage or Adamic man, those who do not strive for dominance are crushed.

London was not a Christian. In fact, he had no use for Christianity. We here at Bloody Nib Manor are Christians of the old fashioned Protestant type. But your faithful correspondent sees the wisdom of London's stance. While we are willing to turn the other cheek once when struck, we expect our nation not to tolerate such a thing. Nations are different things than individuals. The purpose of a nation is to serve an protect its populace. If it does not do so, it has no purpose and deserves to be held in contempt at the least and overthrown at the worst. A nation that does not strive for dominace is a nation that settles for submission.

To take London's themes to the modern world, the nations of the world are like a wolf pack. There can only be one lead wolf. Other wolves are either trying to take the lead or are submissive. The only way a lead wolf can remain dominate is to show it by tooth or claw. Once an aspirant tries to take the lead the lead wolf, in order to survive, must re-assert its position by growl, claw or tooth.

But the leaders in the West, and in the United States in particular seem to have come to the conclusion that the nations of the world are not wolves, but a a herd of moose plodding "to the future and peace" while the Islamic world realizes that wolves control the territory. Until the Western powers realize this our lives and freedoms are at jeopardy. The West (and let's face it, there are really only two Western nations anymore that have the stuff to aspire to leadership -- the US and the UK -- the rest are termite ridden), in order to survive and not be submissive, has to get used to the idea that any nation or religion that tries to take the leadership of the world must be clawed or bitten. The Western world has to hold the knife to the Islamic throat just in order to get on with day to day life.

It's not nice, but the modern world isn't nice. The purpose of a national government is to make it possible for its citizens to be nice to one another while using not nice methods against other nations and cultures to make it possible.