Bland de mer intressanta 1800-talsförfattarna återfinns Jack London, sannolikt mest känd för djurböckerna Skriet från vildmarken och Varghunden. Dessa båda är i sig fascinerande berättelser, som kombinerar en ofta brutal darwinism med en äkta känsla för naturen och djuren. London skrev dock mer än så, i Varg-Larsen beskriver han till exempel en oförglömlig nietzscheansk och darwinistisk titanfigur, sjökaptenen Varg-Larsen, som på snart sagt varje sida formulerar sitt förakt för livet, och för moral och religion.
”`I believe that life is a mess…It is like a yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the strongest, that is all.’”
London tycks alltså ha haft en speciell koppling till vargen, indo-européernas gamla totemdjur, och en viss atavism i sina böcker om rovdjur (oavsett om dessa rovdjur var vargar eller människor). Mindre känt är då att han även var socialist, och bland annat hade läst Karl Marx. Även Londons socialism är dock färgad av hans syn på kampen för överlevnad, där de starkare överlever och de svaga går under. Det har påståtts att London under pseudonymen Ragnar Redbeard skrev Might is Right, det ökända socialdarwinistiska manifestet, som en uppmaning till arbetarklassen att ta makten från en dekadent överhet med våld (denna tolkning styrks av meningen: Open your eyes that you may see, Oh men of mildewed minds and listen to me ye laborious millions!). Ett utdrag finns här, även om det är tveksamt om det verkligen var London som låg bakom det.
Att Londons socialism var av en sort som inte skulle mottas med något större gillande av dagens socialister, demonstreras av att han skrev en artikel som Den gula faran, och rent allmänt hade ett rasligt medvetande.
The Iron Heel
Ett av Londons märkligaste verk är The Iron Heel, som är en beskrivning av en alternativ framtid (som idag i princip redan passerats), och beskriver en fas av den klasskamp som London menade var oundviklig. Man kan dra ett flertal slutsatser om Londons historie- och samhällssyn ur denna lilla skrift.
Boken handlar främst om revolutionären Ernest Everhard, och är skriven av hans fru Avis. Den följer de båda från deras första möte någon gång runt 1912, till 1932 (detta var science fiction på sin tid, eftersom London skrev den före 1912). Samtidigt kan man följa hur det amerikanska samhället förvandlas till någon sorts ”fascism”, genom plutokraternas och makthavarnas reaktion på utmaningen från arbetarrörelse och populistiska småborgare. Idag har vi passerat både 1912 och 1932 sedan länge, och vet att Londons förutsägelser inte slog in, men han fångar ändå aspekter av hur den sena kapitalismen fungerar. För att ta ett exempel på vad London inte kunde förutse, så finns det ingen massinvandring i Londons beskrivning av the Iron Heel, man hade nämligen bemötts med förstumning eller roade hånskratt om man 1908 påstått att européerna bara 50 år senare skulle öppnat sina gränser för massorna från Asien, Afrika och Amerika. Proletärerna i boken tycks därför främst vara europida/”vita”, som antyds av följande stycke ”and I could see their van white hands”. Det rör sig alltså om en inom-civilisatorisk kamp som London föreställer sig.
Hur marxismen blir ett sterilt fängelse för Londons tankar, som dessa tankar bryter sig ut ur, blir tydligt på flera ställen i novellen. Dels utmanas den determinism som ofta utmärkte den tidens marxism i följande stycke, som påminner om Guillaume Fayes påpekande att historien inte är förutbestämd:
What else than Feudalism could have followed upon the breakdown of that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman Empire? Not so, however, with the Iron Heel. In the orderly procedure of social evolution there was no place for it. It was not necessary, and it was not inevitable. It must always remain the great curiosity of history–a whim, a fantasy, an apparition, a thing unexpected and undreamed; and it should serve as a warning to those rash political theorists of to-day who speak with certitude of social processes.
De tidsperspektiv som London rör sig med (kampen mellan Oligarkin/the Iron Heel och ”revolutionisterna” utspelar sig över 700 år, med inte en utan mer än fyra revolutioner), skulle sannolikt också ha gjort många av hans samtida modfällda.
Det finns också ett tydligt nietzscheanskt och darwinistiskt inslag i Londons Iron Heel, som i beskrivningen av Ernest Everhard:
I have said that he was afraid of nothing. He was a natural aristocrat–and this in spite of the fact that he was in the camp of the non-aristocrats. He was a superman, a blond beast such as Nietzsche has described, and in addition he was aflame with democracy.
Eller i beskrivningen av hur en klass ersätts av en annan när den spelat ut sin roll:
Fresh from his revolutionists, he was shocked by the intellectual stupidity of the master class. And then, in spite of their magnificent churches and well-paid preachers, he had found the masters, men and women, grossly material. It was true that they prattled sweet little ideals and dear little moralities, but in spite of their prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. And they were without real morality–for instance, that which Christ had preached but which was no longer preached.
We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands!
Londons/Everhards darwinism är alltså en arbetarklassens darwinism, något som i vår tid är ganska ovanligt (det normala är i vår tid att man ser arbetarklassen som hjälplös, i behov av hjälp). Däremot bär den likheter med Ernst Niekischs, Strindbergs, och andra konservativa radikalers insikt i behovet av social mobilitet, behovet av möjligheter för dugliga individer ur folkets massa att nå toppositioner oavsett vad en ekonomisk och politisk adel kan tycka om detta. Det är när de styrande glömmer bort detta, och hellre sätter sina egna barn och vänner på topposterna, som revolutioner brukar följa eller samhällen självdö.
London beskriver sedan på ett skickligt sätt hur den amerikanska demokratin ersätts av the Iron Heel, till en början genom små lagändringar, små undantag från medborgarnas fri- och rättigheter, stöd till halvmilitära/halvprivata miliser i maktens tjänst (London kallar dessa Svarta Hundraden) men sedan allt mer öppet och brutalt. I tider av The Patriot Act, Expo, Bodströmska förslag om ökad buggning eller kristdemokratiska förslag om att kriminalisera medlemskap i ”rasistiska organisationer”, så känns Londons beskrivning obehagligt aktuell.
Oligarkin använder sedan krig mot andra länder för att leda tankarna bort från inhemska problem, stödjer revolutionärer i andra länder för att skada dem, sätter upp lydstater i Canada och Mexico, och liknande. Londons Thiriartliknande insikter i kontinental geopolitik i en ny era är ganska intressant, likaså hans något icke-marxistiska insikt i att politiken är en självständig sfär som inte rakt av styrs av ekonomin/den materiella basen.
Riktigt intressant blir novellen när London beskriver hur Oligarkin utvecklas till ett kastsamhälle, hur militära dygder och disciplin återuppstår. Här kan man inte undgå att märka en viss sympati hos London i beskrivningen av Oligarkadeln och dess krigarkast; Mercenaries, eller skapandet av priviligierade arbetarkaster.
”One of our generalizations is that every system founded upon class and caste contains within itself the germs of its own decay. When a system is founded upon class, how can caste be prevented? The Iron Heel will not be able to prevent it, and in the end caste will destroy the Iron Heel. The oligarchs have already developed caste among themselves; but wait until the favored unions develop caste. The Iron Heel will use all its power to prevent it, but it will fail.
`In the favored unions are the flower of the American workingmen. They are strong, efficient men. They have become members of those unions through competition for place. Every fit workman in the United States will be possessed by the ambition to become a member of the favored unions. The Oligarchy will encourage such ambition and the consequent competition. Thus will the strong men, who might else be revolutionists, be won away and their strength used to bolster the Oligarchy.
`On the other hand, the labor castes, the members of the favored unions, will strive to make their organizations into close corporations. And they will succeed. Membership in the labor castes will become hereditary. Sons will succeed fathers, and there will be no inflow of new strength from that eternal reservoir of strength, the common people. This will mean deterioration of the labor castes, and in the end they will become weaker and weaker. At the same time, as an institution, they will become temporarily all-powerful. They will be like the guards of the palace in old Rome, and there will be palace revolutions whereby the labor castes will seize the reins of power. And there will be counter-palace revolutions of the oligarchs, and sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, will be in power. And through it all the inevitable caste-weakening will go on, so that in the end the common people will come into their own.'”
Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothly was the Mercenaries. This body of soldiers had been evolved out of the old regular army and was now a million strong, to say nothing of the colonial forces. The Mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt in cities of their own which were practically self-governed, and they were granted many privileges. By them a large portion of the perplexing surplus was consumed. They were losing all touch and sympathy with the rest of the people, and, in fact, were developing their own class morality and consciousness. And yet we had thousands of our agents among them.1
The oligarchs themselves were going through a remarkable and, it must be confessed, unexpected development. As a class, they disciplined themselves. Every member had his work to do in the world, and this work he was compelled to do. There were no more idle-rich young men. Their strength was used to give united strength to the Oligarchy. They served as leaders of troops and as lieutenants and captains of industry. They found careers in applied science, and many of them became great engineers. They went into the multitudinous divisions of the government, took service in the colonial possessions, and by tens of thousands went into the various secret services. They were, I may say, apprenticed to education, to art, to the church, to science, to literature; and in those fields they served the important function of moulding the thought-processes of the nation in the direction of the perpetuity of the Oligarchy.
They were taught, and later they in turn taught, that what they were doing was right. They assimilated the aristocratic idea from the moment they began, as children, to receive impressions of the world. The aristocratic idea was woven into the making of them until it became bone of them and flesh of them. They looked upon themselves as wild-animal trainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet rose always the subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in their midst; bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangs of the roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity were to persist. They were the saviours of humanity, and they regarded themselves as heroic and sacrificing laborers for the highest good.
They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast would ingulf [sic] them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged. The horrid picture of anarchy was held always before their child’s eyes until they, in turn, obsessed by this cultivated fear, held the picture of anarchy before the eyes of the children that followed them. This was the beast to be stamped upon, and the highest duty of the aristocrat was to stamp upon it. In short, they alone, by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood between weak humanity and the all-devouring beast; and they believed it, firmly believed it.
Även Londons beskrivning av vad den breda befolkningen förvandlas till i the Iron Heel är av intresse för den som fruktar massamhället:
I had seen the people of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was now looking on it for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was now dynamic–a fascinating spectacle of dread. It surged past my vision in concrete waves of wrath, snarling and growling, carnivorous, drunk with whiskey from pillaged warehouses, drunk with hatred, drunk with lust for blood–men, women, and children, in rags and tatters, dim ferocious intelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and all the fiendlike stamped in, apes and tigers, anaemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden, wan faces from which vampire society had sucked the juice of life, bloated forms swollen with physical grossness and corruption, withered hags and death’s-heads bearded like patriarchs, festering youth and festering age, faces of fiends, crooked, twisted, misshapen monsters blasted with the ravages of disease and all the horrors of chronic innutrition–the refuse and the scum of life, a raging, screaming, screeching, demoniacal horde.
The Iron Heel är hur som helst en mycket god liten skrift. Den är inte lika spännande som många andra av Londons böcker, men innehåller däremot mer tankar om samhälle och historia.
Den finns att läsa i sin helhet här.
Om skribenten: Joakim Andersen
