What do you think?
Rate this book
Mad
Description:
The ghosts of Hobbes, Sade and Stirner haunt Jonathan Bowden’s unique and captivating experimental study of mortality salience, interpersonal strife, and the emergence of the modern state. Originally released in 1989, Nine-Banded Books is very proud to bring this remarkable book back into print.
Listen:
Insanity dislocates the nervous system from its axis. Mind and body lose the symmetry which both require. Hence, in the most extreme states, a multiplicity of persona, compete with one another, for mastery of the mind. The discursive intellectual sees deeper still. He sees a society where mounds of corpses left redundant in the Nazi’s wake were thought by many to have deserved their fate. Who then, in circumstances such as these, is wholly sane? The truth is that we are all in some sense mad. We are liable, in that moment of madness, to go over to the other side. We are sick because we have never diagnosed the possibility of curing our sickness. We are immoral because we lack the propensity to behave morally. In that moment of madness we are too nervous to attempt anything with anyone unless they’re a corpse first. Necrophilia is the privilege of the naturally human. The lividly swinish, the essentially bestial, the thing from which we emerged, and he stands there, behind every lawyer, every judge, every mendacious cesspit of a politician. You will find him there. The man with the gun, the individual of the first cause, the articulator of the original violation: Cain; the man who killed Abel.
The ghosts of Hobbes, Sade and Stirner haunt Jonathan Bowden’s unique and captivating experimental study of mortality salience, interpersonal strife, and the emergence of the modern state. Originally released in 1989, Nine-Banded Books is very proud to bring this remarkable book back into print.
Listen:
Insanity dislocates the nervous system from its axis. Mind and body lose the symmetry which both require. Hence, in the most extreme states, a multiplicity of persona, compete with one another, for mastery of the mind. The discursive intellectual sees deeper still. He sees a society where mounds of corpses left redundant in the Nazi’s wake were thought by many to have deserved their fate. Who then, in circumstances such as these, is wholly sane? The truth is that we are all in some sense mad. We are liable, in that moment of madness, to go over to the other side. We are sick because we have never diagnosed the possibility of curing our sickness. We are immoral because we lack the propensity to behave morally. In that moment of madness we are too nervous to attempt anything with anyone unless they’re a corpse first. Necrophilia is the privilege of the naturally human. The lividly swinish, the essentially bestial, the thing from which we emerged, and he stands there, behind every lawyer, every judge, every mendacious cesspit of a politician. You will find him there. The man with the gun, the individual of the first cause, the articulator of the original violation: Cain; the man who killed Abel.
- GenresPhilosophyEssaysPolitics
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Bowden
41 books124 followersBritish artist and political figure who was active in a number of political parties and groups, and was a leading speaker on the nationalist circuit.
Bowden began his political life in the Conservative Party and in Right-wing groups around conservatism, such as the Monday Club, the Western Goals Institute, and the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus.
He later joined the Freedom Party and then the British Nation Party, which he left after an internal dispute. He continued speaking for the BNP until 2010, but never rejoined the party.
Bowden was the chairman of New Right, an British pan-European forum.
Bowden began his political life in the Conservative Party and in Right-wing groups around conservatism, such as the Monday Club, the Western Goals Institute, and the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus.
He later joined the Freedom Party and then the British Nation Party, which he left after an internal dispute. He continued speaking for the BNP until 2010, but never rejoined the party.
Bowden was the chairman of New Right, an British pan-European forum.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 17, 2010
Jonathan Bowden is a modern day occidental artist and philosopher, a leader in Europe's "New Right." This is a passage from the book, "The task of philosophy is to prepare men to face death always remembering that Reinhard Heydrich did it better."
Do yourself a favor and read it.
Do yourself a favor and read it.
April 23, 2018
Jonathan Bowden really is my guiltiest of pleasure reading, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with some sort of familiarity with the writer. This quick volume is a truly demented work, explicating the role violence plays in the formation and maintenance of society as opposed to it being a threat to order as such. Is such a thesis that radical? Not at all, but Bowden's prose (and in particular his allegorical and analogical gonzo imagery) rip a hole through every expectation. Additionally, either due to some mess up in editing or due to Bowden's role more as orator than author the chunks of text tend to repeat and replicate themselves at bizarre intervals leading one to question if they misplaced their bookmark or are losing their minds. Ergo, the reading experience enacts madness. Brilliant!
April 18, 2013
FULL REVIEW
It's difficult to say exactly what Mad is. It's too scatter shot to call it a proper essay, and it's too experimental in form to call a polemic. As vague the description is, it would probably make the most sense to call it a prose poem. Though even that may not be accurate.
It's difficult to say exactly what Mad is. It's too scatter shot to call it a proper essay, and it's too experimental in form to call a polemic. As vague the description is, it would probably make the most sense to call it a prose poem. Though even that may not be accurate.
January 18, 2016
A fun rambling screed on the necessity of cruelty.
September 5, 2025
The title is not pretentious at all, Bowden may be one of the craziest authors of the far right, if that label isn't enough to tell you something.
The book is all about the hard truths, that may resemble the fascist aesthetic of black and white images, of physical training and physical pain. These truths turn your worldview black and white, in a "i kill you before you kill me", fascism or violence emerges from this fear, from terror...Bowden explains in a Freud manner about the repressed tendencies we have thanks to institutions and modern dynamics, going around sex, politics, art, philosophy and religion.
Physical grotesque images and words are part of Bowden's language, he talks about blood, semen and defecation in the worst of violent and filthy contexts. This book might have you thinking that you are the child of several killers, that in order to be alive, all of your ancestors were ruthless motherfuckers, and i am not talking about monkeys.
These type of texts serve to destroy something that many value, the usual question that comes along is that "if everybody thinks this way, then nothing would get done" well, that may be the point! But we can also ask "is anything getting done?" whatever that means, and also "is anything worth to conserve?" referring to the conservative movement that is also mentioned by Bowden.
If i have to take anything about this book is when it talks about death and terror, being the foundation of human thought, where you can see a lot of Nietzsche influence. The absolute denial of death comes along with the absolute denial of flesh, blood and danger, comes ironically with the denial of life. Filth, chaos and mistakes is what makes life what it is, having scars and broken bones that say that you live life, so be wild, be life-affirming!
The book is all about the hard truths, that may resemble the fascist aesthetic of black and white images, of physical training and physical pain. These truths turn your worldview black and white, in a "i kill you before you kill me", fascism or violence emerges from this fear, from terror...Bowden explains in a Freud manner about the repressed tendencies we have thanks to institutions and modern dynamics, going around sex, politics, art, philosophy and religion.
Physical grotesque images and words are part of Bowden's language, he talks about blood, semen and defecation in the worst of violent and filthy contexts. This book might have you thinking that you are the child of several killers, that in order to be alive, all of your ancestors were ruthless motherfuckers, and i am not talking about monkeys.
These type of texts serve to destroy something that many value, the usual question that comes along is that "if everybody thinks this way, then nothing would get done" well, that may be the point! But we can also ask "is anything getting done?" whatever that means, and also "is anything worth to conserve?" referring to the conservative movement that is also mentioned by Bowden.
If i have to take anything about this book is when it talks about death and terror, being the foundation of human thought, where you can see a lot of Nietzsche influence. The absolute denial of death comes along with the absolute denial of flesh, blood and danger, comes ironically with the denial of life. Filth, chaos and mistakes is what makes life what it is, having scars and broken bones that say that you live life, so be wild, be life-affirming!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews