Orwell wrote an essay about Kipling[1] that might be worth reading if you want to know about more about him. Orwell's take:
"Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. It is better to start by admitting that, and then to try to find out why it is that he survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly."
This is a great take. I've taken this poem with me ever since my high school valedictorian introduced me to it in his speech. The popular response was "Kipling was a racist." Okay. Why do I love his work so much despite that?
Looking at why work persists despite the negatives is a far better practice than looking for negatives to belittle work.
Agreed. I'm well aware that he was a racist, jingoist prick, but "If-" is one of my favorite poems of all time. On the flip side, I have a hard time reading poems like "The White Man's Burden" and "Gunga Din" as anything but fairly clever satire. Maybe that's a measure of progress?
That's a powerful essay. Certain parts of it have a very modern ring to them:
But because (Kipling) identifies himself with the official class, he does possess one thing which ‘enlightened’ people seldom or never possess, and that is a sense of responsibility. The middle-class Left hate him for this quite as much as for his cruelty and vulgarity. All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are ‘enlightened’ all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our ‘enlightenment’, demands that the robbery shall continue. ...
Although he had no direct connexion with any political party, Kipling was a Conservative, a thing that does not exist nowadays. Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals, Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. He identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition. In a gifted writer this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality.
I clicked on this discussion against my better judgement, fearing an outpouring of trivial personal nostalgia and the typical HN one-upmanship in poem suggestion, but found myself spending the last 30 minutes enjoying Orwell's essay. Thank you for the substantive and informative contribution!
It's worth noting that TS Eliot - who Orwell is answering to at the beginning of this essay, is himself often labelled a fascist or an antisemit.
Great text by Orwell. Especially with the idea that Kipling’s outlook is pre-fascist, and that we should understand, read and criticize him only in that way.
This essay was published in 1941. I feel like this entire take might need a big "And then what happened?" suffix on it regarding the consequences of jingoism, and nationalism in general.
My mother hung this poem over the bathroom in my house when i was a kid. I probably read it 1k times. Great stuff!
Another excerpt of my favorite bathroom poems:
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
I always interpreted it as something you summon in hardship. In those moments pride can be a savior (think depression, or recovering from a hard injury).
I agree that depending on the context, it can be interpreted differently, and I also accept that poetry will not mean the same thing to everyone.
My mom used to work at a library and so it was one of my key 8th grade hangouts. A few months after my dad passed (complications after open-heart surgery) I was there with my friend, James Daly, and he brought me a book of poetry opened to 'If.' For many years it was sort of a father figure to me, giving me a notion of what to value and what to aim for. I still cherish it, and the friend who gave it to me.
Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you found something to help you through. I'm going to read it again with that in mind. Currently having a tough time and looking for some guidance.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
That Welsh bloke had a pretty decent turn of word.
Is English a second language for you? I note back ticks - ` instead of single quotes - '
To be honest, I don't think you need this poem to be explained to you by someone else - it is what you make of it. The language used is so simple - no word has more than two syllables. The reason you love it is because that Welsh bloke is so skillful in his turn of phrase and how he deploys words. He slaps words on a page and each word has a cadence, set of syllables and a rhythm. He knows how to bolt words together and intertwine them into a poem.
You already know what this poem means because you have already said that you have always loved it.
Perhaps you should read it to someone close to you and discuss it ...
English is not my native one, English poetry in general used to sound strange to me after Pushkin et al. (could hardly get the rhymes if they are there at all). But this particular one is my "forever unread starred email to myself" (1 of 3 such emails) for 8.5 years as I've just checked. It's so strong and right and good. Happy New Year!
"And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"
You think he foresaw and disapproved of universal basic income?
My dad had a plaque made with this poem on it when I was a kid. It was eventually lost in moves and I didn't know about it until I was about a senior in high school. I move a lot at the moment, but once a settle down, it'll absolutely be on the wall.
I just think that concept wanting your son to embrace that poem is sweet, but I have a bias.
An interesting tidbit I learned about Kipling a few days ago. Kipling was born in India, and was raised by Indian servants in the household. As a result, he could speak the native language. Leaving India at age 6, he returned when he was 17 or so. He then married an American lady and settled in Vermont.
When I was in 7th grade in 1959 our punishment for misbehaviour was having to return to school on a Saturday afternoon and write out Kipling's "If" two or three hundred times in longhand.
The line “if you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same” is above the door entering Centre Court at Wimbledon. When I was younger I didn’t understand it, but with the context of the rest of the poem I believe it’s about keeping a level head. When you win you don’t want to become overly confident, and when you lose you don’t want to become depressed or lose hope. Either way, you just keep on going as best you can.
My interpretation of that line is that: Whether you encounter triumph or disaster is too often determined by factors outside your control. There will be times in your life when you try your hardest but still fail. And, other times, you will succeed despite your worst effort. And so, triumph and disaster are imposters insofar that they are inaccurate reflections of the things that truly matter -- persistence, hard work, integrity, etc.
I read an essay years ago describing "If", "Invictus", and "Trees" (by Joyce Kilmer) as the three worst poems in the English language. I can't find the essay, so maybe I have the three poems wrong, but once you read them side by side, you definitely get a sense of the different kinds of nausea literature is capable of generating.
But the common feeling is greeting card sentiment poured forth with the stridency of a real professional.
Strangely enough, my introduction to this brilliant poem came from Dennis Hopper’s coke fueled rendition of an excerpt in Apocalypse Now. I wonder why Coppola chose If.
It's quite a decent poem and it lends itself to being read out loud. You can fiddle with the rhythm, volume and all sorts. Basically, it is extremely malleable, which is probably not a Eng Lit term but it works for me.
FYI, "Ame ni mo makezu" by Kenji Miyazawa [0] is the Japanese parallel to Kipling's "If". Both poems deal with similar themes, have similar structure, and both have been extremely influential in their cultures.
This was in my 9th or 10th grade syllabus. What a great poem. But I don't agree with all the letters in it, but I dig the spirit.
For example, if you risk everything you have, how does that affect your family if it is material possessions that you are risking. I get it when it's all your reputation if you deeply believe in something.
Another place, it says-
> nor talk too wise
It tells you too be humble when talking with others, do not let your knowledge or wisdom known. But how does this affect your students when you are a professor?
For me personally, I love being around accomplished, wise people who love to talk. I get to learn so much.
You have to be a good listener to make these sort of people open up, but no matter what there were 2-3 people in my life who wouldn't open up- to anyone- due to humility and shyness.
I've always interpreted the "not talk too wise" bit as to communicate and idea in a way the audience will understand without using overly complex language or concept's which are above their understanding.
Not saying that interpretation is correct, just what my take away was.
> If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
This is the only one which i have framed and put up on the wall to use as a daily reminder of "How to Cope with Life".
For example, i have been living with this for the past few years;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you had diamond hands when all around you
Were selling shares and saying you should too
If riding GameStop moonward made friends hound you
And worry if the SEC would sue
...
If you addressed a virulent pandemic
By grokking each new trend that had begun,
Your wisdom was enriched and epistemic
And you made bank in 2021.
This poem has partially defined the last couple years of my life. Turns out, when you outlast the 'average' human condition, like for example, everyone freaking out during a pandemic, you realize you've gained character and you haven't lost your mind!
My mom would read this with me back in my wee years. I still find myself stopping to think to its words from time to time, especially when I am about to lose my calm.
Happy new year to all the awesome moms out there, especially my own :)
An “unforgiving minute” suggests something like “the longest minute of your life”.
“Sixty seconds’ worth of distance run” is alluding to the fact that running long distances is tough. And you force yourself to do “just one more minute” to keep on going.
So when you are facing the longest minute of your life you make yourself keep on going; the unforgiving minute is one in which you push yourself, because you know that you have to - but you also know that most likely you have to push yourself for one more minute again and again.
So what Kipling is saying is “if, when - despite things being tough - you can force yourself to keep going, even though you know the next minute might be as tough, or even tougher…”
I took this a bit differently, though in the same vain. The "unforgiving minute" I read as "every moment doesn't care who you are or what you do, it just marches on", and "sixty seconds' worth of distance run" as more of "put in work you're proud of for every second of each minute".
Essentially, there is no greater purpose or person giving you slack---if you can be proud of each second of each minute, the world is your own.
The differences in our interpretations of the poem is what makes it a great poem though. Both readings have very similar messages, and both messages are very impactful.
The White Man's Burden is definitely a dangerous poem, it's bad to uncritically spread its message of simple cultural superiority.
But lets not pretend that it is some off-the-rails racist screed. We still do try to export our cultural values to developing nations (e.g. women's education to Afghanistan, or elimination of FGM in Africa) and are sometimes resented for it. We should be pushed to champion those kinds of causes, even if they are thankless.
Now those cultural values certainly aren't spread in a vacuum; they are usually accompanied by other less-benevolent forms of imperialism. Exploitation isn't what Kipling is calling for; he is certainly racist, but he is trying to be benevolent.
Why? You don't think someone can have had excellent personal character while still being a product of a time and place that inculcated harmful group chauvinism? Might as well throw out all of Greek philosophy with that attitude.
I think the first world war also changed him in this regard, but I may be wrong.
See the poem, (and play, and film adaptation - which is a moving depiction of his experience of his son being killed) my boy jack.
Although as for "product of his time" and WW1 poetry in general, remember that Wilfred Owen was writing around the same time and is very much ahead of many warmongers to this day. People are products of their circumstances, cultural and temporal.
A friend of mine's great-whatever apparently confessed on his deathbed to having shot his commanding officer who had begun summarily executing retreating soldiers for deserting (i.e. not walking directly into a wall of machine gun fire)
I have this opinion of Churchill too. Should we solely praise him, absolutely not, was he still one of the great men of history, yes.
That being said the former viewpoint is still being elucidated to many people so I am not overly critical of those who express it too enthusiastically.
The Mythos of Churchill must be challenged, just as the good celebrated and analysed.
Very few people seem to know of Clement Attlee these days, which is probably a tragedy considering his influence on what really matters in Britain today.
This is the zeitgeist of today: no nuance, no complexity. One cannot be both good and bad in same lifetime. One cannot be both flawed and redemptive. Witness the crucifixion of Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Rudyard Kipling, and countless other writers from the past.
Perhaps you are right. But reading the link which OP provided, I was expecting to hear how terrible a man Kipling must have been to support racist imperialism regardless of the beauty he also produced. If I jumped the gun, I apologize.
I think it's fair to say he was quite a reactionary even for the standards of the time. In my opinion, that does not erase the beauty he produced, and neither does that beauty erase his less unsavory featured.
But yes I'm quite against the tendency to crucify dead people, which is annoyingly prevalent in some circles.
The systematic destruction of everything strong and good in the past is done on purpose to disorient and make people more open to dramatic, sudden change.
Even for his time he didn't an "excellent personal character". That being said I'm generally in favour of separating the author from the art and against putting people on a pedestal in general.
Maybe you didn't read the actual poem or maybe you don't understand it, or maybe I'm misinterpreting your reason for sharing this with an implied concern. However it turns out, it should be clear that the poem itself is multi-layered. It is, to me, from the perspective of somebody who has the prescribed duty to apply their culture's ideals to a peoples not compatible; a lament of the perceived need to do so. It is (again, to me) clearly not some kind of racist screed... unless you read it with an eye to specific terms and associations without considering any context, either from the poem itself or from the circumstances leading to its writing.
I can't edit on mobile otherwise I would have, but...
A very related work, if assuming the "imperialist" interpretation of The White Man's Burden, is the documentary Empire of Dust[0]. In this, a Chinese man is sent to a region in Africa to help build up various capabilities and the subsequent philosophical and practical issues that arise. I highly recommend it, but only if you (the watcher) can set aside your preexisting notions on the topics addressed.
This is, in fact, quite relevant. The poem "If" is, largely, an endorsement of traditional norms of masculinity, and the same sort of far-right conservatism is the source of the racist prejudices in The White Man's Burden--and in his other famous work, The Jungle Book.
In fact, the connection between the poem "If" and colonialism is even more direct:
> To take one example, Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If…’ (1895), which acts as a guide to manhood for his son, takes inspiration from colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, presenting him as the ideal man.
The Jungle Book is the best children's book ever written. I'd like to see a study of adult life outcomes based on whether their parents read them The Jungle Book. I think it would be revealing.
Thank you.
I think this idea that there's a perfect ideal to strive for is present in all culture. From someone educated in "Western" values but living with "Eastern" tradition (simplifying a lot here), I've (personally) always read Kipling as very pretentious, and a relic of an older time. However seeing how often it comes up in forums and how people always laud it when it does, I think it strikes a chord with a certain mindset (that flies past my head unfortunately), and by that it will be a poem that continues to be a guiding light.
My belief is that people however should understand the context of something, even more so if it is a text that they treasure.
This a overly dismissive. Nothing has changed in 2021, it’s just instead of calling cultural imperialism “the white man’s burden” we call it “protecting human rights” and “preserving democracy” overseas, so it sounds better to modern ears. The mindset hasn’t changed. Behave in a way that the West finds “barbaric,”, and all kinds of soft and hard power will be brought against you.
For example, Kipling wanted to end sati (widows burning to death) because it was against his “white man’s” values, today we would be just as against it snd do whatever we could to stop it (probably mostly with soft power) in the name of women’s rights.
Either way, the reduction of someone who lived a full and rich life, an enormously popular and Nobel Prize winning writer to “well, actually he was problematic” is not healthy.
I was going to say the “White Man’s burden” is quite similar to what we do today - eliminate standardized testing, racial quotas, etc. All done in an effort to “help those groups who will never succeed without the white man’s help”.
Even Buddhism has the concept of half or full enlightenment, so it would depend on where he started and what was considered "full" enlightenment in both his time and ours, so though I agree there may be some nuance in the statement, I don't agree that it would make much difference. He clearly had insights about life worth sharing and a style that counts as good (skilful) for many people.
Between that and tfa essentially exhorting do whatever you think is right and this ending up at the top of HN, being probably the leading discussion board for VC and at least somewhat influential in the future direction of technology, I think this warrants a double-oof.
This is all personal, but I think there’s a balance between the two things that you said that is optimal. There are times that it’s okay not to express everything as long as you are able to process it.
"Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. It is better to start by admitting that, and then to try to find out why it is that he survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly."
[1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...