RUDYARD KIPLING-- Hard Lessons About Human Nature For Utopian Multiculturalists!

ICONOCLAST ^ | Stephen Rittenberg

[Apolitical]

"...They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe..."

As the British Empire declined so too did the reputation of Rudyard Kipling. A great story teller, he was, as George Orwell noted, the poet laureate of empire. Gradually Kipling came to be viewed as anachronistic and archaic. A more liberal and supposedly more tolerant view became the dominant one amongst English speaking wordsmith intellectuals, so that by the time Kipling died in 1936, socialism, communism and pacifism were the reigning ideologies.

Orwell described Kipling as: "a jingo imperialist?morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting." And it's true, Kipling's poetry often amounts to doggerel of the shallowest sort. However, the emergence of utopian liberalism brought its own shallow and wishful thinking, especially about human nature, culminating in our current multicultural insistence that no one culture or set of beliefs is superior to any other.

George Orwell however, began questioning the assumptions of his fellow socialists. Unlike most of his contemporaries who yearned for an egalitarian, workers' paradise, Orwell saw much to value in Kipling, especially his gem like clarity about human nature. Kipling understood the longing for utopia and the social dangers that would follow. He anticipated the advent of totalitarians wishing to make us better than we truly are.

In fact, the totalitarian left rose to power propelled by an idea: the utopian idea that human nature can be changed by reorganizing society. Anyone can sign on to this idealistic enterprise merely by accepting that idea. Of course, Orwell never completely abandoned his liberal-left politics, but he devoted his creative work to exposing the horrors that often follow in the wake of utopian dreams...

[Travis McGee]

A large anthrax attack would be disruptive, but not immobilizing. The darn mail is hardly used for anything but sending junk mail, anyway. If could be abandoned temporarily quite easily, IMHO

WRONG-O! The main DC mail sorting facility is still abandoned as unsafe, 2 years after a 3 gram attack! The Am. Media Corp building in Palm Beach County is still abandoned as unsafe as well.

That was THREE GRAMS. (Teaspoons IOW.)

Now imagine a 300 kilo attack on our infrastructure, 100s of leaky envelopes flying around our system on the same day. Goodbye USPS, FEDEX and UPS, for starters. Goodbye US economy. Goodbye US health system.

[bc2]

If there ever was a thread with you in mind, this is it!

Best regards in the new year...

bc2

[bvw]

That is only due to a over-preponderance of caution, and a lack of enterprise applied to solving the problems. If there is a more extensive attack, American Ingenuity will have a chance to bump off the over-cautious, the victim's cult.

Inventive and ingenious methods wil be unleashed by the public. The problem will be remedied very quickly. We will scratch our heads wondering why we let the problem fester so long, and left the McClellans in-charge, when every American neighborhood has Grants and Shermans.

[Restorer]

You have a very low opinion of the resilience of Americans and their economy. The types of attacks you mention would be very destructive. They would not result in the end of America.

As I pointed out in my earlier post, had the Nazis been allowed to complete their conquest of Eurasia, and it was a very near thing, they could within 7-10 years have brought overwhelming military power to bear on the US, their only potential remaining foe. That could have led to the end of the US.

In this scenario, who got the A-bomb first would have been crucial.

Of course, from the mid-50s on Soviet H-bombs could have destroyed the US pretty completely in a few hours.

Are you seriously trying to equate these military threats with that posed by a few tens of thousands (at most) rag-tag terrorists who can't even manufacture their own weapons?

Can they do a lot of damage? Absolutely!

Can they conquer and occupy us, or destroy us? No way!

[razorback-bert]

Of course it is.

The Fabulists

[King Prout]

hehehe... then you probably recognize the names forming my UserID :)

[mylife]

Kipling is most insightful and astute..there is much that is relevant to today from his writings.

[TalBlack]

As it happens Mark Twain thought Kipling was enormously talented. Kipling visited him one day on a trip to America and Twain thought he was the next 'big thing'.

[yankeedame]

Now, my grandkids are receiving their introduction to Mr. Kipling.

When they get a little older introduce them to Raphael Sabatini ("Captain Blood", "The Sea Hawks", and "The Treasure Ship: "She would be homing for Spain when the hurricane caught her...." Easterling laughed... The dark, bold eyes, in his great red face glinted wickedly. "Give me a homing Spaniard, Chard. There'll be treasure aboard that hulk. By God, we're in luck at last." )

and

Ryder Haggard ("She", "King Solomon's Mines", and "Maiwa's Revenge, or The War of the Little Hand": "About four o'clock...the head man of one of Wambe's kraals had arrived...a little, wizened, talkative old man, with a waistcloth round his middle, and a greasy, frayed kaross made of the skins of rock rabbits over his shoulders....")

By Jupiter, if these books don't teach them (boy or girl, doesn't matter) to love reading, nothing will!

[joesnuffy]

They are also 'enabled' by those who seek to use them for a far more nefarious end...
They are a legitimate threat...and that is what makes them so usefull...
imo

[okie01]

Stalky & Company?

`Well, take your own case, King, and go back a couple of years. Do you remember when Prout and you were on their track -- for hutting and trespass, wasn't it? Have you forgotten Colonel Dabney?'

[okie01]

"By Jupiter, if these books don't teach them (boy or girl, doesn't matter) to love reading, nothing will!"

Let's not forget Robert Louis Stevenson, either. Swashbucklers are always in style. And, eventually, one graduates to Alexander Dumas -- e.g., The Three Musketeers being a romp of epic proportions, with a goodly dollop of history.

I always thought the Richard Lester films were a true portrayal, one that Dumas would've heartily approved.

Reading material like this encourages the imagination...

[VOA]

bump

[AnAmericanMother]

And do not neglect his late stories, the English stories. Some are ghost stories, like "They" or "Wireless", some are stories of English rural life, like "Friendly Brook" which is also in its own way a ghost story, "My Son's Wife" and "An Habitation Enforced." Those are my current favorites at the moment. Stories that are hard to read (from a comfort sense - very disturbing) but true to the core are "The Wish House" and "The Gardener". And you can read them all here.

Wolf, you will be amused to know that "If" was written in praise of George Washington. It forms the end-piece to his short story "Brother Squaretoes" in Rewards and Fairies. That book and its predecessor, Puck of Pook's Hill, are fantasies on a moral/historic theme - ostensibly written for children but (as Kipling told Cecil Rhodes, or possibly Rider Haggard) actually for adults.

You really can't go wrong with Kipling. The short stories I named you will find mostly in his two collections Actions and Reactions and Debits and Credits. And many other wonderful stories besides.

[AnAmericanMother]

Yes! Stalky forever! How about this:

Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man’s eyes were wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. Then up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or Rich or McVitty when Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was changed on him from the face of a fool to the countenance of an old, wise man, and he said in a strong voice: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord! I was—I am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to me.”

“Oh, you be, be you?” said the man. “Then pray my son back to me! Pray back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an’ a thousand quintal of fish. If you’d left me alone my widow could ha’ gone on to the Provident an’ worked fer her board, an’ never known—an’ never known. Now I’ll hev to tell her.”

“There ain’t nothin’ to say,” said Disko. “Better lie down a piece, Jason Olley.”

When a man has lost his only son, his summer’s work, and his means of livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give consolation.

“All Gloucester men, wasn’t they,” said Tom Platt, fiddling helplessly with a dory-becket.

“Oh, that don’t make no odds,” said Jason, wringing the wet from his beard. “I’ll be rowin’ summer boarders araound East Gloucester this fall.” He rolled heavily to the rail, singing. “Happy birds that sing and fly Round thine altars, O Most High!”

“Come with me. Come below!” said Penn, as though he had a right to give orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of a minute.

“I dunno who you be, but I’ll come,” said Jason, submissively. “Mebbe I’ll get back some o’ the—some o’ the—nine thousand dollars.” Penn led him into the cabin and slid the door behind.

“That ain’t Penn,” cried Uncle Salters. “It’s Jacob Boller, an’—he’s remembered Johnstown! I never seed such eyes in any livin’ man’s head. What’s to do naow? What’ll I do naow?”

They could hear Penn’s voice and Jason’s together. Then Penn’s went on alone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was praying. Presently the little man came up the steps, huge drops of sweat on his face, and looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by the wheel.

“He don’t know us,” Salters groaned. “It’s all to do over again, checkers and everything—an’ what’ll he say to me?”

Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. “I have prayed,” said he. “Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for the life of this man’s son. Mine were drowned before my eyes—she and my eldest and—the others. Shall a man be more wise than his Maker? I prayed never for their lives, but I have prayed for this man’s son, and he will surely be sent him.”

Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered.

“How long have I been mad?” Penn asked suddenly. His mouth was twitching.

“Pshaw, Penn! You weren’t never mad,” Salters began. “Only a little distracted like.”

“I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I do not remember any more. How long ago is that?”

“I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered in sympathy.

“Abaout five year,” said Disko, in a shaking voice.

“Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. Who was the man?”

Disko pointed to Salters.

“Ye hain’t—ye hain’t!” cried the sea-farmer, twisting his hands together. “Ye’ve more’n earned your keep twice-told; an’ there’s money owin’ you, Penn, besides ha’af o’ my quarter-share in the boat, which is yours fer value received.”

“You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But—”

“Mother av Mercy,” whispered Long Jack, “an’ he’s been wid us all these trips! He’s clean bewitched.”

A schooner’s bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through the fog: “O Disko! ’Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?”

“They have found his son,” cried Penn. “Stand you still and see the salvation of the Lord!”

[wardaddy]

wrath...

have we lost it?

[okie01]

“They have found his son,” cried Penn. “Stand you still and see the salvation of the Lord!”

A master storyteller...

[Rocky]

Thanks.

My father used to quote Kipling verse. One of his favorites was the poem in which he was debating whether to marry Maggie, who was insisting that he give up cigars. He concluded, "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."

Kipling would not be considered politically correct today. A lot of liberals, who accuse others of being "book-burners", would love to burn Kipling's books.

[wardaddy]

A lot of liberals, who accuse others of being "book-burners", would love to burn Kipling's books.

Molon Labe.

[Rocky]

"Molon Labe."

OK, what does it mean?