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...

[Apolitical]

Wonder what Kipling would have thought of Howard Dean and the rest of the Democratic appeasers?

[RobbyS]

I think I know what Orwell would think of them.

[razorback-bert]

When desperate Folly daily laboureth
To work confusion upon all we have,
When diligent Sloth demandeth Freedom's death,
And banded Fear commandeth Honour's grave--
Even in that certain hour before the fall,
Unless men please they are not heard at all.

[Restorer]

Suicidal Islamist totalitarians seeking to kill us are every bit as dangerous as their twentieth century predecessors.

Actually, they're not.

They would certainly like to be, but there is zero chance of Islamists conquering or destroying the US.

At various times during the 20th century there was a significant possibility that the Nazis or Soviets would conquer or destroy the US.

Miitarily speaking, Islamists are at most an irritant.

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Long Live Dead White Men Culture

[King Prout]

I don't share your optimism.
In their war against the West, the jihadis are using demographic shift, gradual infiltration, and squeaky-wheel tactics rather than conventional munitions.
Evidence from Europe and, now, Canada, suggests the islamofascists have been vastly more successful than the hitlerites and stalinists.

[Merciful_Friend]

They're not capable of conquering us in any conventional sense, granted. However, their declared intent is to kill as many of us as possible - and the three thousand civilians/police/firefighters on the U.S. mainland that they killed on 9/11 are three thousand more than the Nazis and Soviets managed to kill.

How many more they succeed in killing depends on the intersection of their desires (millions) with their capabilities (bio? chemical? nuclear?) which are not fully known and will remain in flux. Killing tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians would not defeat America in a military sense, but would hurt America more than any previous enemy has managed to do - and would certainly change the nature of our free society in a way not seen since the civil war, I think.

While it seems unlikely that they could pull such a thing off, how truly shocked would anyone be if they did?

So, to file under "knowing your enemy," I would take them at their word regarding what they would like to do to us, and rate their danger accordingly.

[clintonh8r]

The Man Who Would Be King, one of my alltime favorite movies and based on a Kipling story, was on TV last night. Kipling was a great man and a great talent.

[Rocky]

Appropriate verse, but it's not Kipling, is it?

[Forgiven_Sinner]

According to the Iconoclast, this poem describes his opinion of liberals in our society:

---

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

---

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, 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,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

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 bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

I agree.

[okie01]

"Kipling was a great man and a great talent."

Kipling was a master storyteller. My kids were raised on the "Just So" stories, "Jungle Book", "Gunga Din", "Kim" and "The Man Who Would Be King", etc. Wonderful stories, well told, each with an important life message.

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

Jack London, Robert Service, Mark Twain and A.A. Milne have all made their contributions to my children's childhoods. But, of them all, my personal favorite is Rudyard Kipling.

[clintonh8r]

and Tommy is one of my favorite poems.

[Travis McGee]

You miss the nature of the threat. Of course you would, if you measure danger by the number and range of ICBMs. But while MAD kept the peace during the cold war, it was based on the rationality of the actors. Not so with the islamists, who are untethered by any western notions of rational behavior. So it doesn't matter if they can "win," only that they are insane, and will gladly blow themselves up in your children's kindergarten if they can do so. No, islamists can't "win," but they can potentially destroy the west that we know. For example, by mailing thousands of anthrax laden packages at once, and destroying the global economy. (The 2001 anthrax test attack consisted of 3 grams, not 100s of kilos in thousands of parcels, which would stop our economy dead.)

[okie01]

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

When it comes to poetry in dialect, Kipling and Service have no peer.

[Restorer]

For the Islamists to represent a significant military threat, they would have to come up with some presently-unknown and remarkably effective military technology. Given their attitude towards modernity and education, this is highly unlikely.

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.

The medical treatments for anthrax also proved to be far more effective than anticipated, if treatment is started in time.

Comparing an attack that could disrupt the mail to one that could destroy or conquer and occupy the country is hyperbole.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't track down and kill them anyway. I'm just recognizing that they're not going to be able to kill us all, or even a significant percentage.

Assessment of a potential threat takes should take into account both the enemy's intentions and his capabilities. But for obvious reasons, a lot more attention should be given to capabilities. And the Islamists' military capability is very low.

[Restorer]

All it would take would be one successfull detonation of a suitcase nuke in an American city. They can fail 10-20 times but all they have to do is succeed once. The ramifications of one success of this nature by the Islamofascist pscyhopaths would be catastrophic along many different lines.

Losing a city does not mean the end of the US or of the West. Huge tragedy, but its main result would be the quick extermination of Islamism throughout the world.

As in ultimatums to all Muslim regimes throughout the world, "You have 48 hours to hand over all known or suspected Islamists in your country or face nuclear destruction of your capitol."

Somehow I expect even the Iranian mullahs would scramble to comply.

[okie01]

If...words for fathers to teach to sons.

It makes better men of us both for the experience.

[Travis McGee]

Yes indeed. Or a lower-tech approach: load ten or so cargo containers with Tim McVeigh's ANFO formula, packed in honey or olive oil barrels. Ship them to American ports, and detonate them with GPS or R/C triggers.

Or build 20 or so bombs in something innocuous like cans of shaving cream. Set them all to detonate at the same minute, say noon on the 4th of July. Get 20 jihadists to pack them into their luggage and be airborne on American jets at that hour.

There are so many ways to destroy our economy and bring us down. Not for them to win, that's not the point. Just to bring is down.