January 16, 2004
"...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. 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 the idealistic enterprise merely by accepting that idea. 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. He showed that the failures of utopia always require scapegoats who must be annihilated. Kipling understood human nature, including the impossibility of social engineering. The innateness of human aggression, he recognized, would never yield to humane understanding. In discussing the pacifist left Orwell wrote, “A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling's understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, 'making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep'.
In recent years the collapse of the Soviet Union has prompted some to write of the End of History, and to anticipate the universal triumph of liberal democracy. The naivete of this view is as dangerous as the utopian fantasies underlying totalitarian Communism or totalitarian Islam. Horsefeathers maintains that contemporary liberalism needs a strong dose of realism about human nature. Suicidal Islamist totalitarians seeking to kill us are every bit as dangerous as their twentieth century predecessors. The war of ideas being waged today is no different from what it was in Kipling’s or Orwell’s time. The lure of utopianism remains undiminished by the emerging horrors of life under Communism or Baathism or Islamism. Kipling’s poem should be required reading for all who wish to understand the war we are fighting, both on the ground and in the realm of ideas. It is a reminder that wisdom about human nature, like human nature itself is unchanging and dangerous to ignore.
"Copybook" is the British for Notebook; a "Copybook heading" was a proverb or other essential truth that a teacher assigned to his class to write an essay on. The "Gods of the Market Place" do not refer to the Free Market but to fashionable wisdom..
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.
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Comments
This is why I love the internet. You learn something new everyday.
Posted by: Fersboo at January 16, 2004 02:17 PM
Ah, but you must add to this Kipling's finest emission, his verdict on the attempt to invert all standards, "The City Of Brass":
In A land that the sand overlays—the ways to her gates are untrod—
A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all !
When the wine stirred in their heart their bosoms dilated,
They rose to suppose themselves kings over all things created—
To decree a new earth at a birth without labour or sorrow—
To declare: “We prepare it to-day and inherit to-morrow.”
They chose themselves prophets and priests of minute understanding,
Men swift to see done, and outrun, their extremest commanding—
Of the tribe which describe with a jibe the perversions of Justice—
Panders avowed to the crowd whatsoever its lust is.
Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made them—
The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them
As playgrounds of pleasure and leisure with limitless entries,
And havens of rest for the wastrels where once walked the sentries;
And because there was need of more pay for the shouters and marchers,
They disbanded in face of their foemen their yeomen and archers.
They replied to their well-wishers’ fears—to their enemies’ laughter,
Saying: “Peace! We have fashioned a God Which shall save us hereafter.
We ascribe all dominion to man in his factions conferring,
And have given to numbers the Name of the Wisdom unerring.”
They said: “Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
Let him arise and control both that man and his labour.”
They said: “Who is eaten by sloth? Whose unthrift has destroyed him?
He shall levy a tribute from all because none have employed him.”
They said: “Who hath toiled, who hath striven, and gathered possession?
Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.”
They said: “Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it,
If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it !”
So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him,
The slayer, too, boasted his slain, and the judges released him.
As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation,
They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.
They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.
When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
For the show and the word and the thought of Dominion is evil!”
They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defiled them
The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.
They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strength which are Faith and Endeavour.
They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:
And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given...
. . . . .
When they were fullest of wine and most flagrant in error,
Out of the sea rose a sign—out of Heaven a terror.
Then they saw, then they heard, then they knew—for none troubled to hide it,
An host had prepared their destruction, but still they denied it.
They denied what they dared not abide if it came to the trial,
But the Sword that was forged while they lied did not heed their denial.
It drove home, and no time was allowed to the crowd that was driven.
The preposterous-minded were cowed—they thought time would be given.
There was no need of a steed nor a lance to pursue them;
It was decreed their own deed, and not chance, should undo them.
The tares they had laughingly sown were ripe to the reaping.
The trust they had leagued to disown was removed from their keeping.
The eaters of other men’s bread, the exempted from hardship,
The excusers of impotence fled, abdicating their wardship,
For the hate they had taught through the State brought the State no defender,
And it passed from the roll of the Nations in headlong surrender!
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at January 16, 2004 03:58 PM
Francis,
Fabulous!! Thanks
Posted by: Stephen at January 16, 2004 04:33 PM
Kipling’s words go nicely to the music of Tonight There's Gonna Be a Jail Break, repeating the first four lines for the chorus. Like how the chorus sounds to the music of Kashmir, too.
It’s hard to get my head around the idea that today’s follies are nothing new. An historical perspective on the “pacifists” is something lacking in popular debate. Some years ago I read Between St. Denis and St. George, by Ford Madox Ford in 1915 (not a novel despite what some Websites say). He tears apart “pacifist” G.B. Shaw. Plenty of familiar stuff.
Posted by: ForNow at January 17, 2004 11:52 PM
I was talking about “The City of Brass,” quoted here in the comments thread.
Posted by: ForNow at January 18, 2004 12:01 AM
Thanks for the tip. I've always loved "making mock of uniforms..." Now, I must find this "City of Brass."
Posted by: Reid at January 21, 2004 01:10 AM
Just wonderful. Thanks.
Kipling now joins Heinlein in my personal Pantheon of Immortals.
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