Kipling bears repeating: the Gods of the Copybook Headings
Rudyard Kipling is one of those poets known by people who don’t ordinarily read poetry. But what he’s known for differs from person to person.
Some are only familiar with his tribute to cool heads under fire, “If.” Others see him as an old-fashioned versifier of non-PC poems full of dialect, defender and promoter of the now-defunct British empire. Others know him primarily as the author of children’s books set in exotic places.
But the real Kipling was more complex, even in his attitude towards empire. Lately I’ve been thinking about Kipling at his most cynical. With a pen dipped in acid and bitter disillusion, he wrote the poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” in 1919, right after the carnage of WWI (which included the death of his only son) His message was a harsh one to those with hopes and dreams that human nature could be changed for the better, that lasting peace was possible to achieve, and that bills would never come due.
With the candidacy of hope/dream/change Obama, as well as the recent revenge of what Kipling referred to as the “Gods of the Market Place,” I think the poem is well worth reading again.
So here it is. I have marked certain passages in bold for emphasis (note: “copybook headings” were maxims and proverbs students of Kipling’s day had to copy in order to improve their penmanship):
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 burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
And when they return…
They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2745/
The people who need it most will think that the sins of “the market” are the sins of the free market rather than the sins of the politicians and fast-talkers.
In this age, not that many people will understand about the dog returning to his vomit. But to at least some people, it’s shocking enough that it may get them to think.
Now, if only we could get it to run on All Things Considered ….
Thanks for posting this, Neoneo. I count myself as a fan of Kipling, though many of his attitudes are definiitely not PC (not just toward empire but toward women as well–ever read “Female of the Species” all the way through?) He had a wonderful facility with language and an ability to turn a phrase. His poem “The Children” is one of the most wrenching pieces of work I’ve ever read. I have to admit, I’ve been thinking of “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” lately too–somehow the poem is starting to seem rather applicable. Interesting times ahead….
Hey I was just checking in to see if you’ve done any articles about the vilification by the right of those on the right who’ve “left the fold” and dared declare Sarah Palin unfit for VP or even endorsed Obama over McCain?
Seems to be one of your big pet peeves about the left, but it’s been glaringly obvious lately that it’s another fault which, like so many of those you gleefully point out, no party has a lock on.
Check out and move on, unknown bull****er.
Unknown –
Don’t you find it the least bit odd that the democrats (and other liberals) speak about the bravery of Colin Powell for stepping away from his party to support Sen. Obama ? Why odd you may query ? Well these are the same people who backed someone else in the Connecticut democratic primary a couple of years ago because they said he wouldn’t tow the party line one-hundred percent of the time. When he ran as an independent and won the election he caucused with the democrats and, because they needed his vote he was given some decent committee assignments. However, just recently Nancy Pelosi said that since it looked like they would no longer need his vote in the senate after the election, he would lose his committee assignments. All because he stood up for HIS principles and is supporting John McCain.
The most i have heard anyone say about Powell (or anyone else) is that they think he may be being somewhat disingenuous when he says race is not a factor in his decision.
Now that is out of the way ……… Neo I have been a fan of Kipling but didn’t remember this particular poem. Powerful. NJcommuter is correct though – many if not most, libs would misinterpret the meaning. Hurray for our educational system. Maybe if we threw another 10K per year per student at the system they might have a chance. Nah – because most of their teachers wouldn’t understand it either.
If the Chosen One is elected, will our own troops become something of a caricature of the “Last of the Light Brigade” that Kipling wrote of?
Will the veterans benefits they deserve be watered down so The Messiah can pay for the social programs he probably prefers to fund?
Not saying this is GOING to happen, just asking the question. Given the handouts he’s promising something would have to be cut somewhere – and the military is not something I’ve ever noticed the political left wanting to spend very much money on over the past 30 years.
After all, these are men and women that Obama accused of bombing innocent people. It doesn’t strike me that he has any really warm and fuzzy feelings about the men and women of the US military.
BTW, thank you neoneocon – I’d not bothered to re-read any Kipling works in a very long time….
Oops, forgot to mention neo that on your topic – I agree with you 100% this time.
Eyewitness account of a Weather Underground meeting:
“I bought up the subject of what’s going to happen after we take over the government. We, we become responsible, then, for administrating, you know, 250 million people.
And there was no answers. No one had given any thought to economics; how are you going to clothe and feed these people.
The only thing that I could get, was that they expected that the Cubans and the North Vietnamese and Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States.
They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education centers in the southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be re-educated into the new way of thinking and teach them… how things were going to be.
(I) asked, well, what’s going to happen to those people that we can’t re-educate; that are die-hard capitalists. And the reply was that they’d have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these re-education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill. 25 million people.
I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.
And they were dead serious.”
Larry Grathwohl, former member of the Weather Underground.
Also anent the Leftist terroristas–
“The McCain ad you’ll never see: the Fort Dix dance”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfF15cUc9AM
Chilling. And straight to the point.
Kipling never was a mizogynist, only a mizanthrope, and “Female of the Species” treats men more harshly than women. And what about “Mary Gloster”? He was an Old Testament prophet, of Jeremija kind, not a humanist. His universe was God-centered, not human-centered.
“Some are only familiar with his tribute to cool heads under fire, “If.” ”
Neo, you do not pay due to “If”. There is much more in it than tribute to cool heads under fire.
Sergey: of course there is—but this isn’t a dissertation. I wanted to hurry up and get to the business at hand.
That said, “If” is not my favorite poem in terms of artistic merits, although I think it makes some excellent observations. Take a look here.
Heh heh…looks like there are a lot of Kipling fans in here…
For those confused by this poem here is a good intro:
For those who do not know, a “Copybook” is the British equivalent of America’s McGuffey readers; they were used to improve penmanship, as
English children would copy the heading on each page (which consisted of some wise saying) repeatedly below. The poem was written near the end of the first World War, a war which shattered the belief that fashionable thinking could prevent war and conflict. The “Gods of the Marketplace” that Kipling refers to are not Free Markets, but Government. This poem talks of the enduring nature of those old wise sayings, and the morals they instill that remain constant when all trends and fads of thinking have faltered.
Think Kipling could have done better with the Japanese word “kami” rather than God for the Copybook Gods.
Still, great post, Neo.
Lewis Diuguid, editorial page columnist for the Kansas City Star, is an idiot.
Just thought I’d toss that in.
I have read “female of the species” and kipling and our elders from before had a very intuitive feel for things even if they didnt have ability to pin point where it comes from, or why one may have a certain perception of it.
they also had something we dont have.
freedom to speak their mind and then change it and speak it again.
few today have read the long line of thought and experience that kipling CONSTANTLY dips into, going back to cicero.
i will also say, just as it was explained that market place in kiplings meaning wasnt the stock market, his views were also spawned as part of a system that was built on protecting women, and for the most part not forcing them the way men were forced (despite what they teach in school today).
each line rings true to someone who can think abstractly and point things out.
WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/bearwld.htm
The most dangerous bears are:
Bears habituated to human food.
Females defending cubs.
Bears defending a fresh kill.
Cute, friendly, and apparently not interested in YOU.
thats one point in kiplings favor.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
the female is more likely to get her mates and have them kill the snake to make the area ‘safer’. while the male is more likely to not bother as he knows that the rats eat the grain they need to survive to next year.
you decide who gets the point for number 2
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
sure… any men that really love their wives and are providing for them, would not beat their wives or hurt them. therefore the wives have complete freedom to punish them for a long time for things. the number of men nagged by their wives vastly outnumbers the number of men that would strike them to shut them up. despite propaganda to the contrary thats been disproved, but never stops being spouted… [the ladies running the movement are self described communists with the goal of a communist america. PLEASE dont make me post the quotes again]
and accepting the fact that women can be nasty does not diminish or change the fact that some men are too.
Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other’s tale–
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
honey, do i look fat in this dress?
do you think she is cuter than me?
etc..
entrapment and forcing a lie as a normal way of life. asking if someone is cuter than you who you know is cuter than you is for what purpose? to attack for the unpleasant truth? or to attack for telling a lie? no… its so you can attack and not be blamed for it and feel free to wallow that he said something wrong to anger you…
yes, we all know that not all women do this. i would guess that deep down, men love them just a bit more.
Man, a bear in most relations–worm and savage otherwise,–
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
pushing the logical proof that she is wrong when she wants to win emotionally just aint worth it. you may be right, but shell punish you for winning over her. ever wonder why merit is gone in schools and everywhere else now that we are emasculated compared to our past? why we go with relativity? well thats how one wins an argument that one is loosing logically! meanwhile, she pulls this like a trump card.. and he ALWAYS has the trump card of his size and strength, and never exercises it, pushing the logic. he lets her be right, when she is wrong. do i have to point to the tons of t-shirts and cute sayings that attest to this?
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger–Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue–to the scandal of The Sex!
she can put him down cruely and make him look the fool, and he will not attack her for it. she can say things to him that he would allow no other man to, and shame him, and destroy his reputation. people willing to do that from a priveleged place are considered to be quite cruel and vicious, akin to teasing a dog chained to a post. would you like popular examples of women making men look the fool and walking away leaving hte men no response but to suffer the indignity (that they may or may not deserve)?
his poem is about female privelege when abused
one last one i am too long already
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
when push comes to shove she will kill him to save the kid… she will throw her mate in front of the bear to get away with the kid. she will sacrifice the person she has spent her life with and who has toiled for her ina moments notice to get away.
(and thats generally the way he wants it too)
here is one that is slick… many many women love it… when the music plays they will say… i love that song…
you only have to tell them to listen to the lyrics and ask if you want to have that for a mate to get them to be angry at you. 🙂
basically its the same kind of thing that kipling wrote but billy joel earned a lot more for it… (and i dont think cicero who also said similar things, as well as others)
She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But shes always a woman to me
She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But shell never believe you
And shell take what you give her, as long as its free
She steals like a thief
But shes always a woman to me
Chorus
Oh-she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
Shes ahead of her time
Oh-and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind
And shell promise you more
Than the garden of eden
Then shell carelessly cut you
And laugh while youre bleedin
But shell bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause shes always a woman to me
Chorus
She is frequently kind
And shes suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
Shes nobodys fool
But she cant be convicted
Shes earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But shes always a woman to me
again… not all women are like joels thing… but there is at least one thing in kiplings that would fit each woman (even if its just the fact that she would do anything for her children).
in this many people find kiplig to be astute.. though i would suspect that young people who have been through the grist mill of feminist studies would be the protestors. though the feminists will celebrate terrorists, and claim suffragets were their own, and make hero of a eugenicist… they say palin isnt a woman so she doesnt count, and never celebrate emmy noether given einsteins eulogy of her, and tons of other things as they march thrugh the culture dragging us towards a collective that they wil never get to lead.
i bet one Alexander Lazarevich Helphand thought that he too would be favored… (brookes news mentions him in an article which makes for a synchronistic kind of thing). interesting guy.. he funded lenin and his crew and the revolution.. the same people the feminists are working towards with the same ideas..
He used his wealth to help finance Lenin’s takeover of the Russian state. His reward? Lenin barred him from ever entering Russia again. In 1925 he died in exile of a heart attack. (Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin, Free Press, 1994, pp. 110-125).
kiplings work rings true for a lot of people, and its not necessarily sexist to see the truth behind it. though feminists may tell you what to thing on the subject given that they are collectivists who want all women to have their mind.
and woe betide the man or woman that crosses them. watsons career is gone kicked out. how are they doign with palin? summers had fun too, no? they sure arent disproving kipling are they?
even the bible has its pecadilloes.
“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” — Proverbs 21:9
.
“Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.” — Proverbs 21:19
.
“I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.” — Ecclesiastes 7:26
.
“…while I was still searching but not finding – I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.” — Ecclesiastes 7:28
When all men are paid for existing,
And no man must pay for his sins.
That line rates right up there with Proverbs. By the way, all who have never read Proverbs, from first to last chapter, dust off your King James version (beautiful old English) and read Proverbs straight through.
If you must, forget it is the Bible, just think of it as good advice from your grandfather or you uncle. To quote Rachel Lucas, “Do it now.”
And “Recessional”, when you believe more in what you made, than you believe in what made you.
And “Screw-Guns” if you think the world has ever been different.
And Scottie – ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is Alfred Tennyson. Not Kipling.
Martin Bebow, you stated: “…the first World War, a war which shattered the belief that fashionable thinking could prevent war and conflict”
Would that it were so. It only took ten short years before fashionable thinking made a comeback. Fifteen nations signed the Kelogg-Briand pact in 1928. The pact was a multilateral treaty outlawing war. Of course it did nothing of the sort. It only provided the more adventurous governments a measure of their weaker counterparts, the very fashionable dreamers and thinkers.
“Tommy” is my favorite and applies to your comment Scottie, They will try as they might to tear down the military, it will be quite simple really, there is a huge bow wave of broken down and worn out equipment coming, hundreds of billions worth, they wont fund the repair or refitting of it, they will probably hold hearing of how it got so bad, blaming it on the last administration
“You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
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!”
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/43.html
Um… quite a pity that the “Gods of the Copybook Headings” didn’t tell George II Bush that you can’t run up debts forever, because the bill collector always shows up.
That great classical conservative C. S. Lewis made very clear the central vice of Rudyard Kipling: the passion so many of his stories and poems express for the addictive pleasure of simply belonging. And Lewis points out that his stories and poems express no truly coherent point of view; they merely reflect a particular approach to whatever imaginary “inner ring” Kipling addresses. So you cannot look at a poem or a story and say: Kipling says thus, for Kipling will say something quite different in the next work, and you must assess the truth of what he says, if you wish to, from poem to story to poem.
Still, I often wish that the neo-conservatives, national greatness advocates, PNAC members, and expounders of “American exceptionalism” would truly read the following Kipling poem:
Recessional
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord of our fathers be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget
The tumult and the shouting dies
The captains and the kings depart
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice
An humble and a contrite heart
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget
Far called our navies melt away
On dune and headland sinks the fire
Lo all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre
Judge of the nations, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget
If drunk with the sight of power we loose
Wild tongues which have not Thee in awe
Such boasting as the gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard
All valiant dust that builds on dust
And guarding calls not thee to guard
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on the people Lord!
As for Kellog-Briand– the time comes for all human institutions to pass. Rome once ruled and rules no more, slavery, serfdom, feudalism– all gone, left behind. Logic tells us with the pitiless truth, that all institutions sink, and that those who cling to them go down as well, and that since the development of nuclear weapons, we have only two choices: give up war, or give up existence. The ancient truths, what Kipling calls the Gods of the Copybook Headings, know this as well.
John G. Spragge, if existence is our sole purpose we (homo sapiens) have gone to much too much trouble. Better we should have stayed in our caves, in our animal skins, and in our ignorance, etching pretty but primitive pictures on the very same cave walls. Is existence the be all and end all? The Jews, Slavs, Christians, gypsies, and homosexuals existed — in Auschwitz, Treblinka, et al. Was that good enough for them or do you suppose they would have rather lived? Seriously, is there nothing worth fighting for? Nothing?
John: Tell it to the Iranians.
John C. Spragge:
And I wish the John C. Spragges would follow the links in my very carefully crafted posts. If they did they would find that the poem “Recessional” is linked to the following words in paragraph 3, “even in his attitude towards empire.”
I know the poem well.
I also contend that if you truly read the poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” you would see that giving up war is, unfortunately, not an option. Of course, that’s not just because Kipling said it.
Rome once ruled and rules no more, slavery, serfdom, feudalism— all gone,
Who does John think we are, the sheep of the Democrat party?
Slavery, serfdom, and feudalism all gone? Get real. This is the 21st century, not the Social Utopia of the Left.
There’s plenty of slavery, serfdom, and feudalism around in the world. Just open your cherry colored glasses.
And I wish the John C. Spragges would follow the links in my very carefully crafted posts.
he’d need to be fully literate for that, Neo. Not too many fully literate people around these days.
Seriously, is there nothing worth fighting for? Nothing?
Sure there is something worth fighting for. John’s assets, family, and his personal self. That’s worth plenty of Marine body bags.
Thanks for this, Neo – I am also a Kipling fan, from earliest age. Even more when I read the entire collected works when I was in high school. He was, I think, a poet of reality, of the working person (he would have said the working man). He was brutally realistic about people, about all sorts of people, and almost the best of those late-Victorian writers at getting under the skin of another person – a person of another race, class, sex. I did a whole cycle of stories based on his “Soldiers Three” collection, which was a sort of updated version – of three female NCOs, talking to an anonymous reporter about their lives, their insights and experiences.
He had a short story, “Mary Postgate” – I think it was called, about a very repressed, elderly spinster woman companion, who had just witnessed a German bombing raid on her home village, watching a shot-down German aviator die… and watched him die and grimly did nothing. Recalling that story still gives me a cold shudder and it’s been about thirty years since I read it last.
Kipling’s poem “Natural Theology” has some of the same thoughts.
He wrote one about the last of the Light Brigade, begging their bread.
Two, from “Epitaphs of The War” refer to women.
“Raped and Revenged”
One used and butchered me.
Another spied me, broken.
For which thing an hundred died.
Thus it was learned among the heathen hosts
How much a freeborn woman’s favor costs.
V.A.D. (The administrative home of some of the nurses of the Great War)
Ah, would swift ships ne’er had been,
For then we ne’er had found,
These harsh Aegean rocks between,
This little virgin drowned.
Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn
But men she nursed through pain,
And, certain keels the heathen seek in vain.
I like his “A counting out song.”
in part:
But grass or glacier, cold or hot,
The men went out who would rather not.
And fought with the tiger, the pig and the ape,
To hammer the world into decent shape.
Macdonough’s Song
Rudyard Kipling
WHETHER the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth–
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War.
Whether The People be led by The Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote–
These are things we have dealt with once,
(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
Endeth in wholly Slave.
Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give,
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King–
Or Holy People’s Will–
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
Saying–after–me:–
Once there was The People–Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth.
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain!
Once there was The People–it shall never be again!
“After all, these are men and women that Obama accused of bombing innocent people. It doesn’t strike me that he has any really warm and fuzzy feelings about the men and women of the US military.”
And a poll I noticed today noted that 3/4 of the military are backing McCain…
Side note here. Dane, the expression is toe the line–to stand with one’s toes on a line on the floor or in the sand, not to haul on a rope.
But the point is good.
I see someone else posted a few lines from Tommy …I’ll add a couple more:
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;
And, as far as what he thought about women …try Mandalay.
…reading Kipling out loud is a pleasure that just rolls off the tongue. Thanks for reminding me NNC.
To John G. Spraggle: C. S. Lewis was an ideologue, so he need a “coherent worldview”, while Kipling was a prophet, in insessant dialog with his inner, deeper self, so he need not such silly thing as an ideology. The last is for us, ordinary people; poets and prophets are above this. They did not submiss themselves to any orthodoxy, they, I dare to say, create an orthodoxy of their own. I doubt that Kipling can be called a Christian; something in him transcend it, toward more wide, more ancient, generic Abrahamic or even partly heathen perspective.
Neo: I saw perfectly well that you linked Recessional; I typed it in, partly to see how well I remembered it, but mostly because I thought and think that neo-conservative ideologues, believers in national greatness and national power, should truly read it. It does not only speak of empire; in fact, it only briefly refers to the British Empire. It speaks of the futility of national greatness, of those things which, most often, people fight wars for.
In answer to the question of whether I consider anything worth fighting for: I consider a great many things worth struggling for, risking for, and dying for. But we live in an increasingly interdependent society, increasingly vulnerable to disruption. And that society gives each individual more power, more freedom, and therefore more opportunities to disrupt our lives. Neither that, nor the physics of the weapons an increasing number of countries now deploy, cares at all what you or I want. We may not want the job of seeing off war. We may not see any alternative to violent resistance to tyranny, We may even see nobility in the sacrifices war entails. The physics, the graph theory, the numbers, the hard reality of our lives: none of these things truly cares what we want.
Mikey NTH,
Before you seek to correct others, make sure your own position is correct (I’m sure neoneocon can find a “copybook heading” that sums that view more eloquently).
“The Charge of the Light Brigade”, is indeed by Tennyson. However, I was specifically – and correctly – referring to “The Last of the Light Brigade” which is by Kipling. The fact that you did not know this illustrates a gaping hole in your education.
And since others have previously copied and pasted verse here, I hope nobody takes exception to my doing the same in an effort to broaden your knowledge.
“The Last of the Light Brigade
There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four !
They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, “Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites.”
They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant’s order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.
The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said,
“You wrote o’ the Light Brigade, sir. Here’s all that isn’t dead.
An’ it’s all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin’ the mouth of hell;
For we’re all of us nigh to the workhouse, an’ we thought we’d call an’ tell.
“No, thank you, we don’t want food, sir; but couldn’t you take an’ write
A sort of ‘to be continued’ and ‘see next page’ o’ the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an’ couldn’t you tell ’em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now.”
The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.
O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children’s children are lisping to “honour the charge they made – ”
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade! ”
Oh, and Mikey NTH – no need to thank me for this lesson. It was my pleasure, really…..
vanderleun.
Thought I posted this before.
Your piece and “Frontier Arithmetic” sort of bookend guerilla war. Fall’s “Street Without Joy” said the same thing.
John G. Spragge,
“It speaks of the futility of national greatness, of those things which, most often, people fight wars for”
Not most often! It seems to be a fairly balanced equation to me. People also fight wars in defense, defending themselves from those who seek national greatness or continental greatness, or world greatness, or religious greatness.
and
“The physics, the graph theory, the numbers, the hard reality of our lives: none of these things truly cares what we want.”
None of these things can “truly care” now can they? You sound as though you are, either in the grips of a deep, “black dog” depression, or, one of those profound philosophical determinists. The second is the more destructive as it inevitably leads to the rejection of “free will”. If it is all that we can do, i.e. care, then we must do it — the seemingly inevitable be damned.
the state is a blind mass… it can only see what its skewed reports can tell it… for a beuracracies eyes are the computer/people generated aggregated, summed, and simplified data that it uses to make its choices.
Gee, and I always thought it was:
“If you can keep your head while others all about
you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you–
You probably don’t grasp the situation.”
But as an Obama presidency looms, and we will be defended by “soft power,” I also think of Kipling:
“If wars were won by feasting
Or victory by song
Or safety found in sleeping sound,
How England would be strong!
“But honor and dominion
Are not maintained so.
They’re only got by sword and shot,
And this the Dutchmen know.”
Kipling is going to get real relevant real soon:
“Once you start paying the dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.”
John C. Spragge: If you did see that I already had linked “Recessional,” then you should have referred to that fact when suggesting I (being, after all, a neocon) was unfamiliar with it. In addition, your understanding of what neocons stand for (and might under some circumstances fight wars for) is incorrect for the most part. Take a look at any of the articles I’ve written listed in the category “neocons” on the right sidebar.
That said, I do believe in the greatness of this country (although, once again, that’s not why wars should be fought). The greatness lies in the ideas for which we stand: liberty, protection of rights, a republican (small “r”) form of government. That these things are imperfectly realized does not mean we are not one of the greatest countries on earth. I make no apologies for that.
This country does exert power in the world of nations, as do most large nations. Whether you like it or not, the world is a power struggle among nations, and that fact is one of those “copybook headings” that you ignore at your peril. If we suddenly decide we don’t want to be a powerful actor in the world, there are plenty of other nations—and far worse ones—willing to take on the task.
You are sadly naive if you think otherwise. Take a look at this essay of mine, by the way, which is relevant to the subject at hand. This one might be of interest as well.
Dang, I enjoy this blog! Keep it up, Neo.
p.s. – I have always liked Kipling. He certainly does not deserve being denigrated by those who had not even bothered to actually read what he wrote. Nor do you.
The author of the scifi “Gust Front” had an afterword about soldiers and Kipling. Kipling got soldiers and soldiers get Kipling.
I think I have the outline correct: An exchange between an American unit and a Brit unit included the presentation of a heavily bound book of Kipling’s work from the Brit RSM to the American unit.
Errr, Wow. That was…creepy at how totally relevant it is. I think I need a drink.
WG
I said that I thought proponents of “national greatness” should truly read “Recessional”, with sense of its call for humility and realization that national power never truly stands against the sweep of history.
A couple of comments on the essays neo referred to:
(1) The results of the nuclear age and all it entails include necessary limitations in the goals of any war. If Hitler has possessed nuclear weapons, the Second World War would have ended with a negotiated settlement. Today, even the potential to create a nuclear weapon can paralyze an adversary; hence the strategic term “nuclear ambiguity”, applied to nations in possession of the material and technology to build a nuclear arsenal at need. Canada, Sweden, Germany and all the other industrial powers that do not have nuclear weapons fit this description, and Iran badly wants to (at least) have the potential to build a bomb.
(2) The limits on war also limit colonialism. That means, in turn, that countries which take upon themselves superpower status must accept, in the long term, that the cost of military power will inevitably fall on their citizens. In practise, that means that Americans will get less value for their tax dollar than the citizens of other countries; the difference works out to about a thousand dollars a year for each citizen. That means a thousand dollars less in education, health care, economic investment; as you point out, Kipling’s “Gods of the copybook headers”, in their dour wisdom, say that you must pay for such things.
Thanks for the lesson, Scottie, but I already knew the Last of the Light Brigade.
I just noted that Tennyson wrote “the charge”.
Feeling better now?
John G. Spragge,
I’m not sure that WWII would have ended in a negotiated settlement if Hitler had gotten the bomb. It would have depended on which side got it first. If Hitler had gotten it first, it would have been used and maybe the Allies would have been willing to negotiate a settlement. Hitler wouldn’t have had to accept, of course, and as the sole nuclear power could have done as he pleased within the limits of his capacity to produce nukes.
If the Allies had gotten it while Germany was still fighting, we would have used it on Germany. But would Germany have surrendered? I doubt it. Historically, the loss of entire cities to Allied bombing didn’t phase their will to fight and indeed they fought to the bitter end.
Let’s say both sides got it simultaneously. It’s just as likely we would have had multiple nuclear exchanges as anything.
On “the sweep of history,” there actually isn’t any rational argument for this kind of statement. The fact that Rome fell, for example, doesn’t have anything at all to do with whether the US will decline. To believe that it does, you must believe in some kind of religious or magical destiny, or some kind of intrinsic limitation on human institutions (which I would like carefully, logically explained, please).
The rise and fall of any institution that has fallen can best be explained not by some claim of destiny (e.g., all nations fall), but rather by the particular circumstances of its time and place. We can look at the past and try to find circumstances similar to the one we’re in and then try to extrapolate lessons from history, but to look back and say, “Rome fell, we are doomed to fall as well” isn’t rational.
Costs of not having a strong military can be vastly greater than costs of having them: weakness is a provocation. And colonial war can be the only option to prevent forming of save haven and training ground for deadly terrorism, as Russia has a chance to know in Chechnya.
To clarify: if World War II had started with both the Allies and the Axis in possession of nuclear weapons, it would have sputtered along without any definite conclusion, much the way the cold war did.
Every empire ever created has fallen. On a rough average, most empires last about three centuries and change. I think it makes sense to classify the fall of empire as a repeatable result. Multiple theories exist about why it happens: everything from discontent on the part of subject peoples to the rise of rival powers to the decay of ruling classes under the law of regression to the mean. Whatever the cause, and in the case of most empires, multiple causes exist, the imperial state always falls, and Kipling merely showed reasonable observation in pointing this out.
Sergey: I don’t think weakness, qua weakness has ever provoked anyone. Allowing a perception of military weakness may at worst make you a target of opportunity, and that happens far less frequently than the opposite: as Gwynne Dyer pointed out, countries that devote substantial resources to their military end up in wars far more often that countries which do not. In any case, this has no relevance to the larger question: as the power of available weapons increases, and the vulnerability of advanced technological societies to disruptions also increases, the utility of military force diminishes.
Dyer used to be okay. Years ago, he did a television series on war. Almost okay.
The reason nations which don’t spend much on war don’t get into as many is that they are either not worth bothering with in the first place–who wants Chad?–or they lose the first one and cease being a nation, thus no longer being available as examples either way.
Or they simply do as they are told by more powerful neighbors who find that a cheaper way of taking care of business.
Mikey NTH,
Here are your words, directed specifically to me:
“And Scottie – ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is Alfred Tennyson. Not Kipling.”
By adding the “Not Kipling.” to the end of your statement you exhibited an assumption that I was referring to “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.
It’s disingenous to now claim you “already knew the Last of the Light Brigade.” You didn’t just note “that Tennyson wrote “the charge”.” as you claimed.
Yep – I feel better.
How I enjoy getting home, finding enlightenment on the web, considering the day gone by and the day ahead, and hoping for the best.
Thanks neoneo for the post and for generating such a rich commentary.
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John,
I do not see anything truly unique about the nuclear weapon (or any other component of the CBRNE hazards) that would have erased war or forced limited war. You are referring to Mutually Assured Destruction, and the deterrence associated with it. A nation that is fully prepared to utilize the ultimate weapon in massive quantities is much less likely to have to use it, because no sane nation will challenge them and risk annihilation. That was the reason WWIII did not occur.
Why should that eliminate war? It eliminates total war, but limited war is often just as brutal for less results. I’ll be blunt – you go on about cold hard numbers and graphs that compel the end of war, yet I have not seen anything of the sort. I’m not seeing any physics or cold equations demanding your conclusion.
You talk about inevitability. All Empires fall, but such an unpleasant and final inevitability is the kind of thing people want to avoid. Witness the fact that people live despite the knowledge that they will die. Generally, the fall of an Empire is followed by another empire or simple chaos. Who should take over in our place? Russia? China?
What of the barbarian? What of the man who rejects the rules of society and wants to remake the society in his image? How do you deal with someone who rejects your way of life and intends on forcing you from it under the threat of death? What response can you offer besides warfare – limited or total? Are you simply advocating pacifism?
John,
I do not see anything truly unique about the nuclear weapon (or any other component of the CBRNE hazards) that would have erased war or forced limited war. You are referring to Mutually Assured Destruction, and the deterrence associated with it. A nation that is fully prepared to utilize the ultimate weapon in massive quantities is much less likely to have to use it, because no sane nation will challenge them and risk annihilation. That was the reason WWIII did not occur.
Why should that eliminate war? It eliminates total war, but limited war is often just as brutal for less results. I’ll be blunt – you go on about cold hard numbers and graphs that compel the end of war, yet I have not seen anything of the sort. I’m not seeing any physics or cold equations demanding your conclusion.
You talk about inevitability. All Empires fall, but such an unpleasant and final inevitability is the kind of thing people want to avoid. Witness the fact that people live despite the knowledge that they will die. Generally, the fall of an Empire is followed by another empire or simple chaos. Who should take over in our place? Russia? China?
What of the barbarian? What of the man who rejects the rules of society and wants to remake the society in his image? How do you deal with someone who rejects your way of life and intends on forcing you from it under the threat of death? What response can you offer besides warfare – limited or total? Are you simply advocating pacifism?
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