paturi@harvard.UUCP (Ramamohan Paturi) (01/06/86)
From paturi@harvard.HARVARD.EDU.ARPA (Ramamohan Paturi) A famous poet expressing a condescending sense of obligation spurred by the colonizers' pride and success: From Rudyard Kipling's Verse: The White Man's Burden Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness-- On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain. To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch Sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your people to nought. Take up the White Man's burden-- No tawdry rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-- The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead! Take up the White Man's burden-- And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah slowly!) toward the light:-- "Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?" Take up the White Man's burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less-- Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent , sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods and you. Take up the White Man's burden-- Have done with childish days-- The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (01/08/86)
u / u / u / u > And when your goal is nearest u / u / u / > The end for others sought, u / u / u / u > Watch Sloth and heathen Folly u / u / u?? u / > Bring all your people to nought. ^^^^^^ Yet another example of the endless desire of the Just and Equitable to rewrite the poems and destroy the meter ... Why not change the poem to "The White Person's Burden"? We need some internal feminine rhyme here :-), and if we aren't going to leave the poem as the poet wrote it, we might as well do a good job of changing it... The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard ... -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCC.UUCP CCC DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Oh, is he your friend? Ask him his name!"
jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman) (01/10/86)
By the way, the poem was written on the occasion of the United States
going to war with Spain. It was encouragement to invade the Phillipines,
and for the U.S. to follow in the path of those who built the British Empire.
--
John Quarterman, UUCP: {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq
ARPA Internet and CSNET: jsq@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDUgooley@uicsl.UUCP (01/16/86)
I thought that Kipling meant it ironically, his message being that imperialism is on the whole more costly to the empire-builders than their subjects; therefore it is not a worthwhile endeavour.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (01/20/86)
> I thought that Kipling meant it ironically, his message being that > imperialism is on the whole more costly to the empire-builders than their > subjects; therefore it is not a worthwhile endeavour. I don't think Kipling's intent was anywhere near that simple, though I don't think, either, that it was a case of > A famous poet expressing a condescending sense of obligation spurred by > the colonizers' pride and success, whatever *that* means. There isn't any really unifying moral perspective in the poem; I don't think he felt that the actions of the "white man" were either all bad, or all good. The first few stanzas suggest that he has done bad things, capturing free people, who are compared, by allusion, to birds or butterflies, "fluttered folk and wild"; the end of the second stanza especially suggests this, > To seek another's profit, > And work another's gain. (Compare this, for example, to Sidney Lanier's description of looking out over a cornfield, which went something like Thus, without theft, I reap another's yield; Thus, without tilth, I sow another's field. which, when you bear in mind that Lanier was also talking about the moral responsibilities involved in a very similar spirit of conquering-the-wild, is indeed a reasonable comparison.) But that stanza also captures a lot of the complexity of the problem Kipling is writing about, because all but the last two lines suggest a spirit of kindness and moderation (one which is still very evident today, e.g., in the "what to do about terrorists" issue). It gets to be a real mess in the next stanza, though, because here he portrays the "white man" doing purely selfless deeds, "the end for others sought," and still failing (there was even an episode of 60 Minutes that gave an example of this situation, a couple of years ago), because it only induces "sloth and heathen folly;" making technological improvements he is then denied access to; and finally, receiving > The blame of those ye better, > The hate of those ye guard-- > The cry of hosts ye humour > (Ah slowly!) toward the light:-- > "Why brought ye us from bondage, > Our loved Egyptian night?" the latter, of course, being the Hebrews' complaint to Moses in response to his freeing them from slavery in Egypt. He goes on to conclude that, if one makes other peoples like oneself, whether technologically, ideologically, or philosophically, the result will be that they will come to judge one as peers. Thus I don't think he was advocating any particular position as much as characterizing the whole basic problem, one still very relevant today (indeed, if one learns anything from the poem it is that things have changed little from the time of Kipling), of trying to "help" other countries. If anything, it seems to suggest a policy of noninterference, that one shouldn't become involved in other countries: not to send them aid (e.g., in the "USA for Africa" spirit) nor military support, nor financial punishment in hopes of changing their policies, nor anything else. But I'm not sure he really is saying this, largely because of the next-to-last stanza, because he seems to be suggesting that the white man will be judged "by all ye leave or do," i.e., that his every action is cause to judge both him, and his "Gods"; and thus that if he omits to take action, he will be judged as surely as if he does take some action that would invoke the hostilities he's described in the preceeding stanzas. Thus I think this is a very wise poem, and gets much closer to the essence of current political problems than most modern-day attempts to explain or offer solutions do -- the idea that there is no simple solution. [If you are going to argue about political aspects of what I've said above, please change the "newsgroup" line to net.politics; however, please note that I am attempting to provide an interpretation for the poem by Kipling posted here, not to become involved in "political" debates, which I try to avoid.] -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCC.UUCP CCC DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 LOTD(2)=a "A people without history is not redeemed from time, For history is a pattern of timeless moments." --TSE