Parody: The Gods of the Marxist Place (apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

Gun Watch ^ | 24 March, 2020 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Image from commons.wikimedia.org by CarlosXVIG

Rudyard Kipling has long been a favorite author of mine. My parents had two volumes of his collected works, which included The Jungle Book, Kim, a number of short stories and poems. To a budding bibliophile teenager who loved the outdoors, they were magic carpet rides into the exotic. 

I have much appreciated his poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings. It is a complement to common sense, tradition, and hard won, practical conservatism. The wisdom it speaks of comes mostly from The Bible, with many direct references to Psalms, verses of which were printed on the top of British school children's copybooks (special notebooks). 

Kipling included an annoying glitch in the poem. When Kipling wrote the poem, in 1919, Europe had just endured one of the most destructive wars. Marxism, Socialism, and Collectivism in general, were ascendant.

Kipling attributed wishful thinking, irrationality, and the creation of utopian fantasies to worshiping "Gods of the Market Place". With a hundred years of experience behind us, no group has excelled at wishful thinking, irrationality and utopian fantasies more than Marxists, Socialists, and Collectivists, generally.  Rudyard Kipling was very much a cultural Christian. The values of Christianity permeate his literature. At the same time, he sometimes promoted early progressivism. 

 Stanza four seems ready made for the entire Democrat candidate field.

Ammoland readers will especially appreciate stanza five, warning about disarmament. 

Stanza six foretold the demographic disaster in Europe, and the West, generally.

It doesn't take much to bring the poem up to date with the last hundred years of experience. Just substitute Marxist for Market, ricefield for icefield, Phnom for Rome. It fits the poem very well.  I have changed "Gods of the Copybook Headings" to "God of the Copybook Headings" It seems more accurate, as most of the wisdom comes from the Bible. Here is the parody: 

AS I PASS through my invocations with every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Marxist Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the God of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlasts them all.

We were living in trees when he met us. He showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found him lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left him to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. He never altered his pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Marxist Place,
But he always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its ricefield, or the lights had gone out in Phnom.

With the Hopes that our World is built on He was utterly out of touch,
 He denied that the Moon was Stilton; He denied she was even Dutch;
 He denied that Wishes were Horses; He denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Marxists 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 God 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 God 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 God of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Marxists 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 God of the Copybook Headings rose 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 God of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter returns! 

It has been made clear, in the last hundred years, the Market Place is much closer attuned to reality than is the Marxist Place.  China is being humbled. Russian is returning to its Christian roots. Who, 40 years ago, would have thought this would happen?

©2020 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

[marktwain]

Kiplings works are now public domain, and parody is under the fair use doctrine.

With a hundred years more experience, this update makes sense.

[Biggirl]

And the USA taking back its superpower status?

[marktwain]

And the USA taking back its superpower status?

Kipling would understand, though he would, of course, have preferred the British Empire to last and evolve into a worldwide commonwealth...

In reality, Pax Britannica evolved into Pax Americana almost seamlessly.

One may look at them as just an evolution of Christendom, which we also call Western Civilization, reigning supreme since about 1600.

[wastoute]

Exactly. My father’s mother was English through and through. Her father immigrated around 1890 as an indentured servant. Whatever she was doing, planting apple trees, digging a well, at 3 PM everyday she stopped everything. Washed up, cleaned up, set the table and had tea. Every day. It is the rituals in life that remind you of your National Character. Your dignity. Your Honor. The little details that however trivial are so important. This is our chance to recover our soul. We have succeeded in replacing them but we have failed at maintaining the things that made it all work.

[SantosLHalper]

This stanza is from the original:

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 God of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

[marktwain]

Yes, most of the poem is from the original.

[marktwain]

There is only one change in stanza five:

Gods has been changed to God.

[aquila48]

“It has been made clear, in the last hundred years, the Market Place is much closer attuned to reality than is the Marxist Place.”

Kipling was critizing the gods of the market place - the faddish gods, the gods of the tastes of the moment.

I agree that his poem should be the anthem of conservatism.

His last stanza is very prophetic and we’re living it.

[bravo whiskey]

“Now I shall go far and far into the North, playing The Great Game.” Kim

[SantosLHalper]

Correct you are.
One of my favorite verses in all of poetry.

[marktwain]

Kipling was critizing the gods of the market place - the faddish gods, the gods of the tastes of the moment.

Perhaps.

But gods of the Marxist place fit better.

Hard to see the gods of the fashionable "promising perpetual peace". Marxists do exactly that.

Hard to see gods of the fashionable promising to rob Peter to pay for collectivist Paul. Exactly what Socialist/Marxists do.

Both fit to some extant, promising that two and two do not make four. In 1919, the Marxists were a bit more hard-headed than are the cultural Marxists today, which promise and preach that reality is optional.

[aquila48]

“But gods of the Marxist place fit better.”

No not really. His gods of the market place are more encompassing than just Marxism.

He would consider Marxism one of the gods of the “market place” in the sense that it was another new shiny thing that promised all sort of wonderful things while the gods of the copybook headings were...

“... lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.”