“The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism

George Mason University ^ | 02/01/1899 | Rudyard Kipling

[SierraWasp]

Hey Mother! I liked that!! I have both "IF" and "The Man In The Arena" framed and hanging over my desk here a Whirled Headquarters!!!

[LexBaird]

How will you watch TV that hasn't been invented?

Watch the one invented by Milo Farnsworth, in Idaho.

How will you get to other places without our planes?

Kitty Hawk is in America. How will your gliders cross the channel without power?

How will you beat infection without penicillen?

Sulfas and other antibiotics. Incidentally, penicillin was not "invented" by Fleming. It was discovered by fortunate accident.

How will you have any appreciation of language without Shakespeare?

Shakespeare predates America, just as Aristotle predates Britain. How will you have any appreciation of music without jazz, blues, country and rock?

How will you have electricity that hasn't been invented?

Electricity wasn't invented, however, Ben Franklin did much to advance the early knowledge. And what good will electricity do Britain, without Edison's inventions?

How will you eat a hamburger, pizza or french fries without us?

Potatoes are American, and it is likely that pizza was invented in NYC. Ground beef on bread? I bet someone here would have thought of it, eventually.

[LexBaird]

Correction: Philo Farnsworth, not Milo.

[wardaddy]

Thanks Mom!

[SierraWasp]

This poem makes me think of how this great nation has avoided the role of empire and imperialism and stayed with the moral higher ground throughout it's history.

Meanwhile, the Commonists (formerly known as Communists) have desperately tried to make a moral equation of our efforts to stop their totalitarianism in Korea and Vietnam with the old world colonial empire building and imperialism. But America is the EXCEPTION to the rule!!!

Saddam was a student of Stalin, not for Communism, but for dictatorial totalitarianism through terrorism. He's isolated now, but his cohorts are fighting their coming isolation. The poem reminds me of the ingrates that the imperialists were dealing with incorrectly with their loss of life and limb are not too different from the mentally challenged/deranged terrorists in Iraq and around the globe.

It also reminds me of the mentally challenged/deranged Demoncrats/Liberals in Massachewsetts and Cauleeforneeah who seditiously demoralize and undermine our magnificent liberating military by calling them "occupiers!" There is but one force on this planet doing good, abeit imperfectly!!!

American exceptionalism is a truly valid doctrine and this poem helps point that out, if not quite prove it...

[Law is not justice but process]

I haven't read this particular bit of Kipling's verse for a wile. TR may have thought it marginal poetry, but I consider it the quintessential statement of one view of "imperialism": the view that it is the duty of the "civilized world" to bring civilization to the heathens. If the civilized world failed to do so, darker forces would move in and the heathen would suffer a fate far worse than colonization. It is a very politically incorrect view, but in my opinion it is not without merit (witness the difference between India with its British-derived democracy and the legacy of communism in China). It is not much of a leap to have the same view about bringing democracy to the Arab world.

The comparisons here have been mostly to the situation in Iraq. I see an even stronger comparison to the situation with Western aid to the tsunami victims:

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 hopes to nought.

Pretty much sums up the Indonesian Government's reaction to U.S. aid operations and Christian aid groups. They have let religious xenophobia come before the good of their own people. "Heathen Folly" indeed.

[LexBaird]

However, TV was invented by John Logie Baird a fellow Scotsman.

John Logie Baird also invented TV. Farnsworth invented it separately and in parallel.

You are being hysterically funny with the penicillen and electricity. That is like saying the lightbulb wasn't invented because god made light.

No, my point is that both were naturally occurring, not inventions. You may as well claim that Newton invented gravity. The lightbulb was a physical invention, not a discovery of a natural phenomenon.

Regardless, none of these artifacts are the substance of any civilizations. They are merely the products of them. A civilization, in the terms of this thread and Kipling's "white man", is the shared values of a large community that forms the framework of its behaviors.

[LexBaird]

There is but one force on this planet doing good

Technically wrong and morally insulting to the dead European soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Agreed. While there is more opposition to the actions found in Europe, we have plenty of homegrown obstructionists (like Teddy Kennedy), while Europeans have their share of Tony Blairs fighting the good fight.

[SierraWasp]

No! You are wrong, Sir!! If not for US, they would never have followed us there to fight and die!!!

[SierraWasp]

Well get over it! It's absolutely true and you are just in a bad mood do the attitude of Americans who are sick and tired of the "old europe" attitude and forget to distinguish your nation as being the mother of the most exceptional nation on earth!! You and your nation and your forebearers got us started on the right track. Especially people like John Locke!!! (If you are in fact from the U.K.)

[LexBaird]

Merely defending against Americans who on this thread are saying Britain is not as civilised as America.

It's all because you lot don't know how to spell "civilized". ;^)

[SierraWasp]

John! It's not a "superiority complex" at all!! It is pure, unmitigated and totally justified arrogance!!! Furthermore, it mixed in with a stupendous amount of self-righteous certitude... dude!!!

America shares the moral high ground with very few other nations, yours being one of the major exceptions and of which you should be intensely grateful and proud!!! Your nation tried it's best to abort our nation's birth but we both survived the attempt. Both our nations have abandoned many of our lesser acceptable ways, but we are certainly NOT your lesser successor!!!

So stop looking for reasons to be offended because we love our kindred bretheren in the U.K. but we're not the least bit ashamed of the truth, ol boy! Not in the least!!!

[Cronos]

Not to defend them, but a couple outstanding Indian practices the British prohibited was burning widows on pyres and leaving female infants exposed to die. And one of the legacies of the empire upon which the sun did not set, as the Viceroys ground their heels into the faces of our poor little brown brothers sitting in darkness: representative democracies.

Aye, that's true -- and those are the positives. Teh negatives are that they did systematically impoverish the country and further exacerbate the differences. However, I did say that on the whole the positives outweighed the negatives. But that doesn't mean we should forget about the negatives.