I’ve been having some interesting email conversations about my Kipling quotes from the other day. Although Kipling was a notorious defender of empire, and many of his personal views are offensive to some people, there is an interesting undercurrent to his work that seems much deeper than than his personal views would indicate. I found it interesting that a relatively liberal site had the poems, with some of the comments agreeing with the sentiments.
On the SAME evening, while reading another liberal site, Common Dreams, I came across an article discussing an essay by George Orwell entitled ‘Shooting an Elephant’. The Internet, of course, provides the entire essay.. What interesting synchronicity. Two sites and two authors. Two political views. Yet both echoed similar sentiments.
I do not think you can find two more different personalities on the political spectrum than the authors of ‘White Man’s Burden’ and ‘Animal Farm’. One was a darling of the Right, while the other, for a time, was the darling of the Left. Yet they both describe very similar aspects of the people who had to administer the Empire. The ruled were in charge of the ruling.
‘White Man’s Burden’ begins:
Take up the White man’s burden –
Send forth the best ye breed –
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
Now read from Orwell’s description of having to kill an elephant that he believed should be spared because killing it was the only way to maintain his image as the sahib:
I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalised figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.
Empire damages the ruling as much as the ruled. Whether done for base reasons or noble, nation-building, when imposed from without, is a fool’s game. We should heed some of the thoughts of two men who lived during the fall of the last Empire. They have much to tell us. Will we listen?
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS It matters little to me what an artist’s politics are, when I am observing their art. I could care less what John Wayne’s views on the Vietnam War were, The Searchers is one of the great westerns of all time. Wayne’s performance should have garnerd some awards but the role of Ethan Edwards is one that will live for a long time. Art that can span the ages must have something more to it than one artist’s personal views. It must have something that speaks to very basic needs of all people. I do not have the foggiest clue what Shakespeare’s political views were, nor do I care. Kipling had personal views that I find just plain wrong but I still love the tone of If or the grudging honor given to a water carrier by an stauncg imperialist in Gunga Din. Kim may have some parts that resonate differently today than when it first came out, but it is still a fine tale. These are part and parcel of the stories that our culture tells itself.
