Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" - He discuss its meaning?

[Kanastrous]

I have long been under the impression that Kipling published 'The White Man's Burden' as a warning to the United States of the hazards and costs of colonial rulership, at the time the USA had gained control of the Phillippine Islands from Spain.

But, have found that I'm unable to track down any citations from Kipling himself, as to his intended theme: since its publication the poem has been interpreted by various readers both as -encouraging- and as -discouraging- colonialism.

To me it reads clearly as a warning against the practice, but what I'm after is any mention by Kipling himself, where his meaning is concerned.

Is anyone familiar with any writing by Kipling himself, on the poem's intent? And, if anyone knows of an on-line resource that contains anything by Kipling himself on that topic, links would be much appreciated.

thanks!

[Broomstick]

Well, Wikipedia lists the original title as "The White Man's Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands" which would lend credence to it referring to the US and their recent acquisitions. The truth is that the poem can be read as either for or against colonialism/imperialism (it's hard to convey sarcasm in text - this is not a new problem) and it would also apply to European powers such as the UK. While it does seem to promote White dominance it does mention that costs are not strictly borne by the subjected peoples, it does make it clear the White Man bears a cost as well so it's not an unmixed endorsement of empire even if you do read it as being without sarcasm.

However, Kipling himself seems to have been pro-Imperialism. My personal opinion is that Kipling was sincere in believing that the "civilizing" influence of empire was beneficial to the "new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child." It was a pretty common view in the 19th Century, and Kipling was a 19th Century man and a subject of the British Empire arguably at its height. So no, I don't think the poem was intended as sarcasm. The downsides mentioned (including death for colonial officials) is just Kipling being realistic about the costs of empire. I don't think Kipling was cautioning against colonialism, I think he was for it but was also recognizing it did not come without cost.

I haven't read any commentary by Kipling on his poetry, but based on the rest of his works that I've read he didn't have anything at all like the modern sensibility that other cultures should be preserved. He might have admiration for brave acts and endurance of the unpleasant in "natives", but he clearly though his own culture superior and that it should be imposed on others, for their own good.

[Simon_Jester]

One thing that I think caused this mindset in 19th century Europeans was that, if you were a European of middle-class or aristocratic background, people in places like India or China seemed to live in terrible, primitive squalor. Frankly, they did, and so did a lot of people back in the cities of Europe- but the contrast was very sharp for European elites visiting 'the colonies.'

And so they saw bad conditions in India as a sign that Indian culture was intrinsically worse-organized and inferior. They were largely blind to their own role in creating this squalor by colonial misrule, and indifferent to the point that only details of technology had made it possible for Europe to escape this fate in historically recent times.

[PainRack]

Given Kipling writings about afghanistan, I think its fair to say that he fully recognises the costs of imperialism on the European powers.

Its entirely possible to bemoan the costs while celebrating the benefits of imperialism, isn't it?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I sincerely hope you're using "celebrating the benefits" in an ironic sense.

[energiewende]

He's likening colonialism to charity. The good, anonymous (or at least unappreciated) kind, not development tourism. This could be interpreted as encouraging or discouraging coloinalism, depending on your morals and inclination. Suffice to say that Kipling himself was not opposed to imperialism; quite the contrary. Whether his view is accurate is a more interesting question.

[Thanas]

I sincerely hope you're using "celebrating the benefits" in an ironic sense.

Colonialism had a lot of beneifts and like any complex period in history needs examination of each case to show whether it produced more benefits than negatives. Just because we think something bad today does not mean it never benefited anybody.

[K. A. Pital]

I sincerely hope you're using "celebrating the benefits" in an ironic sense.

For certain small territories that controlled capital flows and, of course, the European colonizers themselves, colonialism was very beneficial.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I think celebrating the benefits of colonialism while sitting from a position of pure benefit from it, from a perspective that is privileged as the correct one, is not without significant issue.

Like if the people who were actually negatively affected want to discuss the positives that's one thing but I don't know how possible it is to do so (well, not even the same; celebration is different from discussion after all!) on this end without falling into the trap of promoting neo-colonialism.

Even discussion of the positives might not be so bad, but to "celebrate" something that killed hundreds of millions (or possibly more) and has worsened the life of many, many more for the benefit of your own society seems pretty terrible?

Rereading PainRack's post I read it now as him just saying Kipling celebrated colonialism without putting of his own any value judgement on that so that objection is one I'm withdrawing, though, to be clear.

[Broomstick]

You have to keep in mind that Kipling was a product of the 19th Century British Empire. I'm not sure he should be judged without considering that context.

[Thanas]

I think celebrating the benefits of colonialism while sitting from a position of pure benefit from it, from a perspective that is privileged as the correct one, is not without significant issue.

Like if the people who were actually negatively affected want to discuss the positives that's one thing but I don't know how possible it is to do so (well, not even the same; celebration is different from discussion after all!) on this end without falling into the trap of promoting neo-colonialism.

Even discussion of the positives might not be so bad, but to "celebrate" something that killed hundreds of millions (or possibly more) and has worsened the life of many, many more for the benefit of your own society seems pretty terrible?

I can say that Hitler finished building the autobahn, which benefited post war Germany. Doesn't mean that I cheer for the holocaust unless it is the only thing I care to mention about Hitler. Do you get that?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

You've also been very clear about the very bad things that came from that regime. In comparison, with the example of Kipling, we have someone for whom the only downside espoused of colonialism is that it sure does cost a lot sometimes to the people doing all the murdering and looting. So in his case, he's doing the equivalent of only mentioning the good about Hitler, with the occasional "look how hard it is on the Nazis".

Though it's not as important as the above distinction, there's also the fact that, as a German, you're also not necessarily standing upon the wealth gained from the Nazi conquests due to how destructive that war ended up being not just abroad but to Germany itself (at least, that's my understanding), while Europeans and Americans definitely have much of their and our own current prosperity coming from colonialism and imperialism, whether overt or subtle, past or present.

[Thanas]

Have you actually read Kipling?

EDIT:
The reason I ask is this:

You've also been very clear about the very bad things that came from that regime. In comparison, with the example of Kipling, we have someone for whom the only downside espoused of colonialism is that it sure does cost a lot sometimes to the people doing all the murdering and looting. So in his case, he's doing the equivalent of only mentioning the good about Hitler, with the occasional "look how hard it is on the Nazis".

I would say that Kipling was somebody with no illusions which does not make him an imperialist. No Imperialist would write:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

(after writing verse after verse about how the soldiers are deserted by officers, support etc.)

or

Then I was ordered to Burma,
Actin’ in charge o’ Bazar,
An’ I got me a tiddy live ‘eathen
Through buyin’ supplies off ‘er pa.
Funny an’ yellow an’ faithful –
Doll in a teacup she were –
But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair,
An’ I learned about women from ‘er!

Then we was shifted to Neemuch
(Or I might ha’ been keepin’ ‘er now),
An’ I took with a shiny she-devil,
The wife of a nigger at Mhow;
‘Taught me the gipsy-folks’ bolee;
Kind o’ volcano she were,
For she knifed me one night ’cause I wished she was white,
And I learned about women from ‘er!

[...]
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it,
An’ now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you ‘ave known o’ the others
The less will you settle to one;
An’ the end of it’s sittin’ and thinking’,
An’ dreamin’ Hell-fires to see;
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not),
An’ learn about women from me!

Kipling was somebody who as far as I can tell knew the shady business and recognized it as shady.

[Thanas]

To elaborate a bit more: The White Man's Burden had already been suggested by Kipling to be read at the jubilee of Queen Victoria but he replaced it with Recessional after the USA expanded more and more. See this warning:

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, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

And the widow at windsor:

'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam -- she 'as millions at 'ome,
An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
(Ow, poor beggars in red!)
There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses,
There's 'er mark on the medical stores --
An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind
That takes us to various wars.
(Poor beggars! -- barbarious wars!)
Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor,
An' 'ere's to the stores an' the guns,
The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces
O' Missis Victorier's sons.
(Poor beggars! Victorier's sons!)

Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor,
For 'alf o' Creation she owns:
We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame,
An' we've salted it down with our bones.
(Poor beggars! -- it's blue with our bones!)
Hands off o' the sons o' the Widow,
Hands off o' the goods in 'er shop,
For the Kings must come down an' the Emperors frown
When the Widow at Windsor says "Stop"!
(Poor beggars! -- we're sent to say "Stop"!)
Then 'ere's to the Lodge o' the Widow,
From the Pole to the Tropics it runs --
To the Lodge that we tile with the rank an' the file,
An' open in form with the guns.
(Poor beggars! -- it's always they guns!)

We 'ave 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor,
It's safest to let 'er alone:
For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land
Wherever the bugles are blown.
(Poor beggars! -- an' don't we get blown!)
Take 'old o' the Wings o' the Mornin',
An' flop round the earth till you're dead;
But you won't get away from the tune that they play
To the bloomin' old rag over'ead.
(Poor beggars! -- it's 'ot over'ead!)
Then 'ere's to the sons o' the Widow,
Wherever, 'owever they roam.
'Ere's all they desire, an' if they require
A speedy return to their 'ome.
(Poor beggars! -- they'll never see 'ome!)

Nevermind "The man who would be king" which is as damning a perception of the failure of British hubris and imperialism as you will find.

[energiewende]

I think celebrating the benefits of colonialism while sitting from a position of pure benefit from it, from a perspective that is privileged as the correct one, is not without significant issue.

The benefits or otherwise of colonialism to the colonial powers are still quite unclear. For a nationalist, owning a colonial empire gives a nice sense of being on top. This, I think, is also where the 'privilege' movement comes from (ie. people emotionally concerned about their relative position in society, not rationally concerned about whether that society benefits them more or less than others in absolute terms). But the British Empire (for instance) probably lost money, not to mention lives, by being a colonial power. This certainly seems to be the position Kipling is taking: the Empire is a Muscular Christianity charitable endeavour, not a display of his superiority to others. The disputable claim he makes is that colonialism actually benefited the colonized, rather than merely costing the colonizers.

Like if the people who were actually negatively affected want to discuss the positives that's one thing but I don't know how possible it is to do so (well, not even the same; celebration is different from discussion after all!) on this end without falling into the trap of promoting neo-colonialism.

A first step is to recognise that most of both groups are now long dead, with only a few people who were children at the time left around. It's no less valid a question than whether Roman occupation of Greece benefited Rome/Greece/the wider world, and there are many defensible answers. This question is considered pretty banal today even though the Romans acted with utter brutality, much greater than the British Empire typically did.

I would say that Kipling was somebody with no illusions which does not make him an imperialist. No Imperialist would write:

I'd be careful about this. Kipling doesn't slot into either of the modern entirely pro- or anti-war/imperialism/aggressive foreign policy camps. Rather, he saw that war was quite bad, including for his own side, and that government involved some use of brute force which would ordinarily be considered immoral, and nonetheless believed there existed a large class of situations where those things are justified.

[PainRack]

I sincerely hope you're using "celebrating the benefits" in an ironic sense.

From Kipling perspective, what's not to celebrate about it? It showed Great Britain as a world power and gave her access to resources, markets and labour from all over the world and gave people like Clive oppurtinities to become rich or powerful that they wouldn't have had at home.

And Kipling himself was clearly..... well, the term liberal wouldn't apply, but definitely more aware, more leery of the costs, the impact of imperialism than somebody like Winston Churchill.

Rereading PainRack's post I read it now as him just saying Kipling celebrated colonialism without putting of his own any value judgement on that so that objection is one I'm withdrawing, though, to be clear.

I'm going to echo Thanas, because its clear that you haven't read any of Kipling work.

Kipling might, 'might' be described as a military fetish but to claim he celebrated colonialism is simply ignoring the depth of his work. Sure, Orwell proclaimed him the prophet of British Imperialism, but his autobiography tells us a much more deeper story.

Namely, as someone born in India, he loved India. He loved colonial India. This bled over into his work, because its clear that no matter what else his views, Kipling doesn't reject the idea of Imperialism and colonialism, because without it, there would be no British India for him.
However, I'm going to echo what wikipedia says, "an imperialist utterly without illusions about what being an imperialist actually means. Which, in some ways, means that he was not really an imperialist at all".

Namely, he knew that Imperialism was dreadful, it was ignoble, but yet, Kipling doesn't reject the British Empire. And as an interventionist, he did see the need for someone to bring about the benefits of his civilisation to someone else.

A more fair parsing would be to protray Kipling as a supporter of the Allied Combined Bomber offensive, because something must be done to fight the Nazis but the cost of doing so was ruinous for everyone. Or a more accurate example would be his propaganda work for the British in WW1.

And a final point, I will honestly say that Britain acts in India was selfish, self promoting, and the benefits of the British Raj must be balanced against the atrocities that she committed, much less harm and exploitation of her resources to the detrimental of Indians. But I have no opinion whatsoever on whether the Raj should or shouldn't have been established

[PainRack]

Like if the people who were actually negatively affected want to discuss the positives that's one thing but I don't know how possible it is to do so (well, not even the same; celebration is different from discussion after all!) on this end without falling into the trap of promoting neo-colonialism.

A first step is to recognise that most of both groups are now long dead, with only a few people who were children at the time left around. It's no less valid a question than whether Roman occupation of Greece benefited Rome/Greece/the wider world, and there are many defensible answers. This question is considered pretty banal today even though the Romans acted with utter brutality, much greater than the British Empire typically did.

We have numerous works and articles published though, from both the British Raj days and Nehru government.

You get perspectives like how the British stopped Kali thuggees and Indian perspectives about the fates for caste and women, and we do have second hand accounts from the Indians about viewpoints for stuff such as the caste system .

The REAL problem is claiming that the British Raj was necessary for this change to occur, or that the change could not have happened without the violence and atrocities committed by the British Raj.

[energiewende]

If we look at the history of China, a domestic change may have involved far greater atrocities and still arrived at just another aristocratic dictatorship, but with a different set of aristocrats. Alternatively the Princely states may have shepherded in free market constitutional monarchies in the late 1800s, industrialised like Japan, and become leading members of the free world a century earlier. Personally I think the former is more likely than the later, but we can't ultimately know for sure.

I suspect history will remember British, and possibly French, colonialism a lot more kindly than it is viewed now. Not to say it will be viewed as an unalloyed good thing, but more like the Roman Empire, inflicting injustice and pain for some time but leaving at the end useful institutions and cultural references, which one could view as outweighing the harm if one happens to live in that post-imperial age, at no risk of personal harm one's self.

The view that colonialism can forcibly construct free and prosperous countries, on the other hand, has proved to be a failure. Unfortunately so has native-rule democracy; if it helps, it's certainly far from a panacea.

[Thanas]

No. No way will the British ever match the Romans when it comes to that. Their integration efforts were laughable compared to what the Romans did as was the fact that unlike the Romans, resource extraction with little coming back makers the British colonialism a net negative.

[energiewende]

Britain never made any integration efforts. Even of those colonies that were descended from British subjects, they much prefered to institute local parliaments and then voluntarily detach the colonies as they became more populous. But integrating people into a single state and nationality isn't the only useful legacy, or even an important one (again, look at China: a huge unified nationstate that is nonetheless historically unsuccessful in the modern era). Representative democracy, an impartial rights-defending legal system, exposure of the new elites to British ideas on government, morality and economics - all these things are useful.

edit: I think China and India are very interesting parallels in general. In 1700, India looks a lot worse. It's fragmenting, politically weak, and divided by language, culture and religion. Skip ahead 150 years, and India is indeed under foreign rule while China is more or less independent, treated no worse than a weak-ish state in Europe or Latin America, certainly not with a European 'Emperor'. Skip ahead another 100 years, and both countries are now unquesitonably independent, and even adopt fairly similar ideologies. But China is suffering from mass famine, purges, and political massacres, while India has more or less ended famine, and is a democracy that, while imperfect, certainly has no Killing Fields or Cultural Revolution.

[Thanas]

It is the only legacy that does not make you exploiters.

If all you leave are ideas and corrupt institutions then you have achieved little of value compared to the suffering you caused.

[energiewende]

Ideas and institutions are what matter. The Roman Empire left bad ideas (Christianity) and bad institutions (feudalism). I don't thank them for it because today Spain speaks a smiliar-ish language to Italy.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I haven't read all but a tiny bit (I read That Day fairly recently) of Kipling's works in years so I might be misremembering some, but the stuff you're saying isn't really convincing me my impression is wrong? That Kipling's primary issue with colonialism is that it can be costly for the invader?

Namely, he knew that Imperialism was dreadful, it was ignoble, but yet, Kipling doesn't reject the British Empire. And as an interventionist, he did see the need for someone to bring about the benefits of his civilisation to someone else.

I don't understand how you think this refutes the idea that he celebrates colonialism? What does one have to do to actually fall under that definition, for you?

He's someone who romanticises the conquered empire, who pushes the need to save other people by force (no matter the cost to them) for their own good, and his only actual critique or honest examination of it is on how it affects the mother country.

I mean, if there's writings of his I'm not aware of that actually refute this, I would like to hear it; it's good to hear when people I find monstrous aren't as bad as they seemed.

[Thanas]

Ideas and institutions are what matter. The Roman Empire left bad ideas (Christianity) and bad institutions (feudalism). I don't thank them for it because today Spain speaks a smiliar-ish language to Italy.

So you would be alright if I keep you as a slave for fifty years and then, once your life savings, family and friends are gone, I chuck you out on the street with "hey, here is a book with some ideas"?

also, good job if christianity and feudalism to you are the defining legacies of Rome. I mean, one is not even Roman and the other was a massive advancement in charity for the time....

[Thanas]

I haven't read all but a tiny bit (I read That Day fairly recently) of Kipling's works in years so I might be misremembering some, but the stuff you're saying isn't really convincing me my impression is wrong? That Kipling's primary issue with colonialism is that it can be costly for the invader?

Read the man who would be king. Then come back here and state how wrong you are.