Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

I don't get it. How was Kipling a "hypocrite" for supporting the war effort and also bemoaning his son's death.? He contributed to his son's death, he felt badly about it, he changed his mind about the conduct of the War, but he remained supportive of the British war effort and I don't see hypocrosy. Maybe you know something I don't (as you did with the poem).

When did he do his duty?

[Ecurb]

What duty? Are you suggesting that nobody can support the war effort if he isn't a soldier? Nobody should be a critic except novelists? Or, perhaps, nobody should be allowed to vote except those who run for office?

Engaging Sculptor in a battle of the wits is like shooting an unarmed man. Victory is easy,but there's not much golry in it.

[Sculptor1]

What duty? Are you suggesting that nobody can support the war effort if he isn't a soldier? Nobody should be a critic except novelists? Or, perhaps, nobody should be allowed to vote except those who run for office?

Engaging Sculptor in a battle of the wits is like shooting an unarmed man. Victory is easy,but there's not much golry in it.

The graves are full of young men sent to their deaths by people too scared to have signed up themselves.
It's easy to sound heroic from the safety of a typwriter.

[Ecurb]

The graves are full of young men sent to their deaths by people too scared to have signed up themselves.
It's easy to sound heroic from the safety of a typwriter.

I can accept legitimate pacifism. But the notion that any President or Prime Minister who finds war necessary must be either a soldier or a hypocrite is ridiculous. Both the U.S. and U.K. have civilian governments, and the civilian leaders must decide when and if fighting is necessary. So must voters, whether they seved in the army or not.

Since when did Kipling try to "sound heroic from the safety of a typewriter"?

Here in the U.S. it has become accepted for liberals to accuse Republican leaders who support wars of being "chicken hawks" because they never saw combat. Do we really want to insist that all Presidents must have a military background?

Should General Officers lead the charge? Or are their efforts more valuable behind the front lines? It's tragic, of course, that young men and women die in war, and those clamoring for war should recognize the tragedy. But that doesn't mean that only soldiers can reasonably deem war necessary.

Kipling did (on occasion) glorify heroism (as in "Gunga Din" or "The Ballad of East and West"). GB Shaw, in "Arms and the Man" essentially argued, "War if we must, but no songs glorifying it, please." But Kipling was no more guilty of glorifying war than many greater authors more worthy of our criticism (like Homer, Vergil, Ariosoto and others).

[Sculptor1]

The graves are full of young men sent to their deaths by people too scared to have signed up themselves.
It's easy to sound heroic from the safety of a typwriter.

I can accept legitimate pacifism. But the notion that any President or Prime Minister who finds war necessary must be either a soldier or a hypocrite is ridiculous.

Wow - I did not know Kipling was PM - how ignorant of me.

Both the U.S. and U.K. have civilian governments, and the civilian leaders must decide when and if fighting is necessary. So must voters, whether they seved in the army or not.

Since when did Kipling try to "sound heroic from the safety of a typewriter"?

You don't even know who you are talking about. He was a PROFESSIONAL progagandist in the pay of the government.

Here in the U.S. it has become accepted for liberals to accuse Republican leaders who support wars of being "chicken hawks" because they never saw combat. Do we really want to insist that all Presidents must have a military background?

**** I did not know Kipling was american

Should General Officers lead the charge? Or are their efforts more valuable behind the front lines? It's tragic, of course, that young men and women die in war, and those clamoring for war should recognize the tragedy. But that doesn't mean that only soldiers can reasonably deem war necessary.

Kipling did (on occasion) glorify heroism (as in "Gunga Din" or "The Ballad of East and West"). GB Shaw, in "Arms and the Man" essentially argued, "War if we must, but no songs glorifying it, please." But Kipling was no more guilty of glorifying war than many greater authors more worthy of our criticism (like Homer, Vergil, Ariosoto and others).

Do your homework

[Ecurb]

You don't even know who you are talking about. He was a PROFESSIONAL progagandist in the pay of the government.....

Do your homework

Presidents and Prime Ministers are also "in the pay of the government". Does that make them "hypocrites" if they support a war effort, but don't serve in the military?

I was horrified to read that you claim to have once been a teacher. Your penchant for attempted mockery (your attempts are so flaccid that they don't rise to the level of ACTUAL mockery) makes it clear you must have been terrible at your job.

[Sculptor1]

You don't even know who you are talking about. He was a PROFESSIONAL progagandist in the pay of the government.....

Do your homework

Presidents and Prime Ministers are also "in the pay of the government". Does that make them "hypocrites" if they support a war effort, but don't serve in the military?

Duh! You have to ask that question??
FFS. Have you seen Boris Johnson or Trump?

I was horrified to read that you claim to have once been a teacher. Your penchant for attempted mockery (your attempts are so flaccid that they don't rise to the level of ACTUAL mockery) makes it clear you must have been terrible at your job.

You are clueless. I got my students the THINK. You might want to try it sometime!

[Ecurb]

I got my students the THINK.

Finally! Something on which we can agree. Unfortunately, your students were thinking, "My teacher is a jerk!"

[Sculptor1]

I got my students to THINK.

Finally! Something on which we can agree. Unfortunately, your students were thinking, "My teacher is a jerk!"

Your brain is as dead as a dodo.
Have you ever attended school?

[Ecurb]

Your brain is as dead as a dodo.
Have you ever attended school?

I was fortunate. I never attended a school where you were a teacher. However, I have learned to agree with your former students' assesment of you.

"Dead as a dodo?" Oh no! What biting wit! What facility with language! I'm crushed!

[Sculptor1]

Your brain is as dead as a dodo.
Have you ever attended school?

I was fortunate. I never attended a school where you were a teacher. However, I have learned to agree with your former students' assesment of you.

"Dead as a dodo?" Oh no! What biting wit! What facility with language! I'm crushed!

Why don't you just run along and jon a **** army?

[Robert66]

From the OP: '“Rights”, says Kipling, are for whiny recruits who need to be taught a lesson. Duty. Perhaps it is a lesson modern readers don't want to learn.'

Kipling made a good point, as history has shown: we are currently witnessing the POTUS behaving as a 'whiny recruit', as far as possible from being a leader who takes seriously their duty to the people they are meant to serve.

The lesson we in liberal democracies are taught is all about individual liberties. Chinese citizens would be better schooled in duty.

In olden days, it was easier to understand the notion of duty, reinforced as it was by hierarchy. The hypocrisy of Kipling, along with paedophile priests, debauched monarchs, and corrupt politicians, has ruined any hope of lessons in duty being learned.

[Xenophon]

Few famous poets, novelists and short story writers have felt the scorn of time more than Rudyard Kipling. He is reviled for his moral failures and for being the “poet of Empire”.

There's more than a grain of truth in these complaints, but Kipling (who was, after all, a Nobel Prize winner) was the poet of profession more than of Empire. His stories are about gaining entry into the various exclusive clubs of professionalism, and soldiers, sailors, railway workers, and journalists go through initiation after initiation.

Now rights and duties are clearly flip sides of the same coin. The right to life simply states that other people have a duty not to kill you. The right to liberty means others have a duty not to imprison or enslave you.

We like to think of “rights' as something WE have, but they are really something other people have: a duty to respect our so-called rights.

What does this have to do with Kipling? Kipling repeatedly scorns “rights”, and emphasizes duty. I think that this – more than his affiliation with the Raj – that confuses and disappoints modern readers.

In “Private Honor” Ortheris gets in a fist fight with an officer who hit him.

‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,’ I insisted.

‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. ‘My right! I ain’t a recruity to go whinin’ about my rights to this an’ my rights to that, just as if I couldn’t look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty! I’m a man.’

In the poem ”That Day” about a military disaster a verse near the end reads:

We was rotten ’fore we started—we was never disciplined;
        25
  We made it out a favour if an order was obeyed.

Yes, every little drummer ’ad ’is rights an’ wrongs to mind,

  So we had to pay for teachin’—an’ we paid!

For Kipling, emphasizing “rights' is for whiners, emphasizing duty – duty for which one must be trained and prepared – is for men (no apologies to the women, of course).

This is not brand new – it is an important facet of chivalry. But in literature, before Kipling, professional life was limited to battles and adventures. Kipling brought us into the barracks and the City Rooms. Even Mowgli must be initiated into the Law of the Jungle, and the duties of the Pack.

“Rights”, says Kipling, are for whiny recruits who need to be taught a lesson. Duty. Perhaps it is a lesson modern readers don't want to learn.

Well said. If I want rights guaranteed that I am too indolent entitled to exert myself to protect i get...um, pretty much I get the present-day West. Which is to say soft tyranny. (Soft for the moment, though signs of tumescence are a-stirring.) Anton Long spent some years pushing a concept he called "kindred honor" as an alternative to the rights 'n law moonshine. Interestingly, he became increasingly strident against the white West, so sorry. Critics can't whip out the Nazi tar-brush.