On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > He definitely felt it was the right thing to do. > Kipling was the poet of Empire. Kipling's > Recessional, though (probably my favorite Kipling > poem) was a warning against Imperial hubris - it's > probably the one poem every American should be > required to read. Even my father, though, who > (understandably, given his background) is about as > staunch an anti-imperialist as you can get, will > acknowledge that Britain did a lot of good in India. > Contrast that with Belgium, for example, which did > absolutely no good whatsoever in the Congo.
True enough. What > Kipling wrote was more than noble and empty sentiments > (and, Marvin, the fact that you only see one meaning > of the word noble makes me feel kind of sorry for you > - would it make things clearer if I said that the > astronauts in Columbia were involved in "a noble > quest" or that the firefighters who went into the WTC > made "a noble sacrifice?") Please. Actually, it's the bitter irony of conflating noble as a "blood-borne or god-given right to rule" with "surpassing excellence of character" that makes White Man's Burden hard to swallow as a defense of colonialism (or of a quasi-colonialist attitude on the part of the president). It's the juxtaposition of meanings created by the double-edged history of the word itself that makes it seem bizarre when used in such a context. I know what you meant; but the way you put it seems to discount the tendency of noble intentions to go horribly awry that marked so much of colonialism, not just Kipling's version. > - the sentiments had a real > and humane effect on large portions of the world. One > that it's very easy to regret from our enlightened > self-righteousness of the 21st century. Granted, to a point. I'm not sure that the whole world will take the relative idealism of late British empire as characteristic of the history of colonialism in general, though, nor associate it automatically with the kind of language Bush chose to use. Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
