Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, and Robert Waldmann: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

May 15, 2004

Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, and Robert Waldmann

Robert Waldmann commits the mistake of reading John Derbyshire. Then he has to clean off the slime. It takes a while:

robert's random thoughts: John Derbyshire misquotes Orwell while defending "techniques of humiliation to break their wills and show them who's boss" claiming that in his essay on Kipling Orwell wrote "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." I have managed not to comment on John Derbyshire, but misquoting Orwell is too much. He has been told of the error which he corrects by linking to a list of well known misquotations. He describes this as "full details." There is no evidence that he has checked the essay which he mentions "Can't stop to check everything. Not my chob."

He still claims "Orwell -- in the Kipling essay I started with -- passes very similar opinions, and would undoubtedly have agreed with the remark. " And while the original misquote does not appear in the current version of the apologia for "techniques of humiliation" it does contain the following claim "One of the many things Orwell taught us (see, e.g., his essay on Kipling) is that the dirty work of civilization -- the work of policemen, prison guards, soldiers, interrogators of terrorist suspects -- is *dirty*." What Orwell wrote in the essay "Rudyard Kipling" includes "It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase 'making mock of the uniforms which guard you while you sleep'" and "he sees that the soldier is neglected, meanly underpaid and hypocritically despised by the people whose income he safeguards."

In the first passage Orwell agrees with Kipling's criticism of pacifism. Here Orwell is arguing that soldiers are not, as such, despicable. He is not arguing that soldiers who abuse prisoners are not despicable. The second quotation is about plain old snobbery.... In the essay Orwell does not defend anything which he would consider dirty. Armies yes, fighting yes, killing in war yes, abusing prisoners no. Orwell was a police officer in Burma and he knew what the dirty work was. He rejected it. It should not need saying that Orwell lived and died a socialist anti imperialist.

If Derbyshire had bothered to read the essay which he misquoted he might have noticed "Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals, Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists." I think Orwell was overharsh, although the claim might have been true when he wrote it. I'd note in closing that John Derbyshire is certainly not a Liberal.

Orwell in the Kipling essay is an echo (premonition?) of the better formulation in "My Country Right or Left": "Ours was the one-eyed pacifism that is peculiar to sheltered countries with strong navies."

And Kipling, too, is... more complex than Derbyshire. We have both the anticipatory critique of the Project for a New American Century that is "Recessional":

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds* without the Law –
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word –
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

*Pan-Germans

And we also have "The Grave of the Hundred Head":

They made a pile of their trophies
     High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
     Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
     Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
     Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
     The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
     That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
     Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—
     The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
     Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
     A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
     And Sniders squibbed no more;
     For he Burmans said
     That a kullah’s head
Must be paid for with heads five score.

Posted by DeLong at May 15, 2004 02:22 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this post

Comments

" if you want a vision of the future, Winston, just imagine people sleeping peaceably in their beds .. forever. "

Posted by: bianco on May 15, 2004 07:17 PM

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Another Orwell quote Derbyshire didn't bother to mention (thanks to Michael Elliott in this week's "Time"):

"In Burma, I was constantly struck by the fact that the common soldiers were the best-hated section of the white community, and judged simply by their behavior, they certainly deserved to be."

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on May 16, 2004 09:58 AM

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You know, even if the quote is incorrect, I don't believe it's that far off. I haven't got my copy of Orwell's essays in my office, but I know the Kipling essay pretty well, and the quote as Derbyshire gives it is familiar. I couldn't tell you that it is accurate and it probably isn't, but if it's wrong it's wrong in the sense that 'The line you're quoting goes like this, not the way you said it,' rather than in the sense that Orwell never said any such thing.

Posted by: LizardBreath on May 16, 2004 01:07 PM

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My current favorite Kipling quote, which the neocons might do well to reflect on:

Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."

Posted by: RT on May 16, 2004 02:23 PM

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Kipling was very complex ... his most fascinating poem --it still gives me a shock sometimes to think this is written by Kipling--is A Pict Song:

Rome never looks where she treads.
    Always her heavy hooves fall,
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
    And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on—that is all,
    And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
    With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk—we!
    Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
    How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
    We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
    We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak—
    Rats gnawing cables in two—
Moths making holes in a cloak—
    How they must love what they do!.
Yes—and we Little Folk too,
    We are busy as they—
Working our works out of view—
    Watch, and you’ll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
    But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along,
    To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
    Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you—you will die of the shame,
    And then we shall dance on your graves!

Posted by: Patrick Taylor on May 16, 2004 06:03 PM

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The Poem for J. Bradford's edification is Tommy:

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";

But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to

play,

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,

But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait

outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,

O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;

An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer

soul?"

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall

be'ind",

But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the

wind,

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the

wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:

We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the

brute!"

But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;

An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Posted by: Rodney G. Graves on May 16, 2004 08:38 PM

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I see we now have Adrian's successor as this site's Official Brainless Troll. Take it up with Phil Carter, David Hackworth and Sgt. Stryker, Rodney.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on May 16, 2004 09:02 PM

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I suppose it's superfluous of me to point out the obvious fact that there is absolutely no contradiction between that last poem and the others this time around, any more than there was in Kipling's time.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on May 17, 2004 12:05 PM

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Here's the line from the Kipling essay:

"He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

Not as close as I thought -- I think there may be another statement of the same thought in another essay which does include the 'rough men' phraseology.

Posted by: LizardBreath on May 18, 2004 08:26 AM

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But the druken soldier poem is not necessarily Kipling's own feelings, He is merely reporting they way the soldier himself feels. I do think that rudyard grew up during his life, at the end he didn't have the certainty that England was so wonderful.

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