Like every middle-aged white guy I know, I am a big fan of Rudyard Kipling. I grew up on his Just-So Stories and as an adult found that his novels and poems spoke to me, as they did to my father and his father before that. Kipling writes simply, directly, and evocatively. Whether it’s a poem, a short story, or a novel, the man knows how to tell a story. He was the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (as well as the first English-language recipient), and after a too-long period of disfavor in the academy he now enjoys a well-deserved renaissance of interest and acclaim.
But there is also no doubt that what Kipling wrote was used by political and economic entities of his day to support their own self-interests. As George Orwell said, with wildly popular poems like “The White Man’s Burden” he was the “prophet of British imperialism.” Was he a simplistic rah-rah tout for the rewards of Empire? Not in the least. There is tension, nuance, and respect for the human condition in everything Kipling wrote, at least that I’m aware of. And this is exactly why he was such an effective prophet, such an effective Narrator for mainstream British policy in the first three decades of the 20thcentury. Kipling’s skill as an author allowed British citizens to feel good about themselves and to support their government’s policies without requiring them to check their brains or their scruples at the door.
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