And their hearts were nothing altered, nor their cunning nor their greed …
The poems in this section deal with Kipling’s view of human nature, while the poems in the following section address his views of relations between people in society. These are didactic poems – poems that are intended not only to be beautiful or evoke emotion, but also to make a point. For me, these are Kipling’s most significant poetic heritage for our age. I had often the experience that whenever the discussion turned to world affairs – be it terrorism or nuclear disarmament, the Welfare State or the sexual revolution, labor-management relations or literary fashions – Kipling had something to say about it which is relevant to our time.
I can observe two currents in Western thought: the individualistic, which is concerned with persons and spurs them to be entrepreneurial, to achieve the most they can; and the collective, which is concerned with society – the elimination of social injustice and the provision to everybody of the essentials such as health, education, food, shelter and old age security. Kipling came down squarely on the side of individual initiative and entrepreneurship. His basic world-view was conservative: while technology changes, human nature does not, and it is illusory to expect people to act other than in their self-interest. This view crystallized already in his early poem, appropriately titled ‘A General Summary’: ” We are very slightly changed / From the semi-apes who ranged / India’s prehistoric clay; / He that drew the longest bow / ran his brother down, you know, / As we run men down to-day.”
A direct conclusion from this view of human nature is that certain modes of behavior and social relationships have withstood the test of time, precisely because they are aligned with basic human nature; consequently, people who tamper with them do so at their own risk. These modes of behavior borne of experience are ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’, the old homespun truths, which “always caught up with our progress”. One such truth, which it has taken us all of the 20th century to re-discover, is that Government cannot bring “abundance for all” – neither “by robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul”, nor by spending more than it collects in defiance of the basic economic law that “Two and Two make Four”.
If human nature does not change, then when it comes to the crunch people will always follow their self-interest. The direct consequence of this view in the sphere of international relations is that world peace will be achieved not because people become infused with a new spirit of brotherhood, but because national economies will become so integrated that war will be in no one’s selfish interest. Kipling expressed this idea in the parable ‘The Peace of Dives’ – Dives being the banker of the New Testament story, to whom God gave the assignment to “bring the peace My Son foretold.” Dives achieved peace by integrating the economies of the warring nations of the ancient world. This poem used to appeal to me as a very realistic program for attaining world peace. I believed that corporation managers would exercise their powerful influence with the political decision-makers to avoid armed confrontations, for the selfish reason that conflicts are bad for the price of their shares.
Kipling was a staunch life-long opponent of socialism and communism, since he considered that a system which expects people to put the community’s interests before their own – “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – runs counter to basic human nature. It took most of the twentieth century to find out that collective enterprises function very badly, because “what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody” and is cared for by nobody. Kipling saw this clearly already in 1890 when he wrote ‘An Imperial Rescript’, a scathing satire of socialist ideology, in which the workers’ delegates conclude:… “But till we are built like the angels – with hammer and chisel and pen / We will work for ourselves and a woman, for ever and ever, amen …”
Kipling’s closest friend in his adult years was Henry Rider Haggard best remembered as the author of ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ and ‘She’. Both were active members of the Liberty League, created in 1920 to oppose Communism in Britain and the Daily Herald published a light-hearted verse about them, titled ‘Two Hearts that Beat as One’ –
“Every Bolsh is a blackguard”, Said Kipling to Haggard “And given to tippling” Said Haggard to Kipling. “And a blooming outsider” Said Kipling to Rider ‘Their domain is a bloodyard” Said Rider to Rudyard. “That’s just what I say” Said the author of ‘They’ “I agree, I agree” Said the author of ‘She’.
In Kipling’s view, certain basic characteristics are common to over half the human race – namely to women. Kipling preceded the socio-biologists by two generations when he observed, in The Female of the Species’, that some modes of behavior which are common among women have developed because such behavior was the most adapted for assuring the survival of their children – “And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail/ The female of the species must he deadlier than the male …”
This basic human nature is overlain by national character – the behavior common to persons of a particular culture, because of the way they have been brought up. ‘Et Dona Ferentes’ comments on one such characteristic of the British – that the more their patience is tried, the more they act politely, until they reach their breaking point: “… but oh, beware my Country, when my Country grows polite!” In ‘Aryan Brown’ Kipling observes that unlike the British, who use politeness to conceal rage, Asians use politeness to exhaust their opponent – “… for the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down”.
Precisely because such modes of behavior, values and morals are not basic human nature but culturally conditioned, they vary from place to place, as remarks the verse ‘In the Neolithic Age’: “And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu / And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban …“
Finally, Kipling’s closest friend in his adult years was Henry Rider Haggard (pictured ) below), best remembered as the author of ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ and ‘She’. Both were active members of the Liberty League, created in 1920 to oppose Communism in Britain and the Daily Herald published a light-hearted verse about them, titled ‘Two Hearts that Beat as One’ –