Talk:The White Man's Burden

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Contents 1 text 2 parody 3 reduce it to "it's racist". Pretty damned strong. 4 Ancient cities have been discovered in South Africa? 5 Can someone explain 6 Is there any way to make the lines indented 7 Perspective added 8 Affirmative action 9 Move back 10 Some Issues 11 Rhodes Scholars and Secret Societies 12 White Mans Burden Perspective 13 Source of this interpretation? 14 Revision 15 POV 16 Kipling as racist 17 External Links 18 Poem's Date 19 The Monarchies 20 I'm pretty sure these lines need to be changed back...

[edit] text

Surely Kipling's poem is now in the public domain. Can't we include it and let people judge?

It seems to me difficult not to interpret such lines as "half-savage, half-child" referring to colonized peoples as racist! 193.51.149.216 12:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] parody

The poem is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and mind-set of imperialism. Surely, we say, Kipling meant it as a parody? The Anome

What gives you that idea? --Saforrest 07:50, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Lines like this, probably: "Take up the White Man's burden—

The savage wars of peace— Fill full the mouth of Famine, And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest (The end for others sought) Watch sloth and heathen folly Bring all your hope to nought." and this: "Take up the White Man's burden— No iron rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper— The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go, make them with your living And mark them with your dead."

because , seriously, those are pretty satirical. --George The Man 03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reduce it to "it's racist". Pretty damned strong.

Surely, those of us who know about it say that this article hardly does it justice and only manages to take a very complex subject and reduce it to "it's racist". Pretty damned weak.

For those who care, the poem originally was only published in a popular magazine (McClure's) in the US. It was written specifically because IIRC, after the Spanish-American War, feeling in the US was more isolationist than not. Had the US not taken over Spain's position in the Philippines, another foreign power (quite possibly Japan) would have moved into the vacuum. AFAIK, Kipling wrote this specifically to help sway popular opinion in the US, so that a "friendly" western power would hold the strategically important Philippines.

Yes, in terms of today, we see the poem as racist -- if we are set to view things in simplistic terms, But I think it would be a tragedy to dismiss it as such. The racism is only a by-product of the conflict between "civilized" and "uncivilized" -- nowhere in the poem does Kipling say that non-Europeans are lesser because their skin is a different color. This doesn't mean that the idea wasn't prevalent in many parts of society, but the article as it now stands seems very tainted with a US version of racial views -- since most of the rest of the world stopped trying to justify slavery based on racial inferiority long before the US did, I'm not sure their views were the same.

That said, I'm not saying that racism wasn't an integral part of colonialism -- I don't think you can separate the two. However, I think that Kipling here provides an excellent source on the thinking of European colonialism -- THe poem basically says, "it's your unpleasant duty to go and drag these people kicking and screaming into the modern world. They don't want it. Your compatriots at home will profit from your efforts while despising you. You won't get rich and you'll probably die. But really, it has to be done, because in the long run, the people whose land you've taken will be better off, although the will hate you for it."

It's not ironic. It's just the product of an entirely different (but I would argue well-meaning, if somewhat futile) world-view. The idea of (moral) Duty was much more real to people then (and I personally would say, through WWII).

Let the record here show I'm neither colonialist nor racist -- I just like to make sure we look at things and report on them in the context of their time. JHK

Wikipedia is left-wing. Get over it.

So am I. Doesn't stop me from appreciating Kipling, and realizing that it's stupid to project a modern American concept of "racism" on him. 68.226.239.73

I think its important to note that "The White Man;s Burden" is not just seen as racist "in terms of today," but was criticized as racist by some of Kipling's contemporaries. See "The Black Man's Burden" (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5476/), which draws a connection between the imperialist project supported by Kipling and American domestic racism.

[edit] Ancient cities have been discovered in South Africa?

Does anyone have any supporting evidence for the extrordinary claim that ancient cities have been discovered in South Africa (and the information suppressed)? It fails the Google test for me (unless you count loony sites about Atlantis and alien astronauts).

Perhaps the author meant to refer to Great Zimbabwe, and was mixing up South Africa and (at the time) Rhodesia, but the facts are rather jumbled. If no-one presents any evidence to justify the existing claim, I propose to replace:

to the point where there exist documented cases of archaeological findings in South Africa having been suppressed. The presumption being that the existence of sophisticated cities in southern Africa prior to European colonization would pose a threat to the argument...

by :

to the point where evidence of an indigenous origin for Great Zimbabwe was largely ignored for decades after its discovery. The presumption being that the existence of a sophisticated city in subsaharan Africa prior to European colonization would pose a threat to the argument... --Roger 17:19 UTC 1 Sep 2003

Good move, Roger. I've jumped in and made the change. Tannin 08:38, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone explain

Can someone explain what this means, because I still don't know what this is referring to because it seems quite convoluted. I've taken it out for now but feel free to put back in if you can elaborate.

The term "white man's burden" is sometimes mis-used to describe alleged discrimination or double-standards towards whites because of responsibility or culpability for historical injustices.

Fuzheado 23:36, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

• hee, that is exactly why I just redirected the term "liberal guilt" to this article. I'll see if I can work it back in in a non-sarcastic way. SchmuckyTheCat 03:19, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is there any way to make the lines indented

Is there any way to make the lines of the poem be indented, without also vertically double-spacing it? &mdashAaronW 11:39, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Perspective added

Added some perspective on the left-right divide in modern views of "The White Man's Burden". --anon

[edit] Affirmative action

I think its pretty clear this is a form of discrimination, what is the alternate POV? ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 21:24, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Supporters of affirmative action do not regard it as a form of discrimination, which is evident when simply doing a Google search for "affirmative action is not discrimination." No matter how obviously they are wrong to you, Wikipedia has an NPOV policy, which means that the opinions of one side cannot be posted in articles as a matter of fact. 172 23:08, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that the word "discrimination" can be used on an individual scale or a global scale. If a group is discriminated against on average (for example black people earn less on average than white people), affirmative action seems to be fighting discrimination. But when you look at individual cases the differences between people of different groups are far less clear (for example if you compare the quality of life of a rich black person and a poor white person), and affirmative action seems to be reinforcing discrimination. Even worse, individuals are always from many different groups, and affirmative action has difficult coping with this. For example is a gay white person or a black straight person is more deserving of assistance? In this topic no point of view can ever get things completely right, whichever view you take you are going to be promoting injustice and suffering in some way. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.146.46.247 (talk) 09:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

How about you look up positive discrimination? ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 00:27, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am familar with the term, but not all supporters of affirmative action accept such a term in their discourse. The point is that there is a different POV and that your own opinion cannot be stated as a matter of fact in this case, given the NPOV policy. 172 00:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, whatever. The fact that it is discrimination in every sense of the word appears not to matter, eh? Sorry if I'm a bit abrasive, but state sponsored racism pisses me off. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 00:45, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding. You are entitled to your opinion, but since Wikipedia isn't, it cannot even adopt the opinion that just might happen to be right. 172 00:58, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move back

• Support. Primary topic disambiguation. –Hajor 15:01, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support (basically). I've moved the movie to the correct title, White Man's Burden, so there's no reason not to move the poem back, merging the history since it was a cut&paste move to The White Man's Burden (Poem). Then they just need top-of-page disambig headers. Niteowlneils 23:55, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't quite as simple as I thot--most in-bound links were looking for the concept, not the movie, so I moved it (again) to White Man's Burden (film). Niteowlneils 00:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

??? Could someone clarify what you want done with this and the various related pages, such as the present The White Man's Burden? Dragons flight 21:19, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

As the proposer I will explain. Move The White Man's Burden (Poem) back to The White Man's Burden to avoid cut/paste moves. The White Man's Burden should be solely about the poem with a link at the top "For the 1995 film see White Man's Burden (film)". This should not be a problem as most links pointing to the current disambig page are for the poem. MeltBanana 23:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. Dragons flight 06:16, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some Issues

I have a problem with two sentences in the article, which strike me as needlessly POV:

"However, some groups today still have sympathy for the idea of a White Man's Burden, although most explicitly remove the idea of race from the concept (at least, while members of minorities are listening)."

"Most of the presidents and presidential candidates for the last fifty or sixty years (both Democrats and Republicans) have been members of at least one of these groups (which brings up the question: "Did we really have a choice?")"

Is the parenthetical commentary necessary? I don't believe so. I'm removing it, feel free to revert me, or debate my choice here.--RicardoC 11:50, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I added the NPOV tag because the tone is very accusatory and it lists only citation, which does not account for the claims of present White Man's Burden because it was published in the 19th century. Also, the whole dwelling on Kipling is a bit much. It appears whoever wrote it isn't very familar with Kipling enough to start speculating about why he rejected the offer of poet laureate. And for that matter, why even bring that up? This article is not about making a saint of Kipling. I think we can leave that up to the Kipling article. I love Kipling, don't get me wrong! But I think this article focuses too much on him and less on the facts of what he was actually talking about (viz. imperialism, esp. Britian's occupation of India where Kipling was born and lived much of his life. The history of that occupation should be in the article.)--deadmissbates 09 December 2005

[edit] Rhodes Scholars and Secret Societies

"These views are in keeping with the "Secret Society" views of Kipling's friend, Cecil Rhodes, the founder and benefactor of the Rhodes Scholarship, designed to choose and influence future world leadership. Note-worthy recipients of this scholarship have included Bill Clinton, Dean Rusk, Stansfield Turner, J. William Fulbright, Strobe Talbot, William Bradley, Wesley Clark, Kris Kristofferson, Richard Lugar, Paul Sarbanes, and Heather Wilson, as well as Kipling himself; and have usually been drawn from Yale, Harvard, West Point and Princeton universities, in the U.S., and from Oxford University in England. Rhodes' "Secret Society" currently has ties to other "secret societies", such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group (both of the latter founded by Henry Kissinger). Most of the presidents and presidential candidates for the last fifty or sixty years (both Democrats and Republicans) have been members of at least one of these groups, and provide a living testimony to the power of Cecil Rhodes' vision."

Is this whole deal about Rhodes scholars and secret societies either necessary or backed by reliable research? The whole thing smacks of POV- as evidenced by the above complaint about regarding explicit parenthetical commentary. At the very least it seems to be a tangent of interest to the author and not particularly relavent to the concept of white man's burden. The entire segment has this undertone of conspiracy theory.--Jsn4 04:01, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It's irrelevant and should be removed. Dillon256 18:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed.--Jsn4 00:08, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] White Mans Burden Perspective

The White Mans Burden is an interesting theme. It does not change that fact that the United States, British Empire, and Europe suddenly gained advance technology and educational ways and means that they outstripped the rest of the world in capability making everyone else look down right primitive. In fact, the technology difference is so significant that the United States, the new European Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations (British Commonwealth) has over one-half of the GNP (Gross National Product) of the world. The sheer economic and resulting capabilities simply overwhelms any other nations in international affairs. Granted many societies are self contained and live the simpler lives our ancestors lived 240 years ago, but the reality is the United States, the British Commonwealth, and the European Union organizes better than the rest of the world. There is a special mention for Russia, since that nation with a much simpler economic ways and means left a significant impact on the world during the 20th century, and showed Russia knows how to organize effectively when they have a purpose. --(unsigned paragraph from: 172.195.116.150)

What in gods name is your point? What in the world does this mean "organizes better than the rest of the world." Sounds on its face like subtle racism, just like The White Man's Burden article talks about. Travb 09:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Technology moves in unpredictable fits and starts, it's not the linear progression that many of us like to think. The Ancient Greeks had clockwork and steam engines, all the ingredients for an industrial revolution thousands of years before the British one, but they did nothing with them, and the technologies were forgotten. The Medieval Islamic world was far more advanced, enlightened and tolerant than Medieval Europe (the barbarity and idiocy of the Crusades was an example of just how far behind Europe was). The Medieval Islamic world also had far greater knowledge of mathematics and the sciences, but that too was lost amidst the tides of history. Europe of the Industrial Revolution and afterwards just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and much of what they "discovered" was a rediscovery. They weren't an unusually advanced civilisation in the grand scheme of things, just an extremely lucky one. Who knows, maybe this European age will also be lost, perhaps due to nuclear war, and our current knowledge will be rediscovered by someone else in the far future. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.146.46.247 (talk) 09:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Source of this interpretation?

The first time I heard about this poem, it was presented to me as a warning to the U.S. about the consequences of becoming an Imperial power after the Spanish-American War: "Go, bind your sons to exile/To serve your captives' need" — in other words, the Americans would end up sending their sons overseas to die pointless deaths the same way that the British did. Kipling's writings were typically supportive of ordinary British soldiers but ferociously critical of the British Empire that sent them out to die in pointless battles or abandoned them after years of service — why would he write a poem to encourage the U.S. to become what he wrote sometimes so strongly against? I've never been a specialist in this period, but I would be interested to read more about the context of the poem. Did he accompany it with text promoting American imperialism? David 02:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Well from the interpretations I have always heard it is an encorragement from Kipling to the US to behave more imperialisticly; although it was automatically turned around as just the reason why they should not. It does not seem there is much detail on exactly what Kipling thought appart form a subtitle which I will add. He seems to have dumped a poem on an existing argument, on the role of the US at that time, and stired the pot. I would not characterise Kipling as wholely anti-imperialist, rather a critic of many aspects of imperialism and perhaps calling for a more enlightend imperialism. Perhaps the poem is more about getting the US to get off the fence, abandon isolationism and decide where they stand. MeltBanana 03:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. As I mentioned, I've never done any research on Kipling, but if nobody posts any source for his intentions about the poem, we should probably rewrite the article to qualify it rather than stating as a simple fact that it was meant as a pro-Imperialist poem. It's certainly too grim and ironic to be read as simple jingoism, which is what this article currently seems to suggest. David 13:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Further to the point, while many of Kipling's poems contain blatantly racist statements, those are often put in the mouths of people like ordinary British soldiers, and represents the kinds of things they'd actually say. Kipling also wrote poems celebrating non-whites as the equals or (sometimes) superiors of whites. The most famous one is "Gunga Din," narrated by a racist British soldier who finally has to admit that an Indian water carrier is a better person than he is. Another example is "The Ballad of East and West", which has no blatantly racist overtones, and presents British officers and colonial resistance fighters explicitly as equals. David 13:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the problem is, as with many political slogans or ideas, it takes on much more meaning then the original author probably intended. The article probably should be slightly more equivocal on Kipling's exact purpose for writing the poem but there should also be detail on how it was used then and now as a shorthand for much more. MeltBanana 16:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revision

I've removed some of the "weasel words" assertions made without citations or substantiation, and tried to present opposing views of the poem in a slightly more structured way. Humansdorpie 00:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The main thing that gets me is the "or more specifically West European (as East Europeans were also seen as lesser beings)". Where does that come from? They don't even link Eastern Europe. I'm not sure if it's relevant either considering no one ever tried to take them over (and won anyway). It might be relevant though to bring up the USSR's dream of pan-Communism, which might also be considered White Man's Burden.- deadmissbates 16 Dec 2005

That's an excellent point - I may snip the passage you mention. May also move the passage in the intro about Kipling supporting US activity in the Philippines to the Kipling is racist section, since the poem may also be read as a warning to the US of the cost of imperialism. Humansdorpie 11:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV

I have removed the POV template. If anyone thinks that it is still needed then please re-add it and list on the talke page the specific sentences or paragraphs which contain a non NPOV so that they can be discussed and fixed. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kipling as racist

I have reverted the heading from Kipling's Western point of view back to Kipling as racist. Western point of view infers that "Western" (whatever they are - presumably the Japanese are not included?) people collectively support(ed) colonialism - which is clearly not correct. The heading also obscures the most basic question about the work which is: is this a poem enthusiastically supporting or bitterly satirising colonialism? Humansdorpie 16:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

Has anyone actually read these? The "The British in India, China and Ireland" one is especially bad. It's written by a bonepartist basically to insult Britain. It calls Chaimberlain "a sissy". Come on, this isn't an objective and useful historical source, it's just a Brit-bash with quotes written by an immature nationalist American. 88.105.248.173 15:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed it - as you could have done - as Wikipedia guidelines suggest avoiding external links containing unverified original research. Humansdorpie 16:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poem's Date

I'm sure it's just a product of the numerous edits this article will no doubt have undergone, but the date of the poem isn't mentioned in the summary. In fact the only place in which it appears is in the footnotes!

84.69.106.131 23:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Monarchies

The article says "Six months after "The White Man's Burden" was published, he wrote "The Old Issue", a stinging criticism of the Second Boer War, and "The Monarchies", an attack on the unlimited and despotic power of kings." The old issue is well known, and excellent, but I haven't been able to find anything written by Kipling called "The Monarchies". It isn't in my collected poems & nothing is thrown up by google. Can anyone verify that he wrote this? as I think it is wrong & the article should read "wrote "The Old Issue", an attack on the unlimited and despotic power of kings." AllanHainey 13:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I took the liberty of repairing this as I wrote the sentence in the first place and I know what it was supposed to say. It is instructive, though hard work, to trawl through the history to see how dodgy info can creep into an article. A process of well meaning editors "fixing" changes, mistakes and vandalism leads to article data rot. MeltBanana 09:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm pretty sure these lines need to be changed back...

Within a historical context, the poem makes porn clear the prevalent attitudes that allowed colonialism to proceed. Although a belief in the "virtues of pussy" was wide-spread at the time, there were also many dissenters; the publication of the poem caused a flurry of arguments from both sides, most notably from Mark Twain and Henry James.