3 ms·
Rudyard Kipling was not an enlightened thinker or poet. For instance, he wrote this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden https://en.wikipedia.
by 5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 5y ago
Rudyard Kipling was not an enlightened thinker or poet. For instance, he wrote this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden
- tardismechanic 5y agoOof!
- quink 5y agoBetween that and tfa essentially exhorting do whatever you think is right and this ending up at the top of HN, being probably the leading discussion board for VC and at least somewhat influential in the future direction of technology, I think this warrants a double-oof.
- kortilla 5y agoYes, there is nothing quite as repulsive as people being driven by their morals.
- brigandish 5y agoThe submission is about the poem If, not Rudyard Kipling or The White Man’s Burden, so what is the relevance of that poem to “If”? Whether he’s a poet or not is simply a matter of semantics, and also not relevant to the poem “If”. There’s also this quote in the link you provided: > there appeared in one of our magazines a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the greatest poet of England at this time
- quink 5y agoIt's not "enlightened {thinker} or {poet}", it's "enlightened {thinker or poet}".
- brigandish 5y agoEven Buddhism has the concept of half or full enlightenment, so it would depend on where he started and what was considered "full" enlightenment in both his time and ours, so though I agree there may be some nuance in the statement, I don't agree that it would make much difference. He clearly had insights about life worth sharing and a style that counts as good (skilful) for many people.
- brutusborn 5y agoProbably by your definition of Englightened, but not for many others.
- Amezarak 5y agoThis a overly dismissive. Nothing has changed in 2021, it’s just instead of calling cultural imperialism “the white man’s burden” we call it “protecting human rights” and “preserving democracy” overseas, so it sounds better to modern ears. The mindset hasn’t changed. Behave in a way that the West finds “barbaric,”, and all kinds of soft and hard power will be brought against you. For example, Kipling wanted to end sati (widows burning to death) because it was against his “white man’s” values, today we would be just as against it snd do whatever we could to stop it (probably mostly with soft power) in the name of women’s rights. Either way, the reduction of someone who lived a full and rich life, an enormously popular and Nobel Prize winning writer to “well, actually he was problematic” is not healthy.
- refurb 5y agoI was going to say the “White Man’s burden” is quite similar to what we do today - eliminate standardized testing, racial quotas, etc. All done in an effort to “help those groups who will never succeed without the white man’s help”.