Comments on: “The Stranger” — A Poem By Rudyard Kipling

By: White Templar

White Templar — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 08:11:37 +0000

“shows him to be a man who denounced Naziism”

If I had to guess that is probably because he didn’t agree with their economic policy, not their social policy.

He penned a poem called “The White Man’s Burden” that literally calls non-whites, and I quote: “half devil and half child.” Hitler very well may have looked upon other races in a better light than Kipling, except maybe the Jews, but at the same time the actions of Jews were responsible for Hitler’s view of them so you can hardly blame him from learning from experience.

By: rafael lago

rafael lago — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 19:31:51 +0000

Kipling was just being true to his own nature; he was just being genuinely British. Whether he approved or not of the attitude of the character in the poem, he identified with it, that much is obvious. The Brits -perhaps I should say the English- don’t like to be labelled a nation of xenophobic islanders, suspicious and disdainful of everything that comes from abroad. Most educated Britons would actually take offence at being described thus. But that is precisely what they are. In this, they are not fundamentally different from most other Europeans. The British have the saving grace (or supreme hypocrisy, do not know which) that they can be xenophobic and suspicious, while being very polite at it. I like the poem, and I like Kipling. In this respect however, he was quintessentially British, and there is no use pretending otherwise.

By: ToraldrMagnisson

ToraldrMagnisson — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 14:08:51 +0000

Culture is separate from genetics! HA! Where do you think cultures originate? Culture emerges from biology.

By: Stan

Stan — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 01:05:49 +0000

Indeed, the stranger within my gates is a white socialist who holds the gate open for others to take my home while other white socialists hold me down so I cannot shut the gate. Those entering are not the enemy, the stranger. They are doing what normal people should do. The enemy, the stranger, are those members of my own stock who make war on their own.

By: Martin Roper

Martin Roper — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 22:33:50 +0000

Michel,

Kipling was well-traveled and fully aware of the good will in the hearts of people from around the world. He also understood the world in which he lived, one where suspicion and stereotypes existed from all sides. This is not autobiographical. He is creating a fictional persona that represents all men and their xenophobia. “My father’s belief” shows that these feelings are cultural and generational.

The truth is, for all his modern trappings, man is still fundamentally tribal in nature. We are still prone to congregating with those much like ourselves. Despite our public embrace of “the melting pot” or “multiculturism,” privately we’re prone, perhaps even evolutionarily predisposed to hanging out with those most like ourselves. Trevor Phillips, head of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, noted even in his childhood that London’s neighborhoods were largely black, Indian, Irish, Jewish, etc. It’s predictable and natural that we do this. A century earlier Kipling knew this too.

By: Joseph Kretschmer

Joseph Kretschmer — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 02:37:34 +0000

The biggest thing culturally is that Muslims will never assimilate when they are in the majority. They remain a foreign thing in any country. But the greatest harvest of dissent was sown by Luther some five hundred years ago. What was mostly a homogenous society throughout Europe became so conflicted that Europe was then torn by resulting wars for four hundred years and is still torn culturally. What was before called Christendom is now called “the European union” which is neither European nor united.

By: Michele Castorina

Michele Castorina — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 11:06:53 +0000

Look at the state of the world today, and think.