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On Civic Virtue
and the art of the Kipple

Susan,

It might have benefited from footnotes... But is an otherwise excellent piece.

Susan Johnston wrote:

Warning: what follows is both long and turgid.

[adjusts glasses, puts down notes, walks out from behind desk]

Well, yes. For Kipling virtue lies in doing - for Heinlein, too (and it's interesting, as an aside, that not only does that foundational text of military sf adopt Kipling in many of its epigraphs, but that other RAH novels -- Citizen of the Galaxy springs to mind - seem to be quite deliberate homage to Kipling - and while I've been focusing on John Ringo's work for this piece I note that Elizabeth Moon, Charles Sheffield, David Drake & Gordon R. Dickson likewise Kipple).

Add Tom Clancy to the list (though I grant he's not quite a sf author), who just Kippled in Teeth of the Tiger... Macdonough's Song...

I'm of the opinion that most mid grade officers (O-3) and above, and most senior NCO's (E-6 and up) are very familiar with Kipling, and identify with his military poems. Further note that Heinlein, Moon, and Drake all served in uniform (I'm uncertain as to the others)... It thus seems natural to me that when folks with that background write about men (and women) at the pointy end of the stick, some of those folks are going to Kipple.

That is, civic virtue for Kipling is meaningless except in the context of civic action - the kinds of action you describe, in fact, whether it is to "guard you while you sleep" or to build bridges. One of the troubling things, at least politically, but also theoretically, about attacks on Kipling, and I mean going back at least to Buchanan's The Voice of the Hooligan in 1901, is how often what you call the martial virtues are dismissed simply because they are martial - as though bravery (for example) became a vice when and because it is exhibited by a soldier.

A very important observation here.

Veterans know that physical courage is not solely one of their virtues. They know that in their ranks can be found all of the virtues, and all of the vices, of the parent population from which they were recruited. The joke I remember from Basic Training was of the young man being warned by his parents of all the crooked and dishonorable types he was likely to meet out in the big world, and writing home to Mom and Dad that he had met them all in Boot Camp...

It seems to me that the contrary position really sticks in the craw of those you identify later as "Identitarians."

Perhaps because so many of those young men (and women) gain a new "Identity" as a result of their service, and buy into an ethos that the "identitarians" loath.

In early criticism this seems to be primarily class-based (loyalty, bravery, etc., being so vulgar in the common soldier, my dear); in later criticism it oscillates between anti-masculinism and a (usually) unexamined pacificism.

My favourite person on this is Jean Bethke Elshtain, who has written about just war theory and also about some of the more troubling facets of pure pacificism, which she contrasts with a pure war perspective: this peace is an ontologically suspicious concept. It never appears without its violent doppelganger, pure war, lurking in the shadows.

Peace is inside, not outside, a frame with war in its most powerful and absolute expressions. War is threatening disorder, peace is healing order; war is human beastiality, peace is human benevolence; war is discordance, peace is harmony (Realism, Just War, and the Witness of Peace, American Feminist Thought 471).

Not only, Elshtain points out, does such a vision see difference itself as a source of danger that must be denied or eliminated (471), it is incapable of perceiving distinctions between, for example, defensive wars and offensive ones; perceiving all war as equally and everywhere as absolute disorder and barbarism, it cannot advocate for the just conduct of war because it doesn't perceive one as possible.

Another really key observation.

I knew the world was a dangerous place long before I entered service. Even so that was in a mostly intellectual fashion. My time in service further reinforced that conviction, by direct observation, at a much more visceral level.

Anti-masculinism and pacifism are luxuries afforded to those protected from the realities of a dangerous world. You'll find precious little of it in the societies that know they are not "safe" nor in the segments of "safe society" which have come face to face with the dangers of the larger world.

Such an inversion of values, at least if what I'm reading is any example, perceives virtue, if it perceives it at all, in identity, and here again your essay makes some important connections, particularly between the *National Geographic* article and the homeless and Armstrong. I'll quote at some length here from Armstrong; since we're busily convicting her, I think she can speak for herself:

[Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics. London and New York. Routledge, 1993]

Comparing Kipling to Monckton Milnes, Armstrong notes that "Kipling's skill in Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) is remarkable¹ His is a cunning demotic populism, imitating for the middle-class the simple rhythms of the marching song and the music-hall ballad.² Whereas John Davidson used the music-hall genre in poems such as 'Thirty Bob a Week' to make a critique of social conditions, Kipling celebrates the resilience of the common soldier in colonial service with a patrician triumphalism.³ Despite Kipling's ironising of the imperial theme, despite his sharp sense of the oppression and exploitation of military life, these are heroic poems.⁴

[from Route Marchin]
     So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore,
     There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore;
     An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell,
     You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well.

The vigour of Route Marchin depends on its refrain, in which the 'Big Drum' forces the marching pace.⁵ Hindustani, the language of the natives, is turned into a form of nonsense language to provide an alliterative drum beat: "'Kilo kissywarsti don't you / hamsher argyjow.'"⁶ Kipling footnotes the translation as "Why don't you get on?," and in another footnote to the soldier's boast that he can "sling the bat," he writes disparagingly of the British tommy: "Language. Thomas's first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on sign language."⁷ There is an extraordinary contempt here.⁸ This poem appears to conjure the situation Muller instanced, demonstrating that language dissolves the conventional hierarchies of race and colour - the British soldier in India and the sepoy are united by the origin of language and the sharing of roots which have not changed over hundreds of years.⁹ But in Kipling's poem the British tommy uses the language of the subjugated as a form of play while he himself is reduced to inarticulate signs among the natives, and slang, which also requires translation, among his fellow soldiers.¹⁰ he is reduced to linguistic poverty.

Kipling is the privileged voyeur of working-class terminology as shared Indo-European roots are used, in both these subjugated languages, to urge on route marching, and appropriated for authoritarian purposes.¹¹ Sometimes Kipling expresses the dissident voice of the English soldier; more often he confirms a conservative reading in which the cheerful response of the English soldier to adversity is displayed as a condition which is largely the creation of the colonial imperative.¹² Here Kipling portrays, exploits and glories in a working-class solidarity which consents to an ideology it may not analyse." (481-82)."¹³

¹Praising the skill of a poet is at best a left handed compliment. "He's a great mechanic. but not much of an artiste..."

²Imitating for the middle-class? He's presenting the men whose tales he is telling in their own vernacular (cleaned up, I grant you) and in the format they would use. For example, take this passage from Arithmetic on the Frontier:

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

³This one is enough to give literary criticism an even worse black eye than it already has. First of all, who (outside of literature majors) has ever read anything by "John Davidson"? I was an English Literature Major and I don't recall anything by him... So point the first is that Kipling seems to be passing the endurance test (timelessness) rather well. Point the second is that Tommy is certainly hardy, and for the conditions he endures, he's not really much of a grumbler. As for "patrician triumphalism"...I just don't see any basis.

⁴It is indeed heroic, because Kipling was NOT "ironising" in any way, shape, or form.

   For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
       But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
   An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
       An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Anyone who reads the whole of Barrack Room Ballads and comes away with an impression which runs counter to Kipling's respect of Tommy Atkins, warts and all, has a problem with reading comprehension.

⁵That is why one has drummers on a march. They set the pace. The body falls into the rhythm while the mind goes somewhere else (which can be a really good thing). Having a drumming rhythm to a poem about marching merely means the poet has some clue as to what he is writing about, a claim which cannot be made by the critic who authored the piece above.

⁶Alliterations of foreign words and adoption into English is nothing new. It is the very source of the English Language. I have heard similar things done with Japanese, Korean, Tugalic, and Vietnamese. They are inside jokes for those who have been there and exposed to a smattering of the language.

⁷Still goes on today. Though as an interesting aside, far more common soldiers in the U.S. Armed Forces stationed abroad seem to pick up more of the language of the host country than Tommy did. Of course, today's (U.S.) private soldier is far better educated than Tommy was...

⁸Contempt? I don't see it.

⁹Who the Hell is the Muller herein referenced? What further assumption is being constructed upon this shaky foundation?

¹⁰I really call Bullsh!t on this one. Specialized trades result in specialized vernacular. The more specialized the trade, the more obscure the resulting vernacular. Soldiers and Sailors have trades which are very specialized, and in which the penalty for miscommunication can be death or failure.

¹¹English "appropriate[s]" words and phrases all the time. Where, however, is the proof that in this case it is done for "authoritarian" purposes as opposed to artistic ones?

¹²Dissident voice? Service men of all branches engage in griping. Hell, we used to say you could always tell the happy sailor, he was the one bitching the loudest. A truly disgruntled sailor or trooper is the one who is NOT complaining.

¹³What an interesting tautology: "... a working-class solidarity which consents to an ideology it may not analyse." Is the "working-class solidarity" such that soldiers may not apply? Who is to say that said "working-class" may not "analyse" any and all ideologies it meets? More importantly, would Tommy and his mates really identify with the working-class folks back home?

Despite the focus on language here, Armstrong's interest is profoundly identitarian: note that "the dissident voice of the English soldier" is represented as their true or essential voice, whereas other expressions, such as "the cheerful response . . . to adversity" is a promulgation of the lies of power ("the creation of the colonial imperative"). One (unsurprising) consequence of this identitarianism, which invokes "working-class solidarity" even as it dismisses it, is a dizzying paternalism: it "consents to an ideology it may not analyse" (though we clever Victorianists can analyse it for them).

Read in this way, the "extraordinary contempt" manifested here for Tommy is Armstrong's, not Kipling's, and it derives I would argue from an identitarianism that treats virtue - and vice - and qualities of being rather than qualities of action.¹⁴ This identitarianism I identified as Marxian (and not Marxist, though that's a worthwhile distinction, *pace* Jon Elster) - it's shared by (some) post-colonialists (okay, most), (many) feminists, as well as other groups, who tend to derive their political theories from late 20thc. Marxists rather than from, say, the liberal individualism of John Stuart Mill (or, for that matter, Charles Taylor - the Canadian philosopher as opposed to the Liberian thug).

¹⁴Your point here is not clear to me. I suspect that you mean that Kipling's concept of "virtue" and "vice" is indeed based on actions, whereas whatever passes for "virtue" and "vice" among the "identitarians" has no basis in actions. Once one is part of the "identity" one's actions are all a consequence of the "identity" and such moral judgments as "virtue" and "vice" don't pertain. "Identity" is destiny.

Reading it over you're right; I'm not clear here. Perhaps a better way of explaining it would be in terms of an example: is an action evaluated in terms of itself and the consequences it brings about, or is it evaluated in terms of who performs it? Is the same action virtuous when performed by a left-handed redhead, and vicious when performed by a right-handed blonde? What I call identitarianism focuses on the doer, not the deed; in strong versions of this thesis the doer is not an agent at all and so assumes no responsibility for their actions; they are performed by their actions rather than performing them.

And with this you may very well have explained a lot of recent behavior by the democRATS, who seem to have bought off on "identitarianism."

I don't mean to suggest that such - call it groupthink, for a convenient shorthand - is brought about by socialism (of course, I don't think Marx is a socialist in any but the loosest sense of the term) except insofar as socialism is a profoundly romantic & nostalgic philosophy and the extraordinary grasp it has maintained on the political imagination since the 19th c. has helped to give credence to other, equally pernicious, modes of nostalgic paternalism: the 'noble savage' springs to mind, for those who follow with any interest the first nations lobby.

Oh, yeah. And it also explains the mythology growing in certain elements of the "African-American" community, or should I say "Identity?"

It sounds like you'd echo George Orwell, in this at least¹⁵ (though note that Orwell despises Kipling at least as much as Armstrong does, and on still less compelling grounds: my favourite line is "Can one imagine any private soldier, in the 'nineties or now, reading Barrack-Room Ballads and feeling that here was a writer who spoke for him?" As I read that I pictured barflies past and present raising their hands . . . ).¹⁶ But Orwell's right at least, I think, in his claim that the middle-class Left hate Kipling in large part for his sense of responsibility (that civic duty, and why would you think you didn't have the right word for it?): I won't quote at length again, though the context is a long passage attacking the hypocrisy of left-wing "internationalism" (which has, ironically perhaps, become the anti-globalisation-let's-smash -some-windows movement). But Orwell notes that "[i]t would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacificism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase 'making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep.'" (Orwell, Rudyard Kipling rpt. in Elliot Gilbert, Kipling and the Critics. 77).

¹⁵Orwell would echo Kipling with his "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." which is indeed more eloquently put by Kipling in "Tommy."

¹⁶Barflies, Veterans, and serving members, oh yeah. The morphing of the left from Internationalists to Anti-Globalists has been very interesting indeed. The juxtaposition of the anti-globalists and the "we don't dare go it alone" crowd is rather startling... But then again, if "Identity" is an end unto itself, all action is moot...

In fact "civic virtue" or "civic duty" is a better term than responsibility, (though one could Kipple again and call it "cold iron,") since the anti-globalization movement claims a fairly developed sense of responsibility (everything is the fault of large American corporations).

One of the things which gets hammered home in Officer Training in the modern U.S. Armed Forces is the concept that Authority, Responsibility, and Accountability are a tripod. Shorting any of the legs makes the platform of Command tilt, where a level platform is necessary. It has been my observation that much of politics seems to be an exercise in reducing Responsibility and Accountability.

At this point I'd like to plead for the essay on The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: it's deeply invested in these issues, isn't it? And the story is haunting, to my mind, partly because there are so many available readings of it: for example, there's an anti-globalization allegory, wherein the imprisoned child is a third world labourer. There's the riff on knowing - but I think it's disturbing that the consequence of knowledge is either acceptance or refusal; nobody looks through the bars and says "This. Must. Stop." Or - perhaps more to the point - "I will pay the price." (But I know, or think I know, what Pte. Mulvaney would do - or Prince Roger).¹⁷ Because Le Guin presents dichotomous views as well (I mean, this is her thing, right? The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness ) but I don't think her dichotomy is the same as yours. I read the story as condemning those who know and who deny the consequences of that knowledge, or accept the price; I also read it as endorsing those who assuage their guilt by absenting themselves from the polity.¹⁸ In Kipling's milieus, the first are the worthy of our contempt, as are those who are wilfully ignorant; what's extraordinary about his ordinary soldiers, and so compelling about them, is that they pay the price.¹⁹ (There's a Heinlein essay about visiting a veteran's hospital; he contends "some debts cannot be paid. But you can at least try to meet the interest." And Ringo wrote one too, I believe: about a Marine standing guard outside an embassy on a holiday)

¹⁷First, a disclaimer. I have not read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I am thus limited to responding to the synopses presented here. From these synopses I hold the following:

   A utopian society is based on the ongoing suffering of a single child.

   All adult members of the Society are made aware of this fact.

   The adults must then choose to accept or reject the society based on the suffering of the single innocent child.

   Walking away is not the only option under rejection, unless the concept of action has been somehow bred out of the species (but then how would some be able to take the action of walking away?).

   This society is in dire need of a John Brown.

¹⁸Absenting themselves is at best a good first step. Not supporting such an inherently evil system is not sufficient, and the longer it endures the greater the blood price will be when it is eventually torn down.

¹⁹Duty. Is there a more sublime word in the English Language?

There remains a strong sense within the ranks of those who serve who believe that doing so derives from a sense of duty acted upon. Service is viewed as paying back the debts owed to those who paid in blood and suffering to ensure our freedom, while securing that same freedom to those safe at home in their beds. I suspect that this view was present in much smaller proportions in Tommy's fellows than it is today in the all volunteer forces of the United States, and that it was less well understood by Tommy and his mates (given the generally poor level of their education).

The opacity in Kipling you quite rightly identify, I think, comes from more sources than a dichotomous worldview can suggest. There are those who perceive virtue in powerlessness, or in some facet of identity; they cannot understand a view of virtue as a quality of action. There are those who imagine that the price is unnecessary. And there are those who refuse to acknowledge the debt.²⁰ I think the reason Orwell and Armstrong are wrong about Kipling's audience is that they don't recognize how important it is to that audience that Kipling, at least, acknowledged the debt.²¹ He made a down payment. And if the ongoing interest in Kipling in military sf is any indication, the interest continues to be met.

²⁰Does it really matter why someone is morally tone deaf? Do we really care why someone either chooses to do evil, or ignore the evil acts he sees around him?

²¹I have heard this referred to as the "Warrior Ethos" but I don't think that is a sufficient explanation. I have also heard this explained as the "Virtue of the Soldier" and find that lacking as well. I think that Heinlein said it best.

   When you reached that spiritual mountaintop you felt something, a new something. Perhaps you haven't the words for it (I know I didn't, when I was a boot). So perhaps you will permit an older comrade to lend you the words, since it often helps to have discrete words. Simply this: The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation. The words are not mine, of course, as you will recognize. Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them. This is an immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.

   Robert Anson Heinlein (USNA '29)
   Starship Troopers (1959), p 113

(I'm sorry, class. We appear to have run over time again. Have a good night, and remember, I'd like to see drafts of your essays on Kipling and political philosophy on my desk by Monday. You may use Mr. Ringo's excellent outline as a model, but remember, you must QUOTE him correctly. Scholarly debts are, nonetheless, debts)

Indeed they are. But we are allowed to pay them forward.

(Adjusts glasses. Picks up notes. Looks for coffee).

[you *were* warned]

Indeed I was!

On Moral Tone Deafness

Class of 1987
Ex scientia tridens.

Your Host
"It's not the years, it's the mileage."

Less Peaceful than it appears
Si vis pacem, paret bellum.