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Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

It's that Kipling, according to many people, even in that times, effectively did imperialistic propaganda, even if he was aware that the reality didn't match the myth, didn't match in a sense which the article author wants to point out also concerning the WW I.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/kipling/rkimperialism.ht...

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/

Thanks for the "Tommy" poem, it also shows something important.

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It's worth pointing out that Kiplin lost his only son, Jack, to the Great War.

Interesting, thanks. I don't understand how this:

   Take up the White Man’s burden—
   Send forth the best ye breed—
   Go send your sons to exile
   To serve your captives' need

... could have been written in an unironic light. Yet many people, some of them powerful and influential, seem to have taken it at face value.

A couple other relevant poems:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_recess.htm

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_epitaphs.htm

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