The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling 1919

Transcribed Frank Nic. Bazsika

Kipling’s poem pertaining to the Progressive Movement

observable to him in its beginnings of the 20th Century and his
apt forecast for the future of man treading that particular path.
Following Kipling’s poem are presented commentaries.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market
Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and
fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them
all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each
in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly
burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of
Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the
March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the
Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently
word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had
gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly
out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was
even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig
had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these
beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised

perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the
tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to
our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the
Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller

Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving
his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason
and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of
Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for

all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our
money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't
work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-
tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to
believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make
Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain
it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her
Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to
the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world
begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for
his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter
return!

Wolf Pangloss Commentary:

Kipling: The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 by Wolf Pangloss|
http://wolfpangloss.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/kipling-the-gods-of-the-copybook-headings/

Copybooks were for handwriting practice, back in the days when

handwriting mattered. A timeless gem of old wisdom was written at
the top of the page in a beautiful hand, and the user of the book would
copy it all the way down the page.
By 1919, when he wrote this poem, Kipling had lost his son in World
War I. He had lost his faith, though he yearned for faith in something.
As is clear from the language of the poem, mentioning “Social
Progress,” the “brave new world,” “robbing selected Peter to pay for
collective Paul,” the dangers of disarmament and immorality, and
with the overall structure following the evolutionary narrative, the
subject is the progressive movement that attempts to reduce human
life to scientific, animalistic principles. The poem reminds the reader
constantly that old wisdom is still wise and true even if we have lost
faith in it, and the last line echoes the toll of the first two years of the
Russian Revolution. For the reader in 2007, it echoes the 100 million
death toll from Communism, the ultimate progressive movement for
the scientific reformation of society and humanity. And it echoes in
the toll of 40 million abortions in the United States since Roe vs.
Wade. And finally, it echoes the threat of an even greater death toll
from the Global Jihad, which in the worst case could end up with
multiple American, European, and Muslim cities being attacked by
nuclear weapons and a death toll better than half a billion souls.

To all of this, the God who inspired the copybook headings is the
answer. Believe if you can believe. Keep trying if you can’t. Chin up
old bean. Never give up. Never give in.

The Welfare State and the Gods of the

Copybook Headings
by Robert Tracinski http://newledger.com/2010/06/the-
welfare-state-and-the-gods-of-the-copybook-headings/

E uropean markets continue to collapse as the Southern European welfare states

slide into insolvency. There has been a lot of discussion about the cause of this disaster, but
to any good Kipling fan the answer is obvious: it’s The Gods of the Copybook Headings.

The title of Rudyard Kipling’s poem is obscure today but would have been clear to any
educated Englishman of his day. A copybook was a kind of penmanship exercise in which the
student copied over and over again a sentence printed in the heading at the top of each page.
These copybook headings were usually aphorisms or statements of commonsense wisdom, so
Kipling used the Gods of the Copybook Headings as a symbol for basic, immutable truths.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn.

The point of the poem is that the various schemes for “social progress” being promoted at the
time—and most of them are still with us today—are based on denying the basic truths
represented by the Gods of the Copybook Headings.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

Kipling’s derisive reference to the “Gods of the Market Place” was not intended as anti-
capitalist. “The market” is not short for “the free market,” as it is in contemporary parlance.
Rather, the “market” refers to the public spaces where people gather to listen to demagogues
who promise the impossible and the irrational—the function performed by CNN today.

Which brings us to modern politicians and the collapse of the European welfare state. See if
you recognize this warning from Kipling.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

That’s a concise summary of the inevitable disaster of the welfare state. And more: it names a
key part of the mentality behind it—the systematic evasion of basic, obvious truths.

Who thought this was ever going to work? Who thought we could build a society in which an
ever-increasing number of citizens are told that they don’t have to work and that their needs
will be provided for by somebody else—while the burden is shoved onto the shoulders of an
ever-smaller, ever-more-despised minority of producers?
That’s what Greece did, shifting a huge number of its citizens onto the government payroll
and creating a lavish pension scheme in which the average retirement age is 61 and workers
in some fields are guaranteed retirement at age 50. When the overloaded private sector could
no longer pay for all of this, the Greek government borrowed money to paper over the

shortfall—until the Gods of the Copybook Headings caught up with them and their scheme
came crashing down.

We’re all headed in that direction. A recent report revealed an ominous statistic. And I’m
not using “ominous” in the loose, sloppy modern way that just means “vaguely bad.” By
“ominous,” I mean: this is a harbinger of societal collapse.

The statistic? The percentage of income in the US that is derived from government payments
—welfare benefits plus government payroll—is reaching an all-time high, while the
percentage of income derived from private-sector wages is reaching an all-time low. If I
understand the figures in this report, they imply that the government is paying out two
dollars in income for every three dollars of private income.

Put simply, the takers are eating up the makers.

A t some point—and it’s not too far off—there just isn’t going to be enough private

income to seize to pay for the public income. The system is inherently, mathematically
unsustainable. But nobody cares about mathematics. The welfare state is based on denying
the truth that two and two make four.

The report linked to above quotes an economist who worries that “People are paid for being
rather than for producing.” And that’s what reminded me of Kipling. His poem concludes by
describing what will happen when “the brave new world begins.”

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
That brings us to the motivation for this evasion of reality. It is not just avarice for unearned
wealth, as Kipling implies. It is avarice for unearned wealth—combined with a moral code
that makes parasitism seem noble. The altruist creed that one man’s need gives him a claim
on the wealth produced by others is not just an injustice—Kipling describes it as a system
that hands out undeserved rewards, while shielding men from punishment for their vices. It
is also an attempt to overturn the law of cause and effect. The cause of wealth is production,
but the altruist welfare state is built on the assumption that a man’s need will bring him
wealth, regardless of whether or not he produces anything. In order to maintain a moral code
that makes need into the ultimate moral claim—while denigrating as “greed” the virtues of
hard work, ambition, and success—the defenders of altruism have to stage a rebellion against
reality. In this, they are supported by a whole network of modern intellectuals and
philosophers, who tell them that there is no objective truth and that reality is whatever we
collectively choose to believe.

But reality is absolute and always asserts itself in the end, with dreadful consequences for
those who rebel against it.

If you think that the last line of Kipling’s poem, the part about terror and slaughter, is over
the top, remember that this poem was written in 1919, when the terror and slaughter of
World War I were still fresh. (The Battle of Loos had claimed an Irish Guard named John
Kipling, the poet’s only son.) Mercifully, Kipling did not live to see the terror and slaughter to
come. As for the terror and slaughter this time around, take the riots in Greece—the
firebombs thrown at banks in the heart of Athens, burning three employees to death—as a
warning.

Let’s hope we don’t get around to the terror and slaughter here in America. Kipling tells us
how we can avoid it.

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

There are no Gods of the Copybook Headings—not in the literal sense—so it is going to be up
to us, those who insist that reality is real and cannot be cheated, to take on their role and
limp up to explain it once more.
 Robert Tracinski is the editor of The Intellectual Activist.

There is a way that seems right to a man but in

the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12
….every man did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 17:6, 21:25
That which hath been is that which shall be; and
that which hath been done is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9