You're misquoting Kipling - Reader comments at The New York Sun

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A Convergence Of Civilizations

Submitted by ferengi, Mar 20, 2008 08:00

The next lines of Kipling's 'Ballad of East and West', run like this: "... But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, / When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!"

You can read the whole poem at:

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/eastwest.html

and it's a stirringly heroic affirmation of common humanity across racial and religious lines.

Kipling was, no doubt about it, a man of his times, and expressed some attitudes that we find out-dated and even repellent. However, his view of the British Empire was by no means simple or jingoistic (cf, Recessional, or The Widow at Windsor), and time and again we see in his stories and poems about India an honestly inquisitive and respectful engagement with the 'other'. (Above all in Kim, about which VS Naipul has said that "no one had written as accurately about Indians".)

None of this is to say that Pagden's book is any good at all -- I've not read it, and this review makes me highly unlikely to search it out -- but Kipling makes an inconveniently shaped club with which to beat him.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
Jesus Christ, Mohammad and Gautam Buddha were all Asians. It is interesting that the West has got its religions from... [MORE]	Dev	Mar 23, 2008 12:59
Of course, Pagden is very simplistic. Nor do I see any reason to compare the relatively benign Persian Empire --which... [MORE]	Elliott A Green	Mar 22, 2008 19:41
Thank you for writing this article. Everytime someone claims "the EAST" is pitted against "the WEST", I get so grated... [MORE]	Daniel	Mar 21, 2008 18:26
It is not just the different between india, arab region, eastern asia there is also a big difference between even... [MORE]	esraa ahmed	Mar 24, 2008 10:26
When Adam Kirsch concludes by beating Padgen with the club of Western slave trade and the Holocaust, we know he... [MORE]	Doug McMillan	Mar 21, 2008 12:38
It is an aberration of the 'civilized' mind to create false dichotomies based on make-believe abstract categories, i.e., 'East' and... [MORE]	SDG	Mar 21, 2008 11:26
When Kipling said East and west are on different polar he want to tell that West's philosophy and India's philosophy... [MORE]	Ramesh Raghuvanshi	Mar 21, 2008 02:33
The longtime attempts of often scurrilous authors to paint the West, particularly during any era of conflict, as the exclusive... [MORE]	Caleb Carr	Mar 20, 2008 19:30
C. Northcote Parkinson, the author of Parkinson's Law, wrote a fine book on the same subject, called East and West.... [MORE]	Graham Asher	Mar 20, 2008 11:37
Iran's first election is for religious extremists. Seems the same as 2000 yrs ago. [MORE]	don	Mar 20, 2008 19:31
The author seems to be unaware of the fact that both East and West--Europe and the Middle East, which Kipling... [MORE]	RBC	Mar 20, 2008 08:35
Readers may wonder why this "2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West" startswith Greek sources. The Bible offers narratives of earlier... [MORE]	Don Phillipson	Mar 20, 2008 08:32
The next lines of Kipling's 'Ballad of East and West', run like this: "... But there is neither East...	ferengi	Mar 20, 2008 08:00
Kipling was right when stated that philosophy, way of life are polar between India and West..He refered India versus West.... [MORE]	Ramesh Raghuvanshi	Mar 20, 2008 03:15
The attempt to read much of human history as conflict between East and West is as Adam Kirsch points out... [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	Mar 19, 2008 03:29
Is there a single West standing opposed to a single East? No, there are multiple wests, overlappingly in various states... [MORE]	Bill	Mar 19, 2008 22:32

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