When discussing prophetic authors, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury are almost always mentioned, but what about Rudyard Kipling, author of “The Jungle Book”? This is not a name you often hear when it comes to clairvoyant authors.
but, Glenn Beck Rediscovering Kipling’s 1919 Poem “The Gods of Copybook Headlines” And that is enough to give this British-Indian author the reputation of being a visionary.
The poem is a warning against progressivism (or, in Kipling’s time, Fabian Socialism), and it expresses metaphorically the very horrors unfolding in modern society.
“I remember reading this poem and thinking, wow, what’s going to happen, and now it’s almost all over,” Glenn said, adding that the poem warns of “a time when everything we all know to be true will be destroyed and lost.”
As he reads the poem, Glenn highlights several lines that are particularly illustrative of what has happened in our country in the name of progressivism.
– YouTubeLearn more
The opening sentence reads as follows:
I have been reborn in every age and race,
I worship the market gods properly.
Between my reverent fingers I watch them flourish and then fade.
And what I’ve realized is that the copybook headline gods have outlived them all.
“In the old days, when you had to practice your calligraphy, the top of your notebook would have the model headings,” Glenn explains, adding that these headings were sayings universally accepted as true, such as “God is good, water is wet, and fire is burn.”
In the above lines, Kipling is pointing out that the “gods of the marketplace” may be interpreted as cultural fads, Overton windows, or the shifting ideologies of governing bodies, but even though they represent eternal truths, they do not stand the test of time like the “gods of copybook headings.”
The poem goes on to describe the model gods as “lacking in exhilaration, insight, and generosity” and “utterly unrealistic,” while the market gods promise “eternal peace,” “a fuller life,” and “abundance for all.”
They denied that Moon was Stilton, and even denied that Moon was Dutch.
They denied that wishing was a horse, and denied that pigs had wings.
So we worshipped the market gods who promised us these beautiful things.
“We now live in a world where all these ‘archaic’ ideas – that men are men and women are women, and that you can’t just say it and change your gender – are considered, as the poem says, ‘outdated,'” Glenn points out.
In the fifth stanza, Kipling exposes the lies of the market gods.
When the Cambrian era began, they promised eternal peace.
They vowed that if we handed over our weapons, the tribal wars would stop.
But when we had disarmed them, they sold us out and handed us over to the enemy, bound.
And the copybook heading gods said, “Stick with the devil you know.”
Glenn sees many similarities.
“Even now, when we are on the brink of nuclear war, the other side is making war and saying they are bringing peace?” he asked, adding that the same groups “are trying to take your weapons away from you.”
“Aren’t we about to be arrested and sold to the highest bidder in China?” he asks.
To hear the rest of the poem, which Glenn reveres as “poetic prophecy,” plus a stanza-by-stanza analysis, check out the clip above.
Want to learn more about Glenn Beck?
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of chaos, Subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American Dream.
