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I love what Kipling wrote, but the man was amazingly sexist and racist.
But if you force some modern sensibilities on the poem that Kipling would have gotten violent over, "If" is pretty great.
What, more so than was typical for the time?
He was considered conservative in his time, although in a way that doesn't really exist any more, opposing social change whatever the source. He strongly opposed fascism for instance.
I don't think he was particularly racist for his time. He partly gets that reputation because he was writing about foreign cultures for readers who had zero understanding of them, when his own understanding came from being part of the British empire.
Reading what he says about other cultures is very interesting specifically because of that. And on top of that, he's extremely eloquent.
It's a pretty rare glimpse into the mind of a man who was very educated, and wellspoken and who saw everyone who wasn't white as truly, and regrettably, lesser. And yet despite being so horribly racist, he did feel strong obligation that these poor almost-humans needed help, in his colonizing, appropriating way.
Its fucking terrible, but there aren't people like that anymore. There isn't someone who will go "yeah, all of them [slurs] are dumb fucking shits, but damnit we whites owe it to help em out!"
And no, ffs, let's not bring that back. But that doesn't make it less fascinating.
Also, we're very used to the most of the insulting and degrading racism of today, but Kipling had very much a condescending racism that's pretty rare today. Something like Gunga Din is praising and elevating someone... Because his work as a water carrier is very impressive for someone so inferior.
yes, I heard and read about his racist and sexist stories as well. agree.