Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Rewriting Kipling for the modern age

It is often said that we should worry about the world we are leaving to the younger generation. I am a bit more worried about the poor world, given the state of the younger generation who will soon have custody of it. Last week, for example, the students of Manchester University have decided that Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” is not suitable for their college because he was raaaaacisst. Of course. They have replaced his poem with some vapid drivel from the serially overrated Maya Angelou. It might have been better if they’d simply rewritten Kipling’s verse, adapted it for modern times. I tried to help out in the Sunday Times today:

If you can self-define as something you’re not,
And crawl into victimhood, however well-bred
And spew out tendentious sub-teenage rot
And wear a vagina on top of your head,
And whine like a ninny, inside your safe space,
When the real world intrudes on the crap you’ve averred,
Then apply to our college – we’ll give you a place,
(For about £30k). And you’ll get a third.

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