{"id":8545,"date":"2025-03-07T00:03:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T06:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=8545"},"modified":"2025-12-14T17:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T23:53:16","slug":"review-rudyard-kiplings-heterotopia-as-easy-as-a-b-c-offers-critique-of-lynching-racial-prejudice-mob-rule-and-other-abuses-of-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/review-rudyard-kiplings-heterotopia-as-easy-as-a-b-c-offers-critique-of-lynching-racial-prejudice-mob-rule-and-other-abuses-of-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame finalist review: Rudyard Kipling\u2019s heterotopia \u201cAs Easy as A.B.C.\u201d offers critique of lynching, racial prejudice, mob rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

By William H. Stoddard<\/a><\/p>\n

As an epigraph for his novel Glory Road<\/i>, Robert Heinlein quoted a passage from Bernard Shaw\u2019s play Caesar and Cleopatra<\/i>, which included the following memorable line:<\/p>\n

. . . he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These lines captured, for me, what I have come to feel is one of the great pleasures of science fiction: stories set in worlds whose customs are different from those of our own time, or as I like to call them, heterotopias<\/i>\u2014neither \u201cgood places\u201d nor \u201cbad places\u201d but \u201cother places,\u201d where customs other than ours are followed and indeed taken for granted.<\/p>\n

Such visions implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, invite us to adopt the heterotopian perspective and look back on our own lives and our own world as if we inhabited some nearly unimaginable alien realm. The literary critic Darko Suvin coined the phrase cognitive estrangement<\/i> for this experience.<\/p>\n

One of the first works of fiction that made me feel this effect was one of Rudyard Kipling\u2019s \u201cairship utopia\u201d stories, \u201cAs Easy as A.B.C.\u201d – now one of four classic works selected as finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

KIPLING’S “AIRSHIP UTOPIA”<\/b><\/p>\n

At a key point in Kipling\u2019s novelette, its narrator, who has been listening to a political activist of his own time, comments on the unfamiliarity of his ideas:<\/p>\n

. . . he demanded that every matter of daily life . . . should be submitted for decision at any time of the week, month, or year to, I gathered, anybody who happened to be passing by or residing within a certain radius, and that everybody should forthwith abandon his concerns to settle the matter, first by crowd-making, next by talking to the crowds made, and lastly by describing crosses on pieces of paper, which rubbish should later be counted with certain mystic ceremonies and oaths. Out of this amazing play, he assured us, would automatically arise a higher, nobler, and kinder world, based\u2014he demonstrated this with the awful lucidity of the insane\u2014based on the sanctity of the Crowd and the villainy of the single person.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course Kipling\u2019s narrator is providing a confused and oversimplified account of democracy. But I think now that that\u2019s what makes the effect so brilliant: This account is coming from someone who hasn\u2019t grown up surrounded by the practices of democratic government, who hasn\u2019t learned their rationales, so inevitably he gets the details wrong, or entirely fails to notice them.<\/p>\n

But what kind of society does the narrator live in, and take for granted? What kind of world has the Aerial Board of Control (the \u201cA.B.C.\u201d of the title) as \u201call that remains to the planet of that odd old word authority\u201d (as Kipling says in the companion story \u201cWith the Night Mail\u201d)?|<\/p>\n

IS DICTATORSHIP THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO DEMOCRACY?<\/b><\/p>\n

For present-day readers, the natural supposition is that the alternative to democracy is dictatorship (or despotism or tyranny or some other name for authoritarian rule). That model of political polarization was already emerging when Kipling wrote \u201cAs Easy as A.B.C.\u201d Should we suppose that the Aerial Board of Control is an authoritarian and repressive power?<\/p>\n

What Kipling writes doesn\u2019t seem to support this. Faced with a demand that they take over Chicago, or all of Illinois, which has fallen into civil disorder, one of the Board\u2019s representatives, De Forest, complains, \u201cYou talk as if executive capacity could be snatched out of the air like so much horse-power. Can\u2019t you manage yourselves on any terms?\u201d (The reference to snatching horse-power out of the air suggests interesting things about the technology of Kipling\u2019s world.)<\/p>\n

The Board seems anything but eager to exercise power. At the report of uprising, they send in an aerial fleet, but it seems not to have lethal weapons; it subdues the crowd below with dazzling lights and sound at the threshold of pain, but afterward another Board member, Pirolo, assures them that they will suffer no lasting effect worse than having sore eyes in the morning.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most telling, on the way to Chicago, the Board stop at a farm to ask directions, and the farmer\u2019s daughter immobilizes them with a \u201cground-circuit\u201d and, when they blow out its fuses, sends a robot cultivator at them\u2014and they make their escape, leaving her unharmed, and later warn her to go into the cellar during their fleet action. Imagine Napoleon, let alone Stalin or Mao, faced with that kind of defiance!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

THE \u201cSERVILES\u201d VERSUS THE INDIVIDUAL-RIGHTS LIBERALS<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps a hint of what Kipling is pointing at can be found in the name he gives Chicago\u2019s political dissidents: the Serviles. That name was used in Spain, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for the party that wanted absolute monarchy, as opposed to the Liberals, who wanted constitutional government and individual rights.<\/p>\n

What the people of Kipling\u2019s A.D. 2065 think of, when they hear of democracy, is initially crowds and plagues (Chicago\u2019s health officer says \u201cTransportation is Civilisation. Democracy is Disease\u201d) \u2014 Kipling\u2019s narrator describes democracy as starting with \u201ccrowd-making.\u201d But after that, they associate it with mob violence.<\/p>\n

The town square of Chicago holds a world-famous statue of a black man being burned alive, with the words \u201cTo the Eternal Memory of the Justice of the People\u201d inscribed on the plinth. The poem that accompanies this story (as poems accompanied nearly all of Kipling\u2019s fiction), \u201cMacdonough\u2019s Song,\u201d<\/a> warns against \u201cpower above or beyond the Laws\u201d and specifically names \u201cHoly People\u2019s Will\u201d as an example of it.<\/p>\n

An excerpt from the song’s lyrics:<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether the State can loose and bind<\/span>
\nIn Heaven as well as on Earth:<\/span>
\nIf it be wiser to kill mankind<\/span>
\nBefore or after the birth–<\/span>
\nThese are matters of high concern<\/span>
\nWhere State-kept schoolmen are;<\/span>
\nBut Holy State (we have lived to learn)<\/span>
\nEndeth in Holy War.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether The People be led by The Lord,<\/span>
\nOr lured by the loudest throat:<\/span>
\nIf it be quicker to die by the sword<\/span>
\nOr cheaper to die by vote–<\/span>
\nThese are things we have dealt with once,<\/span>
\n(And they will not rise from their grave)<\/span>
\nFor Holy People, however it runs,<\/span>
\nEndeth in wholly Slave.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatsoever, for any cause,<\/span>
\nSeeketh to take or give<\/span>
\nPower above or beyond the Laws,<\/span>
\nSuffer it not to live!<\/span><\/p>\n

The central irony of \u201cAs Easy as A.B.C.\u201d is that the Serviles, with their advocacy of democracy, have stirred up a revival of mob passions, from which they have to be rescued by the planetary government, one of whose representatives warns them, \u201cyou hurry, or your crowd that can\u2019t be wrong will kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAND ALL THAT IT IMPLIES\u2026\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Running all through the story is the phrase \u201cand all that it implies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It starts out, in the epigraph (taken from \u201cWith the Night Mail\u201d), as a legalistic formula defining the authority of the Board. Midway through the story, when De Forest says that \u201cThe A.B.C. is responsible for the planetary traffic only,\u201d all four of Chicago\u2019s top officials recite \u201cAnd all that that implies,\u201d which the narrator describes as a Magna Charta \u2014 a demand for the right to be taken over and administered by the A.B.C., however reluctant they may be to do so. (As the Board departs, De Forest says, clearly sarcastically, \u201cYou\u2019re under the tyrannous heel of the Board from this moment, but if ever you feel like breaking your fetters you\u2019ve only to let us know.\u201d)<\/p>\n

But at the climax of the story, one of the women in the crowd, about to attempt suicide in the hope of provoking a murderous riot, tells De Forest<\/p>\n

. . . one feels that an example should be made, because no price is too heavy to pay if\u2014if these people and<\/i> all that they imply can be put an end to. Do you quite understand or would you be kind enough to tell your men to take the casing off the Statue? It\u2019s worth looking at.<\/i><\/p>\n

Here \u201call that they imply\u201d is racial prejudice, mobs, and lynching, all of which have vanished from Kipling\u2019s future world\u2014but haven\u2019t been forgotten.<\/p>\n

A DEFT USE OF SCIENCE FICTION TO EXPLORE SOCIAL THEMES
\n<\/b>
\nEarlier in the story we learn that the Statue is uncovered once a year, on Thanksgiving Day, followed by the singing of \u201cMacdonough\u2019s Song,\u201d the anthem of a planetary uprising against mass society (\u201cFor Holy People, however it runs,\/Endeth in wholly slave\u201d) and statism (\u201cWhether the State can loose and bind\/In Heaven as well as on Earth\u201d).<\/p>\n

The other side of what Kipling is doing here, beyond simple heterotopia, is the use of science fiction to convey a social theme, using a portrayal of a society remote in space or time to ask questions about his own society. And this, too, is one of the classic functions of science fiction, from Jonathan Swift to Robert Heinlein to Stanislaw Lem.<\/p>\n

This kind of story lets us suppose that the future may look back with horror not only on the features of our time that we ourselves are troubled by or ashamed of, but by those we are proudest of \u2014 such as democracy. The questions about majority rule that Kipling raises in this powerful story are still worth asking.<\/p>\n

Note: “As Easy as A.B.C.,” first published in 1912, was selected as a 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist along with Poul Anderson’s 1983 novel Orion Shall Rise,<\/em> the 1978 Rush song “The Trees” and Charles Stross’s 2003 novel Singularity Sky<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Read capsule descriptions of each finalist in the Hall of Fame press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:<\/b><\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n

* Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony<\/a> with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer<\/a> and Sarah Hoyt)<\/a>, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters. We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By William H. Stoddard As an epigraph for his novel Glory Road, Robert Heinlein quoted a passage from Bernard Shaw\u2019s play Caesar and Cleopatra, which included the following memorable line: . . . he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. These lines captured, … Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: Rudyard Kipling\u2019s heterotopia \u201cAs Easy as A.B.C.\u201d offers critique of lynching, racial prejudice, mob rule<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2353,8],"tags":[938,2400,2539,268,866],"class_list":["post-8545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-review","tag-as-easy-as-a-b-c","tag-best-classic-fiction-finalist","tag-heterotopia","tag-prometheus-hall-of-fame","tag-rudyard-kipling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2dP","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8545"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8890,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545\/revisions\/8890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}