Well, we could try without Roosevelt, possibly leading to a non-democratic USA growing from the depression era? So maybe ‘democracy is not inevitable’ as a moral?
Without Charles II of England (good for a king learning somewhat to live with Parliament)… no idea how that would have gone, actually.
No Nelson Mandela or Gandhi… maybe less appreciation for non-violence as an effective tactic? But that doesn’t tell us much, we know that non-violence can be pretty effective, it’s been used all over. In the counterfactual world we wouldn’t know this, but it doesn’t make it less likely to be true. Maybe without Gandhi there would have been another model of decolonisation and maybe—very maybe—it might have been better, so we need to take that into consideration, and think that decolonisation might work better than we know?
Well, we could try without Roosevelt, possibly leading to a non-democratic USA growing from the depression era? So maybe ‘democracy is not inevitable’ as a moral?
You do realize Roosevelt was pretty undemocratic right?
Maybe without Gandhi there would have been another model of decolonisation and maybe—very maybe—it might have been better, so we need to take that into consideration, and think that decolonisation might work better than we know?
I doubt it. The British negotiated with Gandhi’s crew instead of the rest of the revolutionaries because they could save face that way by not having to fold to violent methods. Gandhi provided the release valve for the pressure built up by the violent factions. If he hadn’t been there, I think it would have gone much worse.
EDIT: I’m not a historian or anything. This could be wrong.
If he hadn’t been there, I think it would have gone much worse.
I think so too. But it’s possible there’s a model of decolonisation that we missed, and that they might have been able to find without Gandhi. Possible but not likely; unlikely but not impossible.
What you say seems plausible, but are there unusually good leaders from whom you would draw diametrically opposed conclusions?
Isn’t Gandhi almost the canonical Anti-Hitler, and perhaps as much of an outlier, personality-wise?
Well, we could try without Roosevelt, possibly leading to a non-democratic USA growing from the depression era? So maybe ‘democracy is not inevitable’ as a moral?
Without Charles II of England (good for a king learning somewhat to live with Parliament)… no idea how that would have gone, actually.
No Nelson Mandela or Gandhi… maybe less appreciation for non-violence as an effective tactic? But that doesn’t tell us much, we know that non-violence can be pretty effective, it’s been used all over. In the counterfactual world we wouldn’t know this, but it doesn’t make it less likely to be true. Maybe without Gandhi there would have been another model of decolonisation and maybe—very maybe—it might have been better, so we need to take that into consideration, and think that decolonisation might work better than we know?
You do realize Roosevelt was pretty undemocratic right?
I doubt it. The British negotiated with Gandhi’s crew instead of the rest of the revolutionaries because they could save face that way by not having to fold to violent methods. Gandhi provided the release valve for the pressure built up by the violent factions. If he hadn’t been there, I think it would have gone much worse.
EDIT: I’m not a historian or anything. This could be wrong.
I think so too. But it’s possible there’s a model of decolonisation that we missed, and that they might have been able to find without Gandhi. Possible but not likely; unlikely but not impossible.
There are probably better examples that that, if you are looking for other decolonisation methods.