Of course if he did so, he would be instavoted down into oblivion.
Whenever you make such comments, you are making it impossible for me to upvote you, because if you end up upvoted, that’ll by itself show the falseness of your claim, and therefore it would be a post unworthy of an upvote.
I promise an upvote for your comment however, if you edit to remove this sentence, because the remaining points you make are very interesting and worthy of such. (edited to add: Now upvoted, as per promise.)
Now to the content-relevant bits:
One obvious example is decolonization, which killed more people than the nazis. No postcolonial government was as good as the colonial government it replaced.
You are making true claims as far as it goes, but I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture in regards to colonialism and decolonization both. For starters it’s my impression that the primary stated objections to colonization are deontological (“They don’t have the right to rule us/We don’t have the right to rule them”) as opposed to utilitarian (“We’re better off without them”/”They’re better off without us”)
Now I’m not a deontologist, but I wouldn’t mind calling myself a rule utilitarian. And what I see is that claiming the right to control another nation is still used by even Nazi-sympathisers to excuse Hitler’s policies (The argument is “If Britain had the right to rule over the hundreds millions in India, why couldn’t the Nazi be allowed to rule over Poland and Czechoslovakia”). It was also used by the Soviets and the Americans to excuse their own interference (in a different way).
In this manner, European colonialism served to justify both German and Japanese imperialism in the eyes of their citizens; thus contributing to World War II—it possibly had an even more direct effect on World War I, which may have been motivated by a German desire to take some colonies. And conversely after European Colonialism was defeated, and the rule “We must not control other nations by force” firmly established, one gradually sees peace descend on the European continent itself, and eventually a decrease in the amount of interference that the Soviets and Americans applied on their own spheres of influence too (Eastern Europe and South America respectively).
In short: In a world where European colonialism still thrived, would we have seen the Eastern European communist governments collapse? European decolonization had a primarily positive effect on Europe, the way I see it. Perhaps some Africans would want to be controlled by Europe again, I don’t see Europeans as willing to accept the offer though.
Lastly in your condemnation of decolonization, i’m not clear if you’re truly arguing: a) It was a wrong choice for the colonized people to seek independence or b) it was a wrong choice for the European nations to grant it to them
I think you’ll find it hard to argue for (b) -- effectively that France should still be wasting lives and money fighting wars in Algeria and Vietnam, or that the UK should be trying to crush the Indians violently. It’s easier to argue for (a) -- especially if you limit your argument to sub-Saharan Africa, where the borders were artificial, the national identity often nil, etc,etc.
For a thousand years before the mid nineteenth century, pretty much everyone agreed that equality between husbands and wives would destroy marriage and fatherhood.
Do you have a citation for that? It would surprise me to learn that such equality was even discussed about a thousand years ago.
And conversely after European Colonialism was defeated, and the rule “We must not control other nations by force” firmly established, one gradually sees peace descend on the European continent itself,
Are you sure that’s not just war fatigue following the world wars? Notable is that Europe experienced another period of peace of comparable length in the 19th century following the Napoleonic wars and the congress of Vienna. This despite that period being the height of colonialism.
and a decrease in the amount of interference in the Soviet and American spheres of influence too (Eastern Europe and South America respectively).
You fail to explain why this is obviously a good thing.
You fail to explain why this is obviously a good thing.
I care to justify points that are challenged, not points that aren’t challenged. Are you challenging the point—by which I mean “are you prepared to argue the opposite”?
Well, I fail to see how more Western European intervention in Eastern Europe and the Soviet sphere more generally would not have improved the lives of the residents of that sphere.
Ah, I think I just confused you with a badly phrased statement. I meant a reduction of the Soviet and American interference in their own formerly solidly-controlled spheres (will edit ancestor comment to make it more clear).
Well the USSR had sufficient control over it’s sphere that it didn’t need to “interfere” per se despite the norm against colonialism.
As for the US, it could reasonably be argued that Latin America would be better off with more US interference for the same reason Africa was better off under colonialism.
Well the USSR had sufficient control over it’s sphere that it didn’t need to “interfere” per se despite the norm against colonialism.
I seem to recollect conventional Soviet invasions of obstreperous Soviet puppet states followed by massacres by Soviet troops and soviet secret police.
One can argue that western Europe is largely puppet states of the US state department, but the State Department employs more decorous methods that do not leave behind so many bloodstains.
Well the USSR had sufficient control over it’s sphere that it didn’t need to “interfere” per se despite the norm against colonialism.
In the 1950s Kruschev used Anglo-French intervention in Egypt as an excuse/justification for not withdrawing from Hungary.
The Soviet Invasion of Aghanistan was opposed by the entire postcolonial world, including post-colonial states like India and Pakistan. The Soviet defeat at Afghanistan then may have led directly to the “Sinatra doctrine” which enabled the whole of Eastern Europe falling away.
As for the US, it could reasonably be argued that Latin America would be better off with more US interference for the same reason Africa was better off under colonialism.
And what I see is that claiming the right to control another nation is still used by even Nazi-sympathisers to excuse Hitler’s policies (The argument is “If Britain had the right to rule over the hundreds millions in India, why couldn’t the Nazi be allowed to rule over Poland and Czechoslovakia”).
That anti colonialism is objecting to “the right to control another nation” fails to describe the situation with Vietnam, Rhodesia and South Africa, where anti colonialism was used as justification to interfere with foreigners.
To describe anti colonialism as opposition to the right of one nation to control another is as misleading as describing PC speech controls as courtesy.
Anti imperialism is opposition to the right of one country to control another. Anti colonialism was typically the objection of the metropolitan elite to the colonial elite. Anti colonialism was those whose power and wealth derived from the capital, objecting to those whose power and wealth derived from the colonies
South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, were supposedly not anti colonialist enough and therefore needed to be ruled by adequately anti colonial outsiders (members of the North Vietnamese communist party who spent most of their lives in Moscow) for their own good. Rhodesia was not under attack from Rhodesian blacks.
The Indochinese wars were imperial wars more than they were anticolonialist wars, and the imperialist side (communist) was the anticolonialist side. The same is true of the wars against Rhodesia. Mugabe’s powerbase was in London and the UN, not in Rhodesia, his powerbase was the traditional imperial powers.
The most celebrated anti colonial conflicts had imperialists fighting colonialism.
Many “anti colonial” conflicts seem to involve “anti colonialists” with connections to ruling class universities in the metropolitan country, fighting “colonialists” without such connection,Mugabe comes from London School of Economics: Bishop Muzorewa went to a no name US university. And so the world removed Muzorewa and
installed Mugabe, murdering as many Rhodesian blacks as necessary to ensure the right “democratic” outcome.
That really does not look much like Rhodesian blacks ruling themselves.
I think you’ll find it hard to argue for (b) -- effectively that France should still be wasting lives and money fighting wars in Algeria and Vietnam
France was fighting a colonial war in Vietnam? Surely the events that followed the French fleeing suggest that this was a war with the Soviet Union, not a war with France’s Vietnamese subjects, that the anti colonialist side was also the imperialist side. And if you find those events unconvincing, the events that followed the Americans fleeing should have convinced you.
The war with Algeria was indeed a colonial war, with colonialists and imperialists on the same side, and anti colonialists and Islamists on the other side. Let us recall, however, how and why the French got into what is now Algeria in the first place.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them. So the French occupied the lands from which the terrorists attacked the most, and settled those lands with non Muslim settlers.
Algeria was a message to Muslims: Attack Christians, lose your land. Very eleventh century, and as in the eleventh century, it worked.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism. When the French fled Algeria in 1960, Islamic terrorism resumed.
Europeans are considerably worse off for forcing European settlers out of Algeria, just as Jews are considerably worse off for forcing Jewish settlers out of the Gaza strip.
that the UK should be trying to crush the Indians violently
The UK was trying to crush the Indians violently?
The Indian independence movement was as much sponsored by the LSE and other British elite universities as the Rhodesian “independence” movement. Ghandi was a mascot. India continued to stagnate in poverty and communal violence until it finally got leaders from less “anti colonialist” (but suspiciously imperial) sources.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them.
The confluence of piracy and terrorism in contemporary Somalia has led a lot of people to conflate the two, but not every act of violence involving Muslims is terrorism. The motives of the Muslims in the Barbary Wars have little to do with the motives of Salifists.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism.
But if you are going to insist on such an overbroad definition of terrorism, then your latter statement is false, false, false, false.
For a thousand years before the mid nineteenth century, pretty much everyone agreed that equality between husbands and wives would destroy marriage and fatherhood.
Do you have a citation for that? It would surprise me to learn that such equality was even discussed about a thousand years ago.
The status of women was not a government issue until the nineteenth century, but a private issue for families. In this sense, it was discussed, but not as a political question. Consider, for example the Paxton family quarrel over the right of daughters to choose their own husbands. The Paxtons tended to use their daughters as poker chips in the long struggle over the Falstoff inheritance, and the Bishop of Norwich was drawn into this drama to arbitrate between mother and daughter. While the Bishop correctly upheld the Christian doctrine of marriage by consent, he was arguably disturbed by the potential threat to the institution of marriage.
“The taming of the shrew” also addresses this issue, in this sense. Note that Petruchio has to tame Katherina without giving her the thrashing she so richly deserves, whereas Margaret could and did beat her daughter Margary in an manner alarming and scandalous, even though according to Christian doctrine (that marriage is by consent) Margary was completely in the right, and Margaret completely in the wrong.
The Paxtons tended to use their daughters as poker chips in the long struggle over the Falstoff inheritance, and the Bishop of Norwich was drawn into this drama to arbitrate between mother and daughter. While the Bishop correctly upheld the Christian doctrine of marriage by consent, he was arguably disturbed by the potential threat to the institution of marriage.
I’ve not been able to find the case you describe. Googling “Paxton” together with “Falstoff” just takes me back to your comment. “Paxton family” doesn’t give me anything seemingly relevant either.
Anyway, I was hoping for something that would show me specifically that “For a thousand years before the mid nineteenth century, pretty much everyone agreed that equality between husbands and wives would destroy marriage and fatherhood.”, as you claimed. Especially the destruction of “fatherhood” part.
Whenever you make such comments, you are making it impossible for me to upvote you, because if you end up upvoted, that’ll by itself show the falseness of your claim, and therefore it would be a post unworthy of an upvote.
I promise an upvote for your comment however, if you edit to remove this sentence, because the remaining points you make are very interesting and worthy of such. (edited to add: Now upvoted, as per promise.)
Now to the content-relevant bits:
You are making true claims as far as it goes, but I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture in regards to colonialism and decolonization both. For starters it’s my impression that the primary stated objections to colonization are deontological (“They don’t have the right to rule us/We don’t have the right to rule them”) as opposed to utilitarian (“We’re better off without them”/”They’re better off without us”)
Now I’m not a deontologist, but I wouldn’t mind calling myself a rule utilitarian. And what I see is that claiming the right to control another nation is still used by even Nazi-sympathisers to excuse Hitler’s policies (The argument is “If Britain had the right to rule over the hundreds millions in India, why couldn’t the Nazi be allowed to rule over Poland and Czechoslovakia”). It was also used by the Soviets and the Americans to excuse their own interference (in a different way).
In this manner, European colonialism served to justify both German and Japanese imperialism in the eyes of their citizens; thus contributing to World War II—it possibly had an even more direct effect on World War I, which may have been motivated by a German desire to take some colonies. And conversely after European Colonialism was defeated, and the rule “We must not control other nations by force” firmly established, one gradually sees peace descend on the European continent itself, and eventually a decrease in the amount of interference that the Soviets and Americans applied on their own spheres of influence too (Eastern Europe and South America respectively).
In short: In a world where European colonialism still thrived, would we have seen the Eastern European communist governments collapse? European decolonization had a primarily positive effect on Europe, the way I see it. Perhaps some Africans would want to be controlled by Europe again, I don’t see Europeans as willing to accept the offer though.
Lastly in your condemnation of decolonization, i’m not clear if you’re truly arguing:
a) It was a wrong choice for the colonized people to seek independence
or
b) it was a wrong choice for the European nations to grant it to them
I think you’ll find it hard to argue for (b) -- effectively that France should still be wasting lives and money fighting wars in Algeria and Vietnam, or that the UK should be trying to crush the Indians violently. It’s easier to argue for (a) -- especially if you limit your argument to sub-Saharan Africa, where the borders were artificial, the national identity often nil, etc,etc.
Do you have a citation for that? It would surprise me to learn that such equality was even discussed about a thousand years ago.
Are you sure that’s not just war fatigue following the world wars? Notable is that Europe experienced another period of peace of comparable length in the 19th century following the Napoleonic wars and the congress of Vienna. This despite that period being the height of colonialism.
You fail to explain why this is obviously a good thing.
I care to justify points that are challenged, not points that aren’t challenged. Are you challenging the point—by which I mean “are you prepared to argue the opposite”?
Well, I fail to see how more Western European intervention in Eastern Europe and the Soviet sphere more generally would not have improved the lives of the residents of that sphere.
Ah, I think I just confused you with a badly phrased statement. I meant a reduction of the Soviet and American interference in their own formerly solidly-controlled spheres (will edit ancestor comment to make it more clear).
Well the USSR had sufficient control over it’s sphere that it didn’t need to “interfere” per se despite the norm against colonialism.
As for the US, it could reasonably be argued that Latin America would be better off with more US interference for the same reason Africa was better off under colonialism.
I seem to recollect conventional Soviet invasions of obstreperous Soviet puppet states followed by massacres by Soviet troops and soviet secret police.
One can argue that western Europe is largely puppet states of the US state department, but the State Department employs more decorous methods that do not leave behind so many bloodstains.
In the 1950s Kruschev used Anglo-French intervention in Egypt as an excuse/justification for not withdrawing from Hungary.
The Soviet Invasion of Aghanistan was opposed by the entire postcolonial world, including post-colonial states like India and Pakistan. The Soviet defeat at Afghanistan then may have led directly to the “Sinatra doctrine” which enabled the whole of Eastern Europe falling away.
An interactive graph
Africa has fallen behind the rest of the world in a way that Latin America hasn’t.
That anti colonialism is objecting to “the right to control another nation” fails to describe the situation with Vietnam, Rhodesia and South Africa, where anti colonialism was used as justification to interfere with foreigners.
To describe anti colonialism as opposition to the right of one nation to control another is as misleading as describing PC speech controls as courtesy.
Anti imperialism is opposition to the right of one country to control another. Anti colonialism was typically the objection of the metropolitan elite to the colonial elite. Anti colonialism was those whose power and wealth derived from the capital, objecting to those whose power and wealth derived from the colonies
South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, were supposedly not anti colonialist enough and therefore needed to be ruled by adequately anti colonial outsiders (members of the North Vietnamese communist party who spent most of their lives in Moscow) for their own good. Rhodesia was not under attack from Rhodesian blacks.
The Indochinese wars were imperial wars more than they were anticolonialist wars, and the imperialist side (communist) was the anticolonialist side. The same is true of the wars against Rhodesia. Mugabe’s powerbase was in London and the UN, not in Rhodesia, his powerbase was the traditional imperial powers.
The most celebrated anti colonial conflicts had imperialists fighting colonialism.
Many “anti colonial” conflicts seem to involve “anti colonialists” with connections to ruling class universities in the metropolitan country, fighting “colonialists” without such connection,Mugabe comes from London School of Economics: Bishop Muzorewa went to a no name US university. And so the world removed Muzorewa and installed Mugabe, murdering as many Rhodesian blacks as necessary to ensure the right “democratic” outcome.
That really does not look much like Rhodesian blacks ruling themselves.
France was fighting a colonial war in Vietnam? Surely the events that followed the French fleeing suggest that this was a war with the Soviet Union, not a war with France’s Vietnamese subjects, that the anti colonialist side was also the imperialist side. And if you find those events unconvincing, the events that followed the Americans fleeing should have convinced you.
The war with Algeria was indeed a colonial war, with colonialists and imperialists on the same side, and anti colonialists and Islamists on the other side. Let us recall, however, how and why the French got into what is now Algeria in the first place.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them. So the French occupied the lands from which the terrorists attacked the most, and settled those lands with non Muslim settlers.
Algeria was a message to Muslims: Attack Christians, lose your land. Very eleventh century, and as in the eleventh century, it worked.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism. When the French fled Algeria in 1960, Islamic terrorism resumed.
Europeans are considerably worse off for forcing European settlers out of Algeria, just as Jews are considerably worse off for forcing Jewish settlers out of the Gaza strip.
The UK was trying to crush the Indians violently?
The Indian independence movement was as much sponsored by the LSE and other British elite universities as the Rhodesian “independence” movement. Ghandi was a mascot. India continued to stagnate in poverty and communal violence until it finally got leaders from less “anti colonialist” (but suspiciously imperial) sources.
The confluence of piracy and terrorism in contemporary Somalia has led a lot of people to conflate the two, but not every act of violence involving Muslims is terrorism. The motives of the Muslims in the Barbary Wars have little to do with the motives of Salifists.
But if you are going to insist on such an overbroad definition of terrorism, then your latter statement is false, false, false, false.
The status of women was not a government issue until the nineteenth century, but a private issue for families. In this sense, it was discussed, but not as a political question. Consider, for example the Paxton family quarrel over the right of daughters to choose their own husbands. The Paxtons tended to use their daughters as poker chips in the long struggle over the Falstoff inheritance, and the Bishop of Norwich was drawn into this drama to arbitrate between mother and daughter. While the Bishop correctly upheld the Christian doctrine of marriage by consent, he was arguably disturbed by the potential threat to the institution of marriage.
“The taming of the shrew” also addresses this issue, in this sense. Note that Petruchio has to tame Katherina without giving her the thrashing she so richly deserves, whereas Margaret could and did beat her daughter Margary in an manner alarming and scandalous, even though according to Christian doctrine (that marriage is by consent) Margary was completely in the right, and Margaret completely in the wrong.
I’ve not been able to find the case you describe. Googling “Paxton” together with “Falstoff” just takes me back to your comment. “Paxton family” doesn’t give me anything seemingly relevant either.
Anyway, I was hoping for something that would show me specifically that “For a thousand years before the mid nineteenth century, pretty much everyone agreed that equality between husbands and wives would destroy marriage and fatherhood.”, as you claimed. Especially the destruction of “fatherhood” part.