Have you read James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed? I recommend it in general, but I think his description of southeast Asian empires has them displaying a lot of Ra-ness. People in empires are self-described as being better even when their lives as similar to—but worse—than the lives of people outside the empire.
The thing is, it isn’t ethnocentrism. Sometimes the people inside the empire and outside the empire are of the same ethnicity. It’s just that people inside the empire have a very strong system of self-congratulation.
Have you read James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed? I recommend it in general, but I think his description of southeast Asian empires has them displaying a lot of Ra-ness. People in empires are self-described as being better even when their lives as similar to—but worse—than the lives of people outside the empire.
I’ve read Seeing like a State but not that one. I’m not sure how that kind of ethnocentrism is Ra-like.
The thing is, it isn’t ethnocentrism. Sometimes the people inside the empire and outside the empire are of the same ethnicity. It’s just that people inside the empire have a very strong system of self-congratulation.