HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.Progressives tell us that one of the sins of the United States is colonialism (even though this Republic's colonial adventures were few and rapidly ended). Still, they love to go on and on about the evil of imposing your domination by force over a people who have their own cultural outlook. That might does not make right, and on the arrogance of the "White Man's Burden" thinking that you need to shepherd this people (willing or not) to a "higher civilization" for their own good.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Fair enough. I can accept all of those propositions as axioms. Score one for Team Progressive.
So riddle me this, Prog-Man: How do you square that with the view that the Intellectual "Elite" takes of "Fly Over" country? That the inhabitants there are backwards (bitterly clinging to their guns and religion)? That they need to be led to a "higher civilization" by you, when they do not want those ideas imposed on them? That your public policy recommendations result in your ideas being imposed on them by force? That the White Man's Burden (sorry, sorry: Progressive Worldview) is a noble calling of yours that they are too backwards and (dare I speak the word?) savage to realize is forced on them for their own good? That their culture must be "lifted up" out of the darkness of ignorance and superstition, by the noble enlightened (i.e. you)?
You know, from where I stand, these look like the same thing. It's a cheap self-justification by you, no different than what would have been standard fare from a Kipling or a Conrad. The only difference is that they both wrote better then than you do now.
For a group of people who have entirely bought in to Smart uber alles, your intelligence doesn't seem so very intelligent.
6 comments:
It doesn't square because it doesn't have to and was never intended to do. If it weren't for bad faith, Movement Progressives would have no faith at all.
I think the Native Americans would argue about the short term colonial thing. The USA is an empire dressed up as a republic.
I suspect the claim, if any is made, will be about intent.
Colonialism, despite any claims to the contrary, was all about money and resources. Their intent was bad. Progressivism is about sweetness and light and the uplifting of humanity even when the results are bad. Their intent is good.
Luckily progressives have extra special insight to people's hearts so they can recognize intent and never even have to bother looking to results (which don't matter anyway).
Sherm, post modern analysis is that it's about power.
;-)
It's rather ironic how much better off most (not all) of the colonies were when ruled by empire rather than themselves isn't it? Why is colonialism bad again, aside from pomo multiculti bullshit about how if we stop Sati then we're unjustly oppressing the poor widdle natives?
If you take a man who lives in nature; who awaken every day knowing that this could be the first day that he begins to starve to death; who knows that the next time he falls ill he will probably die; who fights every day to eke out enough food to feed his family and fight off wild beasts competing with him for food, and give him a pair of levis, an air conditioned apartment, a job, and food security, he’ll slit your throat before he’ll allow you to send him back.
Much of the liberal desire to maintain primitive culture is ego, arrogance and racism. They want to allow these people to stay in their place, unmolested, for reasons that they’d never admit to. They know that the influence of modern society and culture would destroy these quaint little cultures if they were exposed to them, for the reason stated above – people don’t want to live that way, generally, and will fight to get out if given the chance. The people living in these cultures generally have no desire to maintain their culture – they’d trade it in second if given the chance to have a modern life. But the liberals want them to stay in their place, even though the people in question likely have no urge whatsoever to stay there.
To me, this changes the dynamic from ALLOWING these people to stay in their place, to KEEPING them in their place, which, in turn, causes me to realize that mostly what we’re talking about here looks an awful lot like a liberal attempt to “keep the n***ers in their place”, given that we’re talking about dark skinned folk, generally.
They like having their little human zoos, where they can watch these “ignorant, backwoods tribesmen” live their lives on guided eco-safaris. They want to keep the n***ers in their place so that they can have their little zoo attraction; their quaint little experiment being run on human lives.
That’s why liberals hate colonialism. To most of us, like all human endeavors, it was a mixed bag – bringing modernity to cultures that didn’t have it, while at the same time resulting in bad things, like the occasional genocide and war.
But to liberals, bringing modernity to a culture is just as bad as genocide – by giving these people the chance to live full lives beyond the age of 30, liberals feel as though we’ve murdered them as fully as if we’d just killed them all. It destroys their zoo, you see.
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