Was the British empire evil?

[enchanted]

Great conversation on this topic. Hasan and Bigger debate this topic both making good points. I bet many people wrestle with this topic or just prefer not to think about it: Should people look to their past with awe or with guilt?

 

[enchanted]

The issue here they are debating is whether moral relativism for me but not for thee is appropriate 

[enchanted]

Hasan is arguing that European colonialist were particularly evil, while Biggar is arguing that everyone's equally evil and white people should not feel bad about colonialism.

What do you guys think?

Edited 23 hours ago by enchanted

[LordFall]

Well of course it was evil but what to do about it is a good question. Humans are an apex predator and we're still fighting to the death for control over the planet so of course our history is gonna be mostly a giant struggle with violence and evil acts as part of every kingdom, empire and country. 

Reparations are an important topic and civil rights are a beautiful concept that we figured out. 

[Schizophonia]

Individuality is an illusion; individuals are the instruments of collective subjects and of history in general.

The British Empire came about as the automatic, logical result of material conditions and by extension of the mental structures those conditions engender in people.

You view it as ""bad"" because your mental structures and thus your superego are the product of modern living conditions within your social position; it therefore has nothing to do with the British Empire.

The dichotomies of good vs evil, selfish vs altruistic etc are delusional, childish, and narcisstistic because it's always lowkey about placing oneself above another. It can manifest via affirmer domination/sadism (generally the right-wing perspective; the nationalism by exemple) or conversely via a masochistic/guilt inducing stance (generally the left-wing perspective); yet in both cases the underlying aim is to signal one's superiority over others.

Edited 22 hours ago by Schizophonia

[LordFall]

@Schizophonia I think you're right that a lot of it is moral posturing but a lot of it is genuinely figuring out the proper way to live vs what is damaging. Analyzing the past is one of the main tools for us doing that. 

Moral relativism is also an interesting idea to deconstruct but on this earth is mostly false as things are only relative to an extent. 

[Schizophonia]

9 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@Schizophonia I think you're right that a lot of it is moral posturing but a lot of it is genuinely figuring out the proper way to live vs what is damaging. Analyzing the past is one of the main tools for us doing that. 

Moral relativism is also an interesting idea to deconstruct but on this earth is mostly false as things are only relative to an extent. 

The British Empire came about because it was in the interest of enough people.

Including among the colonized populations: the United Kingdom brought technology, infrastructure, and peace or unity. The unification of India, for example, was made possible by the British.

Edited 19 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Schizophonia]

Al Jazeera is an anti-western qatari agent of influence

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Schizophonia

[LordFall]

11 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

The British Empire came about because it was in the interest of enough people.

Including among the colonized populations: the United Kingdom brought technology, infrastructure, and peace or unity. The unification of India, for example, was made possible by the British.

Sure, some evil things have a foundation of good, perhaps all evil things even. Deconstruction of evil is an interesting subject. 

Slavery benefits the recipients of it, it's a great business model. Doesn't mean it's not evil.

Perhaps we can define evil as causing more harm than good. 

[Elliott]

6 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

 

The British Empire came about as the automatic, logical result of material conditions and by extension of the mental structures those conditions engender in people.

 

That's what evil refers to, psychopathy

Edited 15 hours ago by Elliott

[trenton]

57 minutes ago, Elliott said:

That's what evil refers to, psychopathy

I tend to associate evil more with sadism and impunity. It is not necessarily psychopathic but could be narcissistic. Furthermore psychopaths are not necessarily con artists, rapists, or murders.

Impunity is what you get when soldiers invade another country and terrorize the population through genocidal rape. Impunity exploits a power imbalance to harm others oftentimes just because they can. The rape of Nanking comes to mind when considering "evil."

[LordFall]

To be fair I don't really judge evil and I think the religious view on it is very stupid. I was lucky to have grown up in Canada and my dad is a fairly socialist type of dude. If I was raised in a more brutal environment where beating the enemy was celebrated I would've thrived under that as well, I love competition and am more logical than emotional.

Watching Rome HBO I learned I would've been a terrible person if I was given power naturally lol 

[Elliott]

43 minutes ago, trenton said:

I tend to associate evil more with sadism and impunity. It is not necessarily psychopathic but could be narcissistic. Furthermore psychopaths are not necessarily con artists, rapists, or murders.

Impunity is what you get when soldiers invade another country and terrorize the population through genocidal rape. Impunity exploits a power imbalance to harm others oftentimes just because they can. The rape of Nanking comes to mind when considering "evil."

By psychopathy i mean no regard for another human. I don't mean all psychopaths are evil, I just mean I think that's the element with a horrific act that makes it evil.

Edited 13 hours ago by Elliott

[Ajay0]

9 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

The unification of India, for example, was made possible by the British.

India was a singular entity in religious scriptural history under emperor Yudhisthira, and in official recorded history as well  under the emperors Chandragupta Maurya (350–295 BCE), Bindusara (320 BCE – 273 BCE), Ashoka the Great(304 – 232 BCE),  Samudragupta (335–375 CE)and Vikramaditya  (375-415 CE) to name a few.

Adi Shankaracharya in the eighth century CE created four mathas or monasteries in the four distant corners of India showcasing its cultural unity.

This singular identity and sovereignty was used by Indian freedom fighters and leaders to project their future vision of India back then during the freedom struggle against western colonialism.

The Brits themselves were colonised by the Romans for centuries and the later Normans who now form the snobbish british upper class and suppressed the local english population. Much of the earlier Norman rulers of Britain only used French and did not even know english.

Through conquest of Ireland and Scotland, the norman rulers created the foundation of modern UK as well.

Edited 10 hours ago by Ajay0

[Leo Gura]

Every empire is evil.

[Ajay0]

Comparatively speaking, the british had better value systems, and superior administrative, technological, legal and sociological structures compared to other european nations.

This could be due to its geographic isolation that prevented numerous foreign invasions and resulting in long periods of stability, peace and consequent progress instead of regression in war and chaos. It's small size also brought about superior administrative skills and technological growth to make the most of their limited resources through necessity, similar to Japan.

Har Dayal Sharma was an Indian freedom fighter who lived in europe , and after his observations there, came to the above conclusion that the Brits were superior to the other nations in europe.

He even wrote a book praising British characteristics and comparing them favorably to other european nations. The Brits in India got hold of this book and even printed it at their own expense, as they were flattered by its theme.

Consequently there was a moderate to good relationship between the UK and India even after India's independence. This was in stark contrast to the persistent hostility between the Dutch and Indonesia, the French and Vietnam/Algeria, Germany and Namibia, Italy and Libya, Portugal and Angola, Spain and Phillipines, Belgium and Congo,and so on in modern times due to large-scale atrocities and genocides perpetrated.

Even in ancient europe, the atrocities of the romans in their european colonies antagonised much of their colonies to rebellion resulting in strife and conflict for many centuries.

[Basman]

Cringe woke anti-western presentism. Simple as.

The british could have been a lot worse considering. They had good things going for them too which they spread. At the end of the day, I would rather speak English than French or Spanish or some other nonce language.

[Leo Gura]

Is the American empire evil?

[Apparition of Jack]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Is the American empire evil?

I think my biggest problem with America is that it wants to be an empire without any of the responsibility. 
 

Usually empires use resources from other countries to provide for their population back at home (think of the grain dole in Ancient Rome), but America can’t even bring itself to give its own citizens healthcare.

Then look at foreign policy. It’s true all empires engage in various forms of massacres, wars of conquests etc from time to time, but more often then not they will then try to provide laws, infrastructure etc to their conquered provinces (even if only out of an attempt to display their own superiority.) When the British conquered India, for instance, they built railways, public offices, etc. Compare this to America in Iraq and Afghanistan for instance, where the Americans seemed to be content with letting the countries fall to chaos outside of a few “green zones” in the capital cities. Then there’s the issue of refusing to integrate conquered populations - say what you will about the British for instance, but they let Indians get educated in Britain, serve in their military, etc. Compare this to how Americans, even after invading Iraq and Afghanistan, still saw these people are “subhuman terrorists” they wanted nothing to do with, whilst effectively being in control of those countries. When America withdrew from Afghanistan in 2022 hundreds (if not thousands) of friendly Afghan citizens who helped the western nations were left behind (often at great risk to their safety), and calls to bring them over to the US itself were rejected for not wanting to bring more “brown people” into their country.

If you want global influence, that comes with global responsibility, which America seems both unable and unwilling to accept. I feel like people would be a lot less harsh if America seemed to genuinely be interested in at least attempting to uplift other countries (as well as their own), but the track record over the past several decades has soured too many people on this. That’s my take anyway.

[Schizophonia]

11 hours ago, Elliott said:

That's what evil refers to, psychopathy

The “lack of empathy” is relative; for a Jain it's wrong even to crush a fly.

I remember a guy here (maybe it was you? I can't remember) told me that hunting was bad. Personally I think I don't give a fu** and whoever says that is just a wimp.

But what intellectual point is there in calling each other bad or conversely fragile? The closest thing to something objective with possible sociological value/use is the link between mental structures and social conditions; history in general.