Worst in human history, period. The Mongols didn’t come anywhere close to clearing three continents (two Americas and Australia) of almost all native population and resettling them themselves, turning a fourth continent (Africa) into a supplier of slaves for centuries, creating a huge bloody mess on the fifth continent (India with tens of millions dead in famines that stopped instantly upon independence, China with the century of humiliation) and a bunch of other things too. There’s not much room to get worse, the Earth has only so many continents.
This is a provocative comment and I don’t have time to develop half the themes I find in it.
For example: This kind of historical critique plays a role in the struggle within and between civilizations, about which peoples and values rise and fall. In part, the current war in the Middle East is between two regimes which exist in order to reverse ancient wrongs (the destruction of the Second Temple and the defeat of Ali at Karbala).
Obviously some of the West’s current cultural and political struggles—over topics like immigration, liberal democracy, even Jewish power apparently—have a heavy historical dimension, which are of this nature. @habryka is not volunteering to regard everything that the West has done as better than the alternative, but he wants to affirm that the existence of America is better than its nonexistence, even if choosing its existence includes everything that led to its existence in this timeline.
I believe you’re a Russian living in America, and Russia has been through such struggles many times—in passing from imperial heartland to Soviet republic to democratic republic—and they have included an element of psychological warfare in which external powers with different values allied with internal critics of Russia, to aim at either the destruction or transformation of Russia. Russia in turn has been a persistent critic of western imperialism, first within the framing of socialism versus capitalism, now within the framing of multipolarity versus unipolarity.
Your accounting of the sins of western colonialism has a framing which to me is political and not just about body counts. At least that’s what I thought when you included China’s century of humiliation, which obviously matters for China, but in terms of death toll is not on the same level as Indian famines or depopulation of the Americas (unless you want to attribute late Qing calamities like the Taiping rebellion directly to the colonial powers, rather than to China’s internal struggle). So China might not belong on the list of the West’s greatest sins—but it helps politically to include China in the list, if you’re building a coalition against present-day western power, as Russia has tried to do.
You disapprove of @habryka wanting to affirm these aspects of the American past. My questions are: Do you see analogies between America’s situation now, and Russia after imperialism or after communism (or even, potentially, after Putin)? And, as someone who I believe is a participant in America, what do you think is the correct attitude? Would you want to go all the way to the Bobby Fischer solution—whites back to Europe, blacks back to Africa (and implicitly everyone else back to their homelands), hand the American continent back to the indigenous peoples? Or is the rise of progressivism an appropriate response, perhaps analogous to the rise of communism in 20th-century Russia? Also, if American civilization and/or European colonialism had never existed, are there good, important, even crucial features of our present world, that might never have existed as well?
I expect that the appropriate response is the rise of progressivism. That being said, one could steelman cousin_it’s position as follows: I’ve encountered an argument that European colonialism and capitalism didn’t just destroy indigenous peoples or make their lives miserable, but managed to give rise to a system which converts resources into progress far less efficiently than the counterfactual world and/or the system created by Russia (e.g. if the Western governments, unlike the USSR, deliberately undermined the quality of education, then educated people would have a higher quality of life, but progress rates would plummet). If the capitalist system was inefficient, then it would likely deserve being dismantled. However, I expect that even an inefficient system could be incrementally improved and made close to the optimal.
I’m not in the US. Will try answer your questions though.
Do you see analogies between America’s situation now, and Russia after imperialism or after communism (or even, potentially, after Putin)?
Not really. What analogies do you mean?
Would you want to go all the way to the Bobby Fischer solution—whites back to Europe, blacks back to Africa (and implicitly everyone else back to their homelands), hand the American continent back to the indigenous peoples? Or is the rise of progressivism an appropriate response, perhaps analogous to the rise of communism in 20th-century Russia?
I think the rise of progressivism is a good response, yeah. And it seems much less dangerous than Russian communism.
Also, if American civilization and/or European colonialism had never existed, are there good, important, even crucial features of our present world, that might never have existed as well?
I think if European colonialism had restricted itself to conquering and ruling, as most other empires did, and didn’t go for so much extermination and mass enslavement—then most good things about the present world would still have existed, and many other good things would have existed as well that don’t currently exist.
This seems unfair or at least simplified? The Mongols didn’t come close to clearing three continents, but that was a skill issue. In absolute numbers or geographical extent you can make the argument that Europe was very successful at expansion, but this isn’t a specifically European hobby—this is what humanity has been doing as far back as can be seen. Europe was very good at it because they had a decisive edge (guns and disease, mainly). Previous attempts stopped earlier for technological reasons (hard to hold an empire if it takes months to communicate with the provinces). Most of history is different cultures trying to do the same thing, with varying levels of success and brutality. The Yamnaya expansion had similar results, but without the smallpox, which suggests that if anything it was worse, because intentional.
To be clear, I’m not saying that colonialism was good. More something like “European colonialism was the largest in absolute numbers instance of a recurring human pattern” or something? That most high culture is based on enormous suffering and exploitation? British colonialism at least pretended at trying to help the natives. They also stopped the slave trade at large cost—this doesn’t absolve them of anything, of course, but I can’t imagine e.g. the Aztecs of even dreaming of such absurdities.
Believe it or not, I’m not against all conquest or imperialism. The main factor to me is that many (most?) empires in history were content to conquer and rule the natives. But European colonialism, on a huge part of territory it affected, went for extermination or mass enslavement instead. This unusual aspect, combined with the scale, is what makes it the worst atrocity to me.
I mean not all of it—British colonialism e.g. seems a lot more like Roman conquest (in fact a bit softer). At the other end of the spectrum is whatever the fuck was going on in King Leopold II’s rotten brain when he conceived of the Free Congo.
Worst in human history, period. The Mongols didn’t come anywhere close to clearing three continents (two Americas and Australia) of almost all native population and resettling them themselves, turning a fourth continent (Africa) into a supplier of slaves for centuries, creating a huge bloody mess on the fifth continent (India with tens of millions dead in famines that stopped instantly upon independence, China with the century of humiliation) and a bunch of other things too. There’s not much room to get worse, the Earth has only so many continents.
Comment withdrawn.
Yes, you’re right of course. I should’ve restricted to atrocities against humans. What we do to animals is the next level of horror.
This is a provocative comment and I don’t have time to develop half the themes I find in it.
For example: This kind of historical critique plays a role in the struggle within and between civilizations, about which peoples and values rise and fall. In part, the current war in the Middle East is between two regimes which exist in order to reverse ancient wrongs (the destruction of the Second Temple and the defeat of Ali at Karbala).
Obviously some of the West’s current cultural and political struggles—over topics like immigration, liberal democracy, even Jewish power apparently—have a heavy historical dimension, which are of this nature. @habryka is not volunteering to regard everything that the West has done as better than the alternative, but he wants to affirm that the existence of America is better than its nonexistence, even if choosing its existence includes everything that led to its existence in this timeline.
I believe you’re a Russian living in America, and Russia has been through such struggles many times—in passing from imperial heartland to Soviet republic to democratic republic—and they have included an element of psychological warfare in which external powers with different values allied with internal critics of Russia, to aim at either the destruction or transformation of Russia. Russia in turn has been a persistent critic of western imperialism, first within the framing of socialism versus capitalism, now within the framing of multipolarity versus unipolarity.
Your accounting of the sins of western colonialism has a framing which to me is political and not just about body counts. At least that’s what I thought when you included China’s century of humiliation, which obviously matters for China, but in terms of death toll is not on the same level as Indian famines or depopulation of the Americas (unless you want to attribute late Qing calamities like the Taiping rebellion directly to the colonial powers, rather than to China’s internal struggle). So China might not belong on the list of the West’s greatest sins—but it helps politically to include China in the list, if you’re building a coalition against present-day western power, as Russia has tried to do.
You disapprove of @habryka wanting to affirm these aspects of the American past. My questions are: Do you see analogies between America’s situation now, and Russia after imperialism or after communism (or even, potentially, after Putin)? And, as someone who I believe is a participant in America, what do you think is the correct attitude? Would you want to go all the way to the Bobby Fischer solution—whites back to Europe, blacks back to Africa (and implicitly everyone else back to their homelands), hand the American continent back to the indigenous peoples? Or is the rise of progressivism an appropriate response, perhaps analogous to the rise of communism in 20th-century Russia? Also, if American civilization and/or European colonialism had never existed, are there good, important, even crucial features of our present world, that might never have existed as well?
I expect that the appropriate response is the rise of progressivism. That being said, one could steelman cousin_it’s position as follows: I’ve encountered an argument that European colonialism and capitalism didn’t just destroy indigenous peoples or make their lives miserable, but managed to give rise to a system which converts resources into progress far less efficiently than the counterfactual world and/or the system created by Russia (e.g. if the Western governments, unlike the USSR, deliberately undermined the quality of education, then educated people would have a higher quality of life, but progress rates would plummet). If the capitalist system was inefficient, then it would likely deserve being dismantled. However, I expect that even an inefficient system could be incrementally improved and made close to the optimal.
I’m not in the US. Will try answer your questions though.
Not really. What analogies do you mean?
I think the rise of progressivism is a good response, yeah. And it seems much less dangerous than Russian communism.
I think if European colonialism had restricted itself to conquering and ruling, as most other empires did, and didn’t go for so much extermination and mass enslavement—then most good things about the present world would still have existed, and many other good things would have existed as well that don’t currently exist.
This seems unfair or at least simplified? The Mongols didn’t come close to clearing three continents, but that was a skill issue. In absolute numbers or geographical extent you can make the argument that Europe was very successful at expansion, but this isn’t a specifically European hobby—this is what humanity has been doing as far back as can be seen. Europe was very good at it because they had a decisive edge (guns and disease, mainly). Previous attempts stopped earlier for technological reasons (hard to hold an empire if it takes months to communicate with the provinces). Most of history is different cultures trying to do the same thing, with varying levels of success and brutality. The Yamnaya expansion had similar results, but without the smallpox, which suggests that if anything it was worse, because intentional.
To be clear, I’m not saying that colonialism was good. More something like “European colonialism was the largest in absolute numbers instance of a recurring human pattern” or something? That most high culture is based on enormous suffering and exploitation? British colonialism at least pretended at trying to help the natives. They also stopped the slave trade at large cost—this doesn’t absolve them of anything, of course, but I can’t imagine e.g. the Aztecs of even dreaming of such absurdities.
Believe it or not, I’m not against all conquest or imperialism. The main factor to me is that many (most?) empires in history were content to conquer and rule the natives. But European colonialism, on a huge part of territory it affected, went for extermination or mass enslavement instead. This unusual aspect, combined with the scale, is what makes it the worst atrocity to me.
I mean not all of it—British colonialism e.g. seems a lot more like Roman conquest (in fact a bit softer). At the other end of the spectrum is whatever the fuck was going on in King Leopold II’s rotten brain when he conceived of the Free Congo.
And yet Congo is now inhabited by its natives, while Australia after British “soft colonialism” isn’t.