Niall Ferguson

[vogtmurr]

Um, nice try there with the ethos. But more importantly, you still don't get it, do you, even after I spelled it out so clearly? If you don't understand how "relatively good" doesn't mean 'good' or 'not bad', then you either have a fundamental linguistic misunderstanding or just plain bad sense.

Whats there to get ? Its simple - and you've made it clear. I never rejected your's or Masada's or kangaru's right to express moral indignation at what is rightfully so. 50-350 years ago does span a bit of time but not so distant that we don't have some understanding of moral responsibilities and necessities from that era. And even if you won't take that into consideration, your overall assessment in my opinion, is biased, unrealistic and inaccurate. And I called you on it because it seems like hypocrisy you don't turn that unwavering judgement elsewhere as well.

I know my little example didn't impress you, but it almost made me teary. Think about it; in N. Africa and Italy we had Brits, Aussies, S. Africans, Kiwis, Maoris, Indians, Pakistanis, Rhodesians, Nigerians, Canadians and their Natives, along with Ethiopians, Greeks, Free French, North Africans, Czechs, Poles and Americans; all sharing a common burden. When are you likely to see that again ? Shame it takes a war to bring out the best (and worst) in people.
Anyway it's over; the former colonies all gained their independence, peacefully for the most part. They are citizens of a commonwealth of nations which to some still means something, and has legal privileges and responsibilities.

 

[aelf]

Whats there to get ? Its simple - and you've made it clear. I never rejected your's or Masada's or kangaru's right to express moral indignation at what is rightfully so. 50-350 years ago does span a bit of time but not so distant that we don't have some understanding of moral responsibilities and necessities from that era. And even if you won't take that into consideration, your overall assessment in my opinion, is biased, unrealistic and inaccurate. And I called you on it because it seems like hypocrisy you don't turn that unwavering judgement elsewhere as well.

What exactly is biased, unrealistic and inaccurate about it? My argument is simple and not exactly made of controversial stuff: You as an individual equipped with hindsight and modern sensibilities cannot fail to look upon the ethical merits of historical events with the common standards of today. If you're going to get all Hegelian and talk about virtues being determined by the spirit of the age or something to that effect, then you must also acknowledge that you cannot fail to be (as consistently as you can) a person of this age to not be considered lacking.

And where is this hypocrisy you talk about? Did you just make that up?

I know my little example didn't impress you, but it almost made me teary. Think about it; in N. Africa and Italy we had Brits, Aussies, S. Africans, Kiwis, Maoris, Indians, Pakistanis, Rhodesians, Nigerians, Canadians and their Natives, along with Ethiopians, Greeks, Free French, North Africans, Czechs, Poles and Americans; all sharing a common burden. When are you likely to see that again ? Shame it takes a war to bring out the best (and worst) in people.

How on earth is this relevant to anything?

 

[Masada]

Masada it is difficlt to know much about the Maori pre colonisation as they had no written records.

... that's rubbish. Maori left a rich oral tradition which is of more use historically than say the great Javanese epic the Nagarakrtagama or Malacca's Sejarah Melayu. Which goes some way to explain why the narrative histories we have for Maori are usually better than I might expect for say Majapahit.

It is known that some trbes were warlike and they practiced slavery and would raid other tribes.

And? That doesn't prove your claim that some tribes were at threat of extinction or wholesale enslavement.

As I said here the tribes have a political reason to blame everything on the British but the Maori got the vote before white women did and they had full citizenship very early on in the colonial period.

Er, I'm not sure how either of those counts as some sort of sweeping justification for British rule. And even then, the truth is rather different from the picture you're presenting. Maori got to vote on a Maori roll in 1867. But we couldn't vote on the open registers till 1976. In effect, we were second class citizens who were allowed to vote but only along racial lines. Moreover, the number of Maori seats was fixed at four, despite the growth in size of Parliament (from 76 to 99) and our population relative to pākehā during the period. As such, we saw our voice in the country diminish all the way through to 1976. As to citizenship, it was a pretty poor consolation considering that the much vaunted Treaty of Waitangi promised Maori:

Hei wakaritenga mai hoki tenei mo te wakaaetanga ki te Kawanatanga o te Kuini – Ka tiakina e te Kuini o Ingarani nga tangata maori katoa o Nu Tirani ka tukua ki a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani.

In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.

Those rights and privileges would I assume include the right to vote on an open roll?

Personally I have heard everything form the whites are a pack of scum through to Maori realising that it is easier working in a modern office to digging a hole in the ground with a wooden spade.

Woah, that's a revelation. Maori are not ********. Jeez. I mean, even those kaffar African slumrats realise that.

Most Maori more or less want to work, have a few drinks, own a car, TV and playstation.

Jeez. Maori are not wired different.

Basically much the same as everybody else and 50% of modern Maori are in an interracial relationship.

Nor are they bigots.

It took around 5 minutes in colonial times for the Maori and settlers to jump into bed with each other.

WHITEWIMMEN4LYFE AYE BRO?

Social commentators here have said that most racial probelms here will be solved between the bedsheets.

SEXHEALSALLWOUNDS now there's an original thought! I <3 those unnamed commentators.

We never had segregation here and no civil rights movement as there was no legal discrimination stopping a Maori voting.

... Yes, we did. I've demonstrated some of the former. And latter is a Wiki search away: the Maori Protest Movement ring a bell? M&#257;ori Women's Welfare League? New Zealand M&#257;ori Council? The Waitangi Day protests? The Treaty Is a Fraud Campaign? Bastion Point? Raglan? '75 Land March? I mean seriously, if you weren't taught this at school you had to have lived through it.

Most problems for the Maori these days are socio-economic ones and the successive governments have tried to fix that in various ways and the situation is improving with more Maori graduates from uni and polytech.

... Yes, maybe. I'm not sure that Maori graduates are proof of success however. Even then, what caused the socio-economic disadvantage that Maori are having to overcome?

If everyone is dead who are you going to hold responsable?

... except they often aren't. My grandmother has been a direct party to two seperate lands claims, both of which date to her lifetime. My grandfather has been party to three, two of which occurred during his lifetime, the third occurred while his mother was still alive. The most recent case happened only in the late 70s and relates to an improper seizure of a deceased Maori person's estate by the Crown. The earliest case relates to the improper seizure of Maori land in the 1880s. At the time it is now recognised that it was impossible for Maori to (A) bring the matter to court and (B) to expect a fair result. As a result of that, the courts allowed Maori to bring cases like that before them for a judgement in the less-bigoted present.

Lets hold the modern Arabian countries responsable for Islamic expansion shall we? Who would you hold accoutable for the slave trade for example?

I would have no problem if some doods decided to sue Zanzibar for enslaving their ancestors. It might not work but I think there's a clear principle that one could sue people or states in a civil court for events that have happened in the past.

Should modern states be liable to the UK for money that investors paid in colonialist days for infrastructure built?

Indonesia managed to get the Dutch to do just that. Obviously, it wasn't put quite in those terms and wasn't a reflection of the actual harm involved. Sukarno was rather good at holding Dutch assets to ransom. Shame the game had to end.

However if the BE was as exploitive and evil as some people here are claiming why would countries voluntarily join the commonwealth?

Because people don't deal in absolute evil or absolute good. That's also beside the point that while the Commonwealth is the legal successor to the British Empire it's character is wholly different to that of the British Empire. For instance, I couldn't in good conscience have associated with the ALP of the 1940s because of its support for White Australia but I could associate with the modern ALP (the same party) because it no longer supports White Australia.

Masada IIRC you are of african descent.

News to me; I suppose once in the looooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggggg ago.

Without colonisation you probably wouldn't have your PC to post on CFC and you are a smart guy from numerous posts.

Ethiopia?

Would you honestly prefer to live in modern Africa or a alt history Africa or the modern liberal democracy you live in now?

False dichotomy? I could be chilling in Singapore or Indonesia quite happily.

I don't know why I bothered - its not like I have a personal stake in the game or even a relative who did. I come from a former colony, that along with many others took to the defense of the free world, including yours, alongside our commonwealth partners. Thats my only fetish - other than you used to be able to travel to all kinds of really cool places in the world, and be greeted with relative law and order.

Liking the Commonwealth is quite distinct from apologising for the British Empire? I like the Commonwealth for much the same reasons. I also dislike it for tolerating Zimbabwe as long as it did. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

'colonialism' as a concept was inevitable - get over it, and in the broadest definition it still goes on today. I agree, we'd be better off without it ever happening - this mindset of smug and selective judgement in the 21st century shows how much we've evolved.

How was it inevitable? Cheezy is probably the better person to make this arguement and I've seen him make it quite well. Modern colonialism and imperialism is of a different texture to what went before it.

 

[BananaLee]

As the other Kiwi on this board, I'll just poke my nose in and refuse to dive in.

 

[Quackers]

Anyway giving the Maori's Rugby made international Rugby a lot more interesting.

 

[Masada]

Agreed. Even the South Africans realised that.

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: Can people please restrict themselves to (a) the topic of Niall Ferguson, and (b) civil and respectful modes of discourse?

 

[SnowlyWhite]

The historical myths thread is thataway --->

and doing an average of the sum of GBPs of some countries in Africa is where(yeah, I know, it's unfair given the sorry state of French colonies...)

I won't moan as much when so many people aren't so ready to glorify past societies and their bloody conquests and injustices.

it's not about glory or anything; it's about common sense - if I'm presented with options a[1] - a[n], out of which a[4] is the best, I'll pick a[4]... And no, I won't think that ppl. 200 years ago were stupid because they didn't have a computer either.

and sorry I've asked who ferguson is; actually was wondering if he has something to do with economics

 

[Lord Baal]

He wrote a horrible book on the history of economics once, which Masada roundly destroyed. Basically he's a competent - not great, or even good - historian who has decided to push for fame rather than respect, and therefore gone crazy with the gibberish.

 

[aelf]

it's not about glory or anything; it's about common sense - if I'm presented with options a[1] - a[n], out of which a[4] is the best, I'll pick a[4]... And no, I won't think that ppl. 200 years ago were stupid because they didn't have a computer either.

One last thing. Saying what people people did 200 years ago or whatever was bad doesn't mean saying that they were stupid or even that they were morally degenerate. The end.

 

[vogtmurr]

First off - I'll just say I dont know squat about Niall Ferguson.

What exactly is biased, unrealistic and inaccurate about it? My argument is simple and not exactly made of controversial stuff: You as an individual equipped with hindsight and modern sensibilities cannot fail to look upon the ethical merits of historical events with the common standards of today. If you're going to get all Hegelian and talk about virtues being determined by the spirit of the age or something to that effect, then you must also acknowledge that you cannot fail to be (as consistently as you can) a person of this age to not be considered lacking.

Your argument and others was a simple cold condemnation - that colonialism and the British Empire in particular are evil. How can anything so abstract as colonialism, a concept as kangaru pointed out, or wide reaching and involving so many different events and people as the British Empire, be summed up in such a shallow and 1-dimensional modern assessment ? It strikes me this is woefully misinformed, or someone has an agenda of their own. Now if you were pointing out some particularly nasty business that took place I wouldn't even get in to the ring with you. If you were compiling a long exhaustive list of crimes (as I'm sure you are capable) and using it to represent the whole, then someone should respond to that. I can only surmise that there is a current fad of lining up and firing broadsides at "those imperialistic pigs" that legitimizes it. But it gets my ire up, when people (you) express outrage that not everyone shares this view; stereotyped colonialists who long for the glory days and need to be ostracized. Are we in a tribunal ?

And where is this hypocrisy you talk about? Did you just make that up?

If you are unwilling to look at what happened before and after colonialism with the same blind justice, and recognize there were some gains and losses, pros and cons, then it is hypocritical. Australia, NZ, the United States, and every nation in the western hemisphere, has its foundation in colonialism - are they evil too ? Extending your application of theory to other eras is a test to see if you're reasoning is sound. If you can single out an empire that spanned the globe and influenced so many great nations, granted literacy (and great literature) and stimulated economic and political development, then you should have no problem with the following statements. Try them on for size:

"The Roman Empire was no better than the Nazis !"
"The Ottoman Empire was aggressive and oppressive - how could you think otherwise ?"
"China never forsook the evils of imperialism until Mao"
"The British Empire kept all the natives in a state of slavery"

urgh - it should turn your stomach how simple minded these statements are.

How on earth is this relevant to anything?

I know we don't necessarily share the same values. I was pointing out the willing collective action of such a disparate collection of dominions, crown colonies, and protectorates, towards their mutual defense when there was very little to feel confident about. That is a mark of a successful empire - and brought them together. It still continues with humanitarian aid and police actions in various trouble spots. Many people I knew had families that taught school and practised medicine under some pretty ugly conditions, and if nothing else, I find the denial that any good came of it offensive. There wouldn't be a Commonwealth if there had not been a British Empire.

Most of the counter-arguments made by Zardnaar have been pretty conciliatory. I must confess when I am confronted with this enthusiastic blame game which obscures a balanced view, I start to get reactionary, almost a counterbalance to the tenor of the accusations. Provocative arguments come to mind that really don't represent me personally, but nonetheless raise uncomfortable questions about double standards and the current state. So I apologize for playing 'devil's advocate' on occasion - it gets me in to trouble.... (though I've also noticed a disturbing tendency to dismiss as 'extreme' such views - like; someone who has a complaint about the law or the state must have run afoul of it by their own misdeeds. What a great way to silence dissidents !) ...but one thing I won't do is practice self-flagellation or endorse massive reparations for the sins of the past. We are already fully engaged in looking after the present and trying to move forward.

Anyway this has really been a continuation from a previous thread that got a little overheated too, and I really want this to be my last post on the subject.

 

[LightSpectra]

I agree with aelf, actually. You can nitpick any generalization that's not an absolute truth; it's a generalization because it's mostly true. We say the British Empire was "evil," not because we're judging its inhabitants, but because it did evil things such as genocide and slavery. I think the wicked acts of Britain outweigh any goods it did, hence it's not wrong to call it evil.

 

[vogtmurr]

that is a two edged sword you are swinging and a bit unbalanced - but I cant be bothered. some people are just jealous

 

[aelf]

A mod can move this to a new thread if it is too inconvenient to have it here. Otherwise, I will create a new thread for my next response.

FYour argument and others was a simple cold condemnation - that colonialism and the British Empire in particular are evil. How can anything so abstract as colonialism, a concept as kangaru pointed out, or wide reaching and involving so many different events and people as the British Empire, be summed up in such a shallow and 1-dimensional modern assessment ? It strikes me this is woefully misinformed, or someone has an agenda of their own.

Talking about double standards, would you be willing to apply the same logic to fascism?

Now if you were pointing out some particularly nasty business that took place I wouldn't even get in to the ring with you. If you were compiling a long exhaustive list of crimes (as I'm sure you are capable) and using it to represent the whole, then someone should respond to that. I can only surmise that there is a current fad of lining up and firing broadsides at "those imperialistic pigs" that legitimizes it. But it gets my ire up, when people (you) express outrage that not everyone shares this view; stereotyped colonialists who long for the glory days and need to be ostracized. Are we in a tribunal ?

I'm kind of puzzled by your assessment of the notion that the British Empire was a bad thing. So far there's plenty of poetic license in what you say but little sense. Is there a need, for example, to see a negative opinion of the British Empire as a condemnation of every facet of it? Could it not be that some people simply see it as something that is, on balance, not good? And with all the wars and deaths that the empire brought to pass, is it so difficult to see why? I mean you have to be a pretty ardent supporter of the backward notion of a European 'civilising mission' if you think that subjugation by force in this case can be justified by the accomplishment of a greater good or, worse, the good of the subjugated. This is why people like you are being stereotyped. I mean, it's not like you're simply coming up with philosophical arguments about the ability to apply hindsight to come up with valid assessments about the soundness of past decisions. You're busying yourself with pointing out the good of the empire as if it can whitewash or balance out the horrible.

If you are unwilling to look at what happened before and after colonialism with the same blind justice, and recognize there were some gains and losses, pros and cons, then it is hypocritical. Australia, NZ, the United States, and every nation in the western hemisphere, has its foundation in colonialism. If you can single out an empire that spanned the globe and influenced so many great nations, granted literacy (and great literature) and stimulated economic and political development, then you should have no problem with the following statements:

"The Roman Empire was no better than the Nazis !"
"The Ottoman Empire was aggressive and oppressive - how could you think otherwise ?"
"China never forsook the evils of imperialism until Mao"
"The British Empire kept all the natives in a state of slavery"

urgh - it should turn your stomach how simple minded these statements are.

Um, whoever said that more positive developments cannot spring out of bad things? Does it follow that because Russia was rapidly industrialised, Stalinism can't have been monstrous? Urgh, it should turn your stomach to think of how simple-minded such a statement would be.

I was pointing out the willing collective action of such a disparate collection of dominions, crown colonies, and protectorates, towards their mutual defense when there was very little to feel confident about. That is a mark of a successful empire - and brought them together. It still continues with humanitarian aid and police actions in various trouble spots. Many people I knew had families that taught school and practised medicine under some pretty ugly conditions, and if nothing else, I find the denial that any good came of it offensive. There wouldn't be a Commonwealth if there had not been a British Empire.

Taking a cue from your posts, let's indulge in a bit of poetic license here, albeit of a different variety. Let's think about how individuals often cope with the vagaries of life. As the old (or not so old) adage goes, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Assuming, to play along with this saying, that lemons are bad and lemonade are not so bad, does it follow that because you made lemonade out of some lemons, the lemons can't have been bad? If that were true, then the saying would have lost its original meaning, which referred to making something not so bad out of something bad. It would then have to refer to making something not so bad out of something not so bad, which is kind of trivial.

But, really, this is just a roundabout and silly way of illustrating what I've already said - that more positive developments can arise from a negative event.

Lightspectra might have nailed it down in a more concise way. Nevertheless, it might be worth emphasising that an ethical judgement made about the British Empire is not a historical assessment. It is precisely an anachronistic one, contingent not on the ethical milieu of a past age, but on that of today. Its significance is not so much in being a platform for the practical purpose coming up with a historical thesis on a period or event, but in being a marker of the moral zeitgeist in which the individual making the assessment is presently situated. Our progress in moral thinking is partly marked by our ability to look back on things past and say that some were bad, no?

 

[ParkCungHee]

You know, I never thought in all that time I spent pointing out the good that the Japanese Empire did that I was actually saying that the Japanese Empire was not a bad thing.
Who knew?

 

[aelf]

Is that in response to my post? If it is, then it kinda depends on why you're doing that, doesn't it? If you're doing that to rebut the claim that the Japanese Empire was a bad thing, then you're naturally implying that, owing to the good that it did, it was not really a bad thing. It's kind of surprising that this point can be missed.

 

[Masada]

Is there a need, for example, to see a negative opinion of the British Empire as a condemnation of every facet of it? Could it not be that some people simply see it as something that is, on balance, not good?

You will note that I hew to this stone.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Is that in response to my post? If it is, then it kinda depends on why you're doing that, doesn't it? If you're doing that to rebut the claim that the Japanese Empire was a bad thing, then you're naturally implying that, owing to the good that it did, it was not really a bad thing. It's kind of surprising that this point can be missed.

It's to Vogtmurr's line of reasoning. Clearly since I've acknowledge the Japanese Empire's role in the Industrialization and Modernization of Korea and Taiwan, the Independence of assorted countries, etc. what I've actually been saying this whole time was that the Empire was justified, because it's entirely impossible to label something as bad and acknowledge good things that came as a result of it.

 

[Zardnaar]

ALot of whether or not a empire is 'evil' is judged according to the standards of the time. Hence people like Tamerlane, Ghengis or Hitler are 'evil' comparative to the morality that reigned at their time.

Looting a captured city for example was seen as acceptable by alot of nations. Putting the population to the sword and selling all of them into slavery not so much. Slavery predated the British Empire and the British Empire also abolished it (tried to anyway) due to the relative freedom of the press (18th century) the abolutionists could use to gain popular support for it. Anyone else see the irony if not hypocracy of people calling the BE evil when for the most part they are directly benefiting from the existence of said empire? The empire was so evil we are sitting here communicating in english while using devices invented in England during the war years. IN effect the British also sacrificed the Empire vs Nazi Germany which was 'evil' by the standards of the time. I don't think anyone here is trying to downplay or deny the various atrocities commited by the BE just that they were no worse than most other empires and probably better than most. More doucumentation survives from the imperial era along with a greater impact on the modern world I suppose.

 

[aelf]

Buh, is there any point in discussing this with people who by now are obviously unable to comprehend or entertain what has been written? Definitely time to let the thread proceed on its original course or let it die, I say.

It's to Vogtmurr's line of reasoning. Clearly since I've acknowledge the Japanese Empire's role in the Industrialization and Modernization of Korea and Taiwan, the Independence of assorted countries, etc. what I've actually been saying this whole time was that the Empire was justified, because it's entirely impossible to label something as bad and acknowledge good things that came as a result of it.

I see