The British Empire

[Nyvin]

It's still more then obvious that India wouldn't be one of the top ones with all the water shortage and the nuclear threat from pakistan not to mention overpopulation, disease, and an incredibly fragmented nation with some minorities having no say in government whatsoever. The list you gave was total bull...

Plus Egypt has it's share of everyday life-altering problems as well. And Britain is known to have an incredibly absurd amount of government control in everyday life, including security cameras in public streets.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

No, this is not it but I do not recall where it was I read it (a few weeks ago).
I said it was a suvey/questionnaire where people were asked if they were happy. Some of the happiest people I have come across on my travels lived in Zimbabwe (before Mugabe did too much damage, admittedly). If you do a load of calculations of income/health service etc. Zimbabwe would, as you showed, appear at the bottom. You can be poor and happy however.

I have done a bit of googling and the only reference I have found is
this

Were all those happy people from Zimbabwe white?.

BTW taking such survey seriously, it would be interesting to know why British Empire made people more optimistic. Some sort of drug in the tea or something?

 

[Plotinus]

Plus Egypt has it's share of everyday life-altering problems as well. And Britain is known to have an incredibly absurd amount of government control in everyday life, including security cameras in public streets.

Well of course it does. Are you saying that America doesn't? Government control is a good thing, especially measures that reduce crime like security cameras. Nothing absurd about that, surely. There's plenty of other things to be miserable about in Britain, though, I can assure you.

If you want to see *really* high levels of government control in everyday life, come to Singapore. And see if people care about it in the slightest. Because they don't - what they see is clean streets and little crime, and that's what they (like most people) actually care about.

Of course that reinforces your own point about India, which is basically capitalism gone completely berzerk, with a rich elite and an unimaginably vast, ridiculously poor majority. I can't imagine how anyone who has actually been to India and seen what it's like there can think it's one of the top happy nations in the world.

 

[Kafka2]

When Britain did in India was unforgiveable under any set of moral standards, and despite not being a religious man, I hope that the colonial administrators of 19th century India are all rotting in hell.

 

[Rambuchan]

Fair enough, perhaps, but you've got to admit that flagellation and suicide are hardly on the same par, haven't you?

No I don't, see next comment. And sorry, I clean forgot about this thread.

I mean, it's one thing to say that you wouldn't stop someone cutting themselves within the appropriate cultural context, but quite another to say that you wouldn't stop someone burning themselves alive within the appropriate cultural context. I'm afraid that I just don't see that you can push cultural sensitivity that far. It's not some fundamental principle that justifies anything.

Actually I would say they go in the same basket - self-flagellation and sati. In those peoples' country, in the appropriate cultural contexts, what is the difference? They are not harming others and what right do I have to oppose or change either? It's an issue of cultural sovereignty and of the meaning both activities hold in the mind of the participant. If you are not opposed to a guy slashing his back up - because his beliefs give it an altogether different context - then why differ with sati? That too is subject to heavy meaning which places it in quite a different context. If the suicide means something significant, and just as importantly - if not committing suicide would be torturous, then denying them that, simply because it leads to death, would ride against the logic of accepting another's cultural sovereingty. The major problem which those resistors had (in stance b) is that infringement on their national and cultural sovereignty. I think you can push the sensitivity that far, from their stance or another.

Now if it is suicide bombing - then that is quite different. That doesn't exist in cultural isolation and it certainly does have an effect on others. That deserves to be stamped on for their 'cultural sovereignty' begins to impact others.

But this is surely making one principle override all others even where it is clearly less important. Surely if you had been an Indian in the early nineteenth century who was opposed to the practice of sati and who was also opposed to British rule, you would think that the former was a more serious and pressing problem than the latter. Surely anyone who reasoned, "Well, sati is a terrible thing, but I'm buggered if I'm going to let the British, of all people, put a stop to it!" would have lost all sense of proportion.

Well I agree that this is problematic. I also think thisispete's excerpt is quite relevant here. It really is hard to empathise and truly 'be there in their shoes'. I'm just going out on a limb here, not all that tenuous given the precedents around the world since the British Raj (N.Ireland, Palestine, Chechnya etc) and we do find that resistors often abandon their ideals in the face of a more pressing endeavour. Whether that is morally right is a different matter from whether people actually held these views in history of course.

Yes, perhaps allowing the British to stop it would in some sense put a seal on their illegitimate rule, but surely that would be a price worth paying for the prevention of sati if you thought that practice was wrong. After all, how a country is governed is obviously more important than who does the governing, important though the latter may be; and if you think otherwise then you're just prioritising abstract principles over actual concrete reality. Aren't you?

Given my comment above, I think this is a highly moot point. Many IRA members looking to thwart British efforts took to criminal underworld activities to fund the efforts. They would have disagreed vehemently with you. In fact a recent Panorama interview with a former IRA member saw this very same question being posed to him: "Are you not at all remorseful of the fact you caused death and destruction upon innocent people?" The answer: "No of course not, we were fighting a war. You do what you have to do to win it."

This is why I don't think that your context (b) as indicated above is really one that any reasonable person can empathise with. I can empathise with an Indian in the early nineteenth century who wanted to get the British out, of course I can. But an Indian who wanted to get them out no matter what the cost? Well, that's a bit harder. That just looks like irrational fanaticism to me. I only empathise with the rational variety!

Empathy. Does this mean understanding them or does it mean sharing their views? That's debatable too. But I am approaching it looking to simply understand these views. It may be irrational fanaticism, I don't doubt that, but there's a reason for it and it must be understood to understand the dynamics of the time. Maybe I will find some time to dig out some examples of such characters. It's been a while now but I think it would be helpful.

 

[Rambuchan]

Also worth mentioning that the Indian and Irish Independence movements did seek a great deal of inspiration from each other. I haven't spent a great deal of time looking into it in detail but there is a connection.

 

[AxiomUk]

Plus Egypt has it's share of everyday life-altering problems as well. And Britain is known to have an incredibly absurd amount of government control in everyday life, including security cameras in public streets.

Slightly off-topic, but how does security cameras in public streets restrict personal freedoms if you're doing nothing illegal? I'm of the opinion that these cameras help society a significant proportion more than their absence would. I don't feel it's remotely absurd having them, I feel it's more a prospect of people being scared of being caught performing illegal activities.

@Rambuchan
I think suicide bombing itself is a bit seperate compared to cultural 'traditions' in the way that suicide bombing was intended as a 'response' to western culture intervening in eastern cultures. so the concept of 'cultural sovereingty' doesn't really apply in that context, as it's not an upheld cultural tradition but more a 'response', in my opinion.

 

[Plotinus]

Actually I would say they go in the same basket - self-flagellation and sati. In those peoples' country, in the appropriate cultural contexts, what is the difference? They are not harming others and what right do I have to oppose or change either?

Let's grant that a grieving widow in this context is better off dead than alive but miserable. That's a pretty big thing to grant, but let's say you're right. What I think you're overlooking is the fact that that widow's suicide would impact greatly on other people, namely those around and those who come later, because it reinforces the tradition of sati. If you prevent widows from killing themselves, the benefits of this are enjoyed not so much by those widows as by future ones, who because sati is no longer practised would not believe that their lives have no meaning and must end with their husbands'. To put it another way, perhaps those widows whom the British directly prevented from committing sati were worse off as a result, but all widows since have been better off inasmuch as they no longer feel pressure - either from society or from their own beliefs - to kill themselves.

In other words, those widows who did commit sati *were* harming others. They were maintaining a culture that would cause other women to kill themselves through the same beliefs. Redressing this situation is what gave the British a "right" to intervene, if you really want to put it in terms of "rights". I'd rather put it in terms of bringing about a better situation, and I don't see how anyone could disagree that that is what the British achieved.

It's an issue of cultural sovereignty and of the meaning both activities hold in the mind of the participant. If you are not opposed to a guy slashing his back up - because his beliefs give it an altogether different context - then why differ with sati? That too is subject to heavy meaning which places it in quite a different context. If the suicide means something significant, and just as importantly - if not committing suicide would be torturous, then denying them that, simply because it leads to death, would ride against the logic of accepting another's cultural sovereingty.

It may go against the logic of accepting another's cultural sovereignty, but that is because this logic is not the be-all and end-all. It's just one of the things you have to do and sometimes other things take priority. You can't make it a fundamental principle that must always outweigh everything else, no matter what the circumstances, like the Prime Directive. That's deontologism gone mad. Now I suggested that perhaps you wouldn't try to stop flagellation since the people who do it are presumably happier as a result of doing it, although evidently they are made happy by things that wouldn't make *me* happy. It's not exactly so obviously that you can say the same of sati, is it?

Given my comment above, I think this is a highly moot point. Many IRA members looking to thwart British efforts took to criminal underworld activities to fund the efforts. They would have disagreed vehemently with you. In fact a recent Panorama interview with a former IRA member saw this very same question being posed to him: "Are you not at all remorseful of the fact you caused death and destruction upon innocent people?" The answer: "No of course not, we were fighting a war. You do what you have to do to win it."

Well, I hope you don't think that the IRA only started to go wrong when they derived funding from dodgy underworld sources! But surely most sane people would agree that the thing that is so loopy about IRA people such as the one quoted - and the thing that makes them criminals and, if such a thing exists, evil - is the fact that they take an abstract principle to such extremes that it excuses anything. If you think that people's independence is more important than their lives then you have simply lost all reason. And of course we can see the same thing cropping up throughout history, as in that thread about Hiroshima where one of the people involved in the dropping of the bomb later (much later) said that it was the right thing to do because in war there are no civilians, and all those people who died deserved to do so because they were helping the enemy. People like this have taken one principle or objective and become so obsessed with it that they cannot compromise it for any other, no matter how fundamental or important that one may normally seem to be. They are fundamentalists of the worst kind. Not that there's any good kind, of course.

So that's what I would say about any Indian in the early nineteenth century who opposed sati but who also opposed the attempts of the British to end it, on the grounds that this would legitimate their rule. Complete insanity!

Empathy. Does this mean understanding them or does it mean sharing their views? That's debatable too. But I am approaching it looking to simply understand these views.

Empathy isn't either of those things, though quite what it is is hard to spell out. I can understand the position of the IRA member quoted above, in that I comprehend the meaning of his words and I know what his principles are, but I cannot empathise with them because I cannot imagine what it would be like to hold them. It's psychologically impossible for me. There can be no rational justification for his views, only an explanation that appeals to his irrationality.

It may be irrational fanaticism, I don't doubt that, but there's a reason for it and it must be understood to understand the dynamics of the time.

So then, we need to distinguish between two senses of "reason" - a teleological sense, as in "I believe that this is the case for the following reason," where the "reason" is a justification, argument, or evidence; and a more explanatory sense, as in "The reason he went mad was..." where you are simply giving the causes for someone's state of mind. In the case of the extremists discussed above, there is a reason in the second sense for their views and actions, but there isn't one in the first sense - at least, not a rational one. That's the difference between a view I can empathise with and one that I can't.

 

[AxiomUk]

So then, we need to distinguish between two senses of "reason" - a teleological sense, as in "I believe that this is the case for the following reason," where the "reason" is a justification, argument, or evidence; and a more explanatory sense, as in "The reason he went mad was..." where you are simply giving the causes for someone's state of mind. In the case of the extremists discussed above, there is a reason in the second sense for their views and actions, but there isn't one in the first sense - at least, not a rational one. That's the difference between a view I can empathise with and one that I can't.

I'd like you to elaborate on the ultimate difference between these two senses of "reason". Personally, I feel they are both simply redressed statements of one reason - causality and interpretation of it. I'm a bit confused as to the difference.

Still thinking about this. We seem to be applying concepts of morality developed in the late 20th Century to events which happened many years before notions of guilt for it developed.
The entire taking-over of India and changing of culture is, debateably, bad. The British Empire might have been beneficial in the sense that they improved the economy, but TOWARDS THEIR OWN ENDS. I read a source somewhere that theorised British intervention in India delayed industrialisation there and fractured the country, leaving it in that state when they pulled out. Not particularly a good thing to do as you may agree.

Regarding sati:
To extrapolate a situation, let's put it this way. Imagine if in the US a man was going to be executed in say, the electric chair. Before the switch could be thrown, a foreign man came in and shut it all down on the basis of it being brutal and unneccessary, regardless of the sense of 'justice' being imposed. How would the regular person react to someone who doesn't know their customs regarding anything just walking in and changing things to suit his needs?

Back into actual topic - I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with opposing British rule and opposing sati. Just as in the example above, you could be against execution, but you wouldn't want foreign powers coming in to stop it because it's not their right.
To believe any attempt at changing national culture is benevolent or related to helping society in any way is ignorance. Regardless of a culture, they do what they do, and nobody has ANY right to change a thing. People who argue they do have a right are being somewhat self-righteous and believe that their culture is in some way better, when really, if you do not (and can not) understand human nature, at what point can you tell which culture is better?

Of course, to a degree my arguement falls on it's face regarding 20th century morality, but then I am not condemning the British for what they did, they followed what many countries of the time did - colonialism. I am condemning modern viewpoints of history attacking the British for being a somewhat different culture to what we have today. It may be because people feel they can connect to the 'modern Britain' in relation to the British Empire that there is a lot of condemnation of what they did.
So, to summarise:
- I do not condemn the British Empire of it's time for what happened and what they set out to do. Culturally, it was accepted at the time in Britain, due to notions of empire building.
- As a modern historian, I can look back and say what they did was not right. There are two viewpoints. My own viewpoint, and the viewpoint of those involved in India, and I can safely say that the two differ with good reason.
- If you are going to study history, make a clear difference in your head between then and now, irrespective of the time, society has changed a lot over the centuries and to ignore that fact is to ignore the basic framework around what history partially is.

 

[Plotinus]

I'd like you to elaborate on the ultimate difference between these two senses of "reason". Personally, I feel they are both simply redressed statements of one reason - causality and interpretation of it. I'm a bit confused as to the difference.

Well, it may be true that all teleological reasons are explanatory reasons, if we accept that the "reason" somebody gives for a belief is actually the cause of their having their belief (as opposed to a rationalisation after the fact). But the important difference is that explanatory reasons need not be teleological reasons. The "reason why" somebody does or believes something insane is something to do with brain chemicals, perhaps. It's not a rational argument.

Regarding sati:
To extrapolate a situation, let's put it this way. Imagine if in the US a man was going to be executed in say, the electric chair. Before the switch could be thrown, a foreign man came in and shut it all down on the basis of it being brutal and unneccessary, regardless of the sense of 'justice' being imposed. How would the regular person react to someone who doesn't know their customs regarding anything just walking in and changing things to suit his needs?

I still just don't see this. If I were an American who believed capital punishment was wrong, I'd want it stopped by any means that didn't have worse consequences than *not* stopping it. Now if a foreigner is there and actually in a position to stop it, then fine, let him stop it. That's a good thing. It may be bad for a foreigner to be in such a position in the first place, but his *not* stopping the immoral act would not make him any *less* in that position, would it? Wanting him to allow it to continue would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

As I said before, *who* governs is less important than *how* they govern. If I thought a foreigner would do a better job of governing the country I'd welcome them to give it a go.

Regardless of a culture, they do what they do, and nobody has ANY right to change a thing. People who argue they do have a right are being somewhat self-righteous and believe that their culture is in some way better, when really, if you do not (and can not) understand human nature, at what point can you tell which culture is better?

Well, I just completely disagree with this, I'm afraid. I think most people would think that there are at least some cases where you would legitimately regard one culture as better than another. The culture of Nazi Germany was surely inferior to the culture of Britain at that time. (Apologies for the use of the Reductio ad Hitlerum, by the way...) Is it really *necessarily* self-righteous for one person to say that their culture is superior in some respect to that of another person? What if their culture *really is* superior?

Now, if they go about monkeying around with somebody else's culture and in fact mess it up, then the problem is not that they took it upon themselves to do so, but that their original belief that they would improve matters by doing so was wrong. And that's a different thing, isn't it?

Again, why this talk of "rights"? What do you mean by that, and how do you support your assertion? I don't understand what it means to say that one person does not have the "right" to perform an act, if that act would bring about a better situation. If the British were in a position to stop sati (let us assume for the moment, pace Rambuchan, that it would be better to have sati stopped than not) then I don't see why they should have refrained from doing so or what "right" they lacked in order to do so.

- I do not condemn the British Empire of it's time for what happened and what they set out to do. Culturally, it was accepted at the time in Britain, due to notions of empire building.
- As a modern historian, I can look back and say what they did was not right. There are two viewpoints. My own viewpoint, and the viewpoint of those involved in India, and I can safely say that the two differ with good reason.
- If you are going to study history, make a clear difference in your head between then and now, irrespective of the time, society has changed a lot over the centuries and to ignore that fact is to ignore the basic framework around what history partially is.

But all this, I think, makes a lot of sense!

 

[Rambuchan]

Still thinking about this. We seem to be applying concepts of morality developed in the late 20th Century to events which happened many years before notions of guilt for it developed.

I think this is why Plotinus is having trouble swallowing the point of view I am putting across. Whereas I am utterly disregarding my own views, formed in and relevant to 'the here and now', it seems Plot is coming completely from the 21st century western view. [EDIT: Which bears strange similarities with the Colonial British notion of 'civilising' its subjects.]

Further, I believe Plot is interpreting this discussion too much as an abstracted moral debate and ignoring the context bearing in mind the thread title. This is a fine debate to have, but I'm not seeking a moral position here. Otherwise there would be no debate. I agree with you (Plot) completely on moral grounds in the here and now.

The entire taking-over of India and changing of culture is, debateably, bad. The British Empire might have been beneficial in the sense that they improved the economy, but TOWARDS THEIR OWN ENDS.

Indeed. Here is the Civilopedia entry I wrote for the 'Trade Mastery' Great Wonder in my scenario (see signature) and sorry about the formatting, it won't behave!

Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair - but it may be noteworthy to see how unfair:

In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%! As a result, British imports of cotton manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to one-fourth!

A similiar trend was noted in silk goods, woollens, iron, pottery, glassware
and paper. As a result, millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners,
weavers, potters, smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural workers. Why were these quotas and the drive for monopoly so necessary?

"In the middle of the seventeenth century, Asia still had a far more important place in the world than Europe." So wrote J. Pirenne in his 'History of the Universe', published in Paris in 1950. He added, "The riches of Asia were incomparably greater than those of the European states. Her industrial techniques showed a subtlety and a tradition that the European handicrafts did not possess. And there was nothing in the more modern methods used by the traders of the Western countries that Asian trade had to envy. In matters of credit, transfer of funds, insurance, and cartels, neither India, Persia, nor China had anything to learn from Europe."

Veronica Murphy reports in 'Europeans and the Textile Trade' (Arts of India
1550-1900), "although the East India Company was not itself engaged in the transatlantic slave trade, the link was very close and highly profitable." In fact, in the 18th century, the British dominated the Atlantic slave trade transporting more slaves than all the other European powers combined. In 1853, Henry Carey - author of 'The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign' wrote: "It (the British System) is the most gigantic system of slavery the world has yet seen, and therefore it is that freedom gradually disappears from every country over which England is enabled to gain control." The Atlantic slave trade was hence, a vital contributor to the financial strength of the East Indian Trading Companies.

This 'Trade Mastery' over slaves (humans as a commodity) soon extended to include Britain's position regarding the crucial global commodities coming out of India: Cotton (thus textiles), Opium, Spices, Sugar, Rubber and so on.

I read a source somewhere that theorised British intervention in India delayed industrialisation there and fractured the country, leaving it in that state when they pulled out. Not particularly a good thing to do as you may agree.

I've read similar accounts but none quite as dramatic as that!

Regarding sati:
To extrapolate a situation, let's put it this way. Imagine if in the US a man was going to be executed in say, the electric chair. Before the switch could be thrown, a foreign man came in and shut it all down on the basis of it being brutal and unneccessary, regardless of the sense of 'justice' being imposed. How would the regular person react to someone who doesn't know their customs regarding anything just walking in and changing things to suit his needs?

Right now, I'm seeing that as very similar to British Imperial policies toward sati. That's on first view.

Back into actual topic - I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with opposing British rule and opposing sati. Just as in the example above, you could be against execution, but you wouldn't want foreign powers coming in to stop it because it's not their right.
To believe any attempt at changing national culture is benevolent or related to helping society in any way is ignorance. Regardless of a culture, they do what they do, and nobody has ANY right to change a thing. People who argue they do have a right are being somewhat self-righteous and believe that their culture is in some way better, when really, if you do not (and can not) understand human nature, at what point can you tell which culture is better?

Well of course I agree with this completely.

Of course, to a degree my arguement falls on it's face regarding 20th century morality, but then I am not condemning the British for what they did, they followed what many countries of the time did - colonialism. I am condemning modern viewpoints of history attacking the British for being a somewhat different culture to what we have today. It may be because people feel they can connect to the 'modern Britain' in relation to the British Empire that there is a lot of condemnation of what they did.

I'm not too sure what to make of this. I have a terrible hangover today

So, to summarise:
- I do not condemn the British Empire of it's time for what happened and what they set out to do. Culturally, it was accepted at the time in Britain, due to notions of empire building.
- As a modern historian, I can look back and say what they did was not right. There are two viewpoints. My own viewpoint, and the viewpoint of those involved in India, and I can safely say that the two differ with good reason.

Britain was indeed competing against others playing the same game. There was no luxury of detachment from such a project and all the policies it stimulated, no hindsight, no 21st century view, no human rights conventions, no UN, nor indeed all that we have available to us today.

- If you are going to study history, make a clear difference in your head between then and now, irrespective of the time, society has changed a lot over the centuries and to ignore that fact is to ignore the basic framework around what history partially is.

This is what I hope I have been doing in this thread.

 

[Rambuchan]

@ Axiom: I forgot to mention that I agree with your dinstinction wrt suicide bombings. They are indeed a response and not an independent cultural expression.

Let's grant that a grieving widow in this context is better off dead than alive but miserable. That's a pretty big thing to grant, but let's say you're right. What I think you're overlooking is the fact that that widow's suicide would impact greatly on other people, namely those around and those who come later, because it reinforces the tradition of sati. If you prevent widows from killing themselves, the benefits of this are enjoyed not so much by those widows as by future ones, who because sati is no longer practised would not believe that their lives have no meaning and must end with their husbands'. To put it another way, perhaps those widows whom the British directly prevented from committing sati were worse off as a result, but all widows since have been better off inasmuch as they no longer feel pressure - either from society or from their own beliefs - to kill themselves.

In other words, those widows who did commit sati *were* harming others. They were maintaining a culture that would cause other women to kill themselves through the same beliefs. Redressing this situation is what gave the British a "right" to intervene, if you really want to put it in terms of "rights". I'd rather put it in terms of bringing about a better situation, and I don't see how anyone could disagree that that is what the British achieved.

Again this is all very much from a British Colonial point of view. It's very dated to speak like this IMO. Today, I would still have problems with this to an extent. It's really up to Indians what they do or don't do. Just as it is up to the British what they do or don't do in their own country. Where there is no appeal for help or intervention, why bring it?

It may go against the logic of accepting another's cultural sovereignty, but that is because this logic is not the be-all and end-all. It's just one of the things you have to do and sometimes other things take priority. You can't make it a fundamental principle that must always outweigh everything else, no matter what the circumstances, like the Prime Directive. That's deontologism gone mad. Now I suggested that perhaps you wouldn't try to stop flagellation since the people who do it are presumably happier as a result of doing it, although evidently they are made happy by things that wouldn't make *me* happy. It's not exactly so obviously that you can say the same of sati, is it?

How is it less obvious? They are entering into it voluntarily (with some peripheral exceptions), choosing to do it themselves. You admit that you are having trouble seeing things from the IRA point of view, but how come you are so sure about these practioners of motia and sati? Why are you so sure you know what is good for them?

Let's take the example of Pakistan and democracy. The West all raised their eyebrows when Musharaf conducted his bloodless military coup. "Oh my god! Pakistan looses its grip on democracy!" and "They must take up democratic principles!" came the abridged cries from the West. Well I went there shortly after the coup and I found just about everyone I spoke to far happier under Musharaf. To them Democracy was synonymous with a self-serving cleptocracy (Buttos and Nawaz Sherif). With the coming of Musharaf they were saying that public works projects actually got completed on time. That there was less red tape. Less corruption and need to bribe officials. And so on. Of course none were so bold as to claim that Musharaf was an angel sent from Heaven, but to them - and I interviewed people from all strata of society - he was a blessed relief from the corruption ridden democracy days. Again, here the West thought they knew what was best for Pakistan but it quite ignored the views of the Pakistanis themselves. And that dynamic goes on today and you seem to be ok with that.

Well, I hope you don't think that the IRA only started to go wrong when they derived funding from dodgy underworld sources!

Oh they were up to no good well before. But then so were the British (westminster).

But surely most sane people would agree that the thing that is so loopy about IRA people such as the one quoted - and the thing that makes them criminals and, if such a thing exists, evil - is the fact that they take an abstract principle to such extremes that it excuses anything.

Most sane people typically doesn't include those you are fighting against does it? And you seem to be reluctant to see it from the other side of the mirror.

If you think that people's independence is more important than their lives then you have simply lost all reason.

In your eyes perhaps. I fancy there is a clear reasoning in my posts.

And of course we can see the same thing cropping up throughout history, as in that thread about Hiroshima where one of the people involved in the dropping of the bomb later (much later) said that it was the right thing to do because in war there are no civilians, and all those people who died deserved to do so because they were helping the enemy. People like this have taken one principle or objective and become so obsessed with it that they cannot compromise it for any other, no matter how fundamental or important that one may normally seem to be. They are fundamentalists of the worst kind. Not that there's any good kind, of course.

Let us not forget the counter (colonial) principles which have been extended and extracted far past their original context. Free trade by way of gun boat and maxim gun etc... Fine and dandy in principle but the execution of said principle simply lacked finesse. All principle look a bit distorted if you stretch them to the extreme.

So that's what I would say about any Indian in the early nineteenth century who opposed sati but who also opposed the attempts of the British to end it, on the grounds that this would legitimate their rule. Complete insanity!

Seems we shall eternally disagree on this in our own merry ways then.

Empathy isn't either of those things, though quite what it is is hard to spell out. I can understand the position of the IRA member quoted above, in that I comprehend the meaning of his words and I know what his principles are, but I cannot empathise with them because I cannot imagine what it would be like to hold them. It's psychologically impossible for me. There can be no rational justification for his views, only an explanation that appeals to his irrationality.

I think my responses above address this.

 

[Rambuchan]

Well, I just completely disagree with this, I'm afraid. I think most people would think that there are at least some cases where you would legitimately regard one culture as better than another. The culture of Nazi Germany was surely inferior to the culture of Britain at that time. (Apologies for the use of the Reductio ad Hitlerum, by the way...) Is it really *necessarily* self-righteous for one person to say that their culture is superior in some respect to that of another person? What if their culture *really is* superior?

You are really walking on eggshells here IMO. Your post sounds much like some of the speeches delivered in British Parliament around the late 18th and early 19th centuries; slowly constructing a shakey case to justify your own superiority and the subsequent justification to go and pound your way into whereever the hell you see fit to bring your superiority. IMO it is best left alone this whole business of cultural superiority. Different not better or worse.

Now, if they go about monkeying around with somebody else's culture and in fact mess it up, then the problem is not that they took it upon themselves to do so, but that their original belief that they would improve matters by doing so was wrong. And that's a different thing, isn't it?

Their intention and execution are both wrong. This leads me to the question once again: How can 'you' be so sure 'you' aren't going to mess it up? Bush was sure about Iraq. The Imperial British were sure about Afghanistan. They were sure about dividing India (many contend that the beloved outgoing Viceroy was sure it would lead to a bloodbath and political mayhem). Your post again is an attempt to construct a justification for intervention under your own terms.

Again, why this talk of "rights"? What do you mean by that, and how do you support your assertion? I don't understand what it means to say that one person does not have the "right" to perform an act, if that act would bring about a better situation. If the British were in a position to stop sati (let us assume for the moment, pace Rambuchan, that it would be better to have sati stopped than not) then I don't see why they should have refrained from doing so or what "right" they lacked in order to do so.

See my first response in this post for this.

 

[AxiomUk]

Well, when I speak of rights... I suppose I would have to express it using an example.

How would you feel if your neighbour came into your house and rearranged your furniture to suit himself? In relation to this arguement, you would feel he had no right to come touch your things and change your house. You would feel violated. Whereas if your partner changed the layout of the furniture, you would not feel as violated unless it was your personal room, but for the basis of this example, let's see it as the living room.
Plotinus, your arguement would, in this example, say that as long as someone moved the furniture around, you wouldn't care. That is all fine and well, but when I speak of rights, I speak of those people who WOULD care. Their personal space has been disturbed by people who feel they know better, and they didn't tell them to come change their entire way of life. There's a difference between building railroads and changing cultural practices.
How would you feel if said neighbour, after rearranging your furniture, decides to go change your garden for you too, and change the doors on your house? In terms of personal space, there is an impact there, and when I say I feel someone doesn't have the right, I am expressing it in terms of they should not feel they are allowed to go change other people's things simply because they believe in their own benevolence.

Again though, in the 21st century, these things would be frowned upon, but there could be a time they were more accepted.

I see things as this - An individual culture expresses itself differently in many cases. I personally cannot see how you can measure cultures up and start to say what's good and what's bad. If you are predominately biased towards a particular culture as being good, you will not be able to weigh up the pros and cons of intervention.
I could use Nazi Germany as an example here too. When people think of Nazi's , they think of the negative connotations of Nazism. However, past that there were more than likely some actual GOOD social effects that Nazism had on Germany. For example, unlike in Stalinist Russia, you knew you would be fairly safe by supporting Nazism. I suppose to a degree the Gestapo would have been used so people could engineer others out of their life, but still, on a general level, society could have been somewhat safer due to anyone causing problems being removed from society. I can't really assess the credibility of that issue due to not having evidence on hand, but to condemn a way of life for being different to your own is entirely xenophobic.

 

[Kafka2]

How did this thread get bogged down on Sati anyway? That's nothing in comparison with the Madras famines.

 

[Rambuchan]

I agree. We got a bit bogged down. Have a read of this:

http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/eastindia.html

 

[Rambuchan]

Didn't find that link too interesting?

How about these ones? If you're interested in the British Empire, these are excellent reads >

"Telling the Truth about Imperialism"
(Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian):
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200311--.htm

'A Liberal Empire', how British notions have been taken forward today:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/05/05_400.html

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND GLOBALIZATION: A FORUM (Niall Ferguson, P.J. Marshall, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Andrew Porter, and Andrew J. Bacevich)
http://www.originofnations.org/British_Empire/british_empire_and_globalization.htm

Britain, the Ottomans and Egypt
http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/egypt.htm

The Financial Story of Our Independence (Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/133755.cms

Turning points in the British Raj
http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-britishraj.htm

The monetary role of gold in the British Empire and Global Economics in the early c20th
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/47820

 

[Rambuchan]

I had another read of the "Gold and Empire" (last link above) bookmark. It is really rather good. So here's an extract in case some haven't read the links:

"Gold and Empire"

That the issue of gold was to become a casus belli in relations between Washington and London during the 1920's, was not at all obvious to most of the world, certainly not outside a handful of central bankers, financial figures and government insiders. At that time, gold was the hidden centerpiece of British global geopolitics and its power. Its origins went back more than a century.

The strategic consequences of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 are generally regarded from the standpoint of Berlin, and the resulting unification of Germany under Bismark. But the consequences of that war for the City of London were, if anything, perhaps even more significant than Germany's gains.

With the German defeat of France in 1871, London became the center of significance in the world, for fluid international capital to find refuge. France had been its major rival in its efforts to become the premier international financial center. In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the Bank of England became what Walter Bagehot, the influential editor of "The Economist," identified as, "the only great repository in Europe where gold could at once be obtained."

In fact, the City of London was the only repository in the entire world, as there were no rivals after the defeat of France. Germany's financial system was still in its infancy, the Reichsbank having only been established in 1876. The United States was still dependent on huge inflows of borrowed capital, mostly from London, to finance its large industrial and railway expansion after its Civil War.

The monetary role of gold had become the centerpiece for the domination by the City of London of world finance and banking, and with it, of world politics, by the late 1870's. More and more, London bank loans and bond issuance, to areas of the world not formally part of the British Empire, were seen in British policy circles as a far more effective lever of world policy influence and control--in short, of power--than the traditional colonial methods of direct administrative and military occupation.

Countries with no formal colonial ties to the British Empire, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Russia, Italy and, increasingly, even the former colony, the United States, were becoming effectively bound to Britain through ties to the financial houses and credits of the City of London.......

 

[Nyvin]

I had another read of the "Gold and Empire" (last link above) bookmark. It is really rather good. So here's an extract in case some haven't read the links:

"Gold and Empire"

That the issue of gold was to become a casus belli in relations between Washington and London during the 1920's, was not at all obvious to most of the world, certainly not outside a handful of central bankers, financial figures and government insiders. At that time, gold was the hidden centerpiece of British global geopolitics and its power. Its origins went back more than a century.

The strategic consequences of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 are generally regarded from the standpoint of Berlin, and the resulting unification of Germany under Bismark. But the consequences of that war for the City of London were, if anything, perhaps even more significant than Germany's gains.

With the German defeat of France in 1871, London became the center of significance in the world, for fluid international capital to find refuge. France had been its major rival in its efforts to become the premier international financial center. In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the Bank of England became what Walter Bagehot, the influential editor of "The Economist," identified as, "the only great repository in Europe where gold could at once be obtained."

In fact, the City of London was the only repository in the entire world, as there were no rivals after the defeat of France. Germany's financial system was still in its infancy, the Reichsbank having only been established in 1876. The United States was still dependent on huge inflows of borrowed capital, mostly from London, to finance its large industrial and railway expansion after its Civil War.

The monetary role of gold had become the centerpiece for the domination by the City of London of world finance and banking, and with it, of world politics, by the late 1870's. More and more, London bank loans and bond issuance, to areas of the world not formally part of the British Empire, were seen in British policy circles as a far more effective lever of world policy influence and control--in short, of power--than the traditional colonial methods of direct administrative and military occupation.

Countries with no formal colonial ties to the British Empire, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Russia, Italy and, increasingly, even the former colony, the United States, were becoming effectively bound to Britain through ties to the financial houses and credits of the City of London.......

Your talking about a period of time of about 60 years...do you honestly believe that this short blip in history has the enourmous effect on history as your making out to be??

Besides in the end it obviously didn't work out did it?

 

[Verbose]

Your talking about a period of time of about 60 years...do you honestly believe that this short blip in history has the enourmous effect on history as your making out to be??

Besides in the end it obviously didn't work out did it?

It works to date, which is what matters at present.
London has been the world capital of financial trade since these events in the 19th c.
Bagehot's analysis in jis 19th c. classic on "Lombard Street" is still readable.