Racism, xenophobia, and greed.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
What Are You Listening To?
- Thread starter Recovering LSO
- Start date
-
- Tags
- podcasts
Racism, xenophobia, and greed.
I don’t think those are exclusive to the west, though. Every society shows flavors of the same, to include the Indians whom we conquered (they were just as racist and xenophobic against other tribes), the African tribes from which we purchased slaves, and the Asian countries which we “welcomed” into the American embrace near the turn of the 19th/20th century.
There is no patent on the darker side of humanity by western civilization, we were just better at it DUE to our scientific advances and ability to streamline our aggressive operations.
Judge Q
Judging You
I've always loved the British Gen. Charles James Napier's quote on widow burning (to the other kind of Indians):
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
On the one hand it was the epitome of colonialism in British India, on the other hand the dude was ending widow burning which I assume we can all agree is pretty effed up.
When he said that England had banned burning women at the stake only about 60 years earlier.
Judge Q
Judging You
True and this is admittedly setting the bar rather low, but to my knowledge no woman was ever burned at the stake in England merely because her husband died before her in any way comparable to sati.
Yeah they were burned for being witches, which makes so much more sense.
The barbarism of others is no excuse for our own. And that excuse gets pretty threadbare for defenders of western exceptionalism as we enter the 20th century and the barbarism continues unabated.
Judge Q
Judging You
It's easy to judge that with the benefit of 20/20 historical hindsight but I remind you people were being turned into newts.
Even if they occasionally got better.
Thankfully it’s the 21st century and we’ve moved past barbarism.
Now we just crush our enemy with the money...
Well, they weighed more than a duck...
I don't know what you do with your free time...but I'm not a barbarian. Nor are any of my friends, squadron mates, or (most) of my family. Most of your citations from the past are intentionally sensationalized and you're merely being myopic in order to be a sensationalist yourself. As intelligent as you seem I find it hard to believe you act and speak the way you do without it being purely narcissistic. Use that 50 pound brain of yours and figure out how to navigate the normal median of thought and present yourself as something other than an asshole.
Post of the week!
Much of what you decry wasn't considered barbarism in the age in question. To judge the behavior of individuals and cultures in another age by our modern western standards is anachronistic and worse.
Please point out where I'm being purposely sensational in my historical references. Of you honesty think that "barbaric" is an unfair characterization of our historical foreign policy based on the references I've provided I'd be happy to supply you with a more expansive list, friend.
Also please explain wtf the "normal median of thought" is... Trying to wrap my 50 lb brain around that one.
@picklesuit care to have your wife weigh in?
No, it isn't. Uses you believe morality somehow sprung fully formed from the modern mind in what, 1975?
There are ample contemporary primary sources of protest and moral objection to virtually every act of barbarism you seek to normalize by casting my characterization as anachronistic.