This is something I’ve been wondering for a while and have finally mustered the courage to ask.
On the leftist side of Lemmy there is a pervasive theme of calling Europeans (and by extension white people in general) evil and how the only thing they’ve done is make the rest of the world suffer. And while the latter is plainly observable basically everywhere in the world, does that imply the former is true? Basically, was European colonialism a thing because of forces and convergent processes greater than Europe or would Europeans have done all that regardless of circumstances, perhaps suggesting that they’re more predisposed to such actions than other ethnicities?
I’m not white, but I have definitely noticed that the normalized rhetoric around white people among leftist and especially socialist circles, sound pretty eerily like the racist rhetoric white people use for other ethnicities. Things like the “colonialism runs in their blood” or that “all white people are born colonizers regardless of status.” To me, there are two ways of interpreting such remarks: the most literal interpretation is that white people as a race are indeed intrinsically evil, and their actions throughout history directly reflect this; or the more symbolic interpretation that due to all that’s happened in history, white people today are, while not intrinsically or genetically evil, tainted by the colonialism that has already happened and are therefore more likely to be the exploiters than the exploited due to their historical advantage. The difference between the two interpretations being the question I’m asking, whether Europeans are the oppressors due to circumstance or whether there’s something about them that just makes them more likely to be oppressors regardless of circumstance.
I understand that most of the rhetoric towards white people that I believe could be interpreted as “racist” are made by the direct victims of white colonialism/racism, so I can in no way fault any of them for not considering the feelings of the people who didn’t consider their feelings when they did orders of magnitude worse things to them than insulting them. God knows I’ve made those remarks too. But at the same time, this makes it hard to determine whether those remarks are literal or figurative, and I just feel the need to ask this directly. Not because I feel the need to play tone police for a race I’m not even part of, but because I’m genuinely ignorant of anything about this and want other people’s unfiltered opinions so I can better form my own.
I studied ecology in university so I have a tendency to think of human events in an ecological context (which is probably wrong). In competition between species (or even within the same species), no one in their right mind would call one species evil because it dominated all the other species. Instead, we think of different species as being entirely driven by circumstance. Even when talking about invasive species, the closest analogue to colonialism, many Indigenous people themselves have routinely pushed back against equating invasive species to colonizers. Ecology considers all species to be purely products of circumstance, and rejects the popular depictions of one species harboring an actual hatred for another and actively seeking to wipe them out.
The common notions I hear for comparing European colonialism to ecology (which are almost always not made by ecologists) is that the conditions Europe just happened to give rise to societies that would eventually go on to colonize most of the world just as those same conditions gave rise to the European starling that would decimate native bird populations in North America. The sheltered seas of the Mediterranean meant that Europe developed naval technology capable of reaching far off lands much sooner than the rest of the world, for example. The notion that Europe just happened to be where the most powerful empires arose, and being the most powerful, it was inevitable that they would inflict the most harm on the rest of the world and would be hated because of it.
But human societies are not species and human-human interactions are not strictly ecological. For one, human societies have overarching coordination and collective will that species don’t have, and human societies as a whole often show more characteristics akin to a single organism than a species (though even that is apples to oranges).
Additionally, Europe was not where the most powerful empires were for the longest time. China for example was just as if not more powerful in the middle ages when Europe stagnated, just as if not more expansionist and obsessed with conquest, and its rule over the people just as tyrannical as any European king (I know Westerners tend to romanticize ancient China but I went to school in Mainland China for a bit before immigrating with my parents and my biggest takeaway was learning in history class what a shithole it was to actually live in) but China never had colonies in the European sense. The certainly conquered everyone around them, but never sought to establish their rule in far away lands like Europeans did, and certainly didn’t wipe out entire continents of people to replace them with Chinese. Does that imply that Imperial China was less evil than Imperial Europe? Or are they just as evil but in a different way (land-based conquest instead of sea based)? Or did they just not have the resources to do what Europe did but absolutely would have if they did? I don’t know hence why I’m asking.
All my rambling can basically be summed up as the question in the title, or, somewhat expanded: Did the world come to see white people as a symbol of colonialism and oppression as a result of forces beyond white people’s control? In a parallel universe with a different geography on this planet, would another ethnicity be the universally hated colonizers while white people are the victims of genocide? Do these questions even make sense and are they actually worth answering considering we only have this geography and history to work with?
IMHO, the answer is in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin
TLDR: Capitalism cannot survive without Colonialism, because it needs new markets to solve the recurring overproduction crises. An overproduction crisis is when the workers earn too little to buy what they produce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism
Europeans are not evil nor good. They are influenced by the material conditions they live in and by ideology.
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European capitalism, particularly from the 16th century onward, was not a simple market economy. It was mercantile capitalism, a system where the state and private capital became fused in a project of national economic expansion. The goal was to accumulate wealth by any means necessary for the benefit of the metropolitan power. This system was inherently expansionist, violent, and required external colonies to serve as sources of raw materials and captive markets.
China’s commercial developments, while advanced, largely served an internal, agrarian-based empire. The state’s Confucian ideology prioritized stability and internal harmony over aggressive external expansion and accumulation. There was no comparable fusion of state and commercial power for the explicit purpose of global domination.
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As far as we know we have not found the colonialism gene, and there is no evidence that Europeans are somehow genetically different at this locus. So we can, at least for now, ignore the possibility that Europeans are inherently evil, or predisposed towards colonialism. Rather, the actions of any people must be understood as a consequence of their circumstances and culture.
due to all that’s happened in history, white people today are, while not intrinsically or genetically evil, tainted by the colonialism that has already happened and are therefore more likely to be the exploiters than the exploited due to their historical advantage.
White people are not only the beneficiaries of the colonialism that has already happened, they are often also the beneficiaries of colonialism that is currently happening. The CIA didn’t coup random Central American countries because they were bored. The IMF and World Bank don’t give loans to African countries for humanitarian reasons.
But human societies are not species and human-human interactions are not strictly ecological. For one, human societies have overarching coordination and collective will that species don’t have, and human societies as a whole often show more characteristics akin to a single organism than a species (though even that is apples to oranges)
I feel that the same principles that govern other animals should apply, more or less, to humans too. Although it might be more appropriate to compare human societies to populations of social animals (such as ant colonies or beehives) than to different species.
Does that imply that Imperial China was less evil than Imperial Europe? Or are they just as evil but in a different way (land-based conquest instead of sea based)? Or did they just not have the resources to do what Europe did but absolutely would have if they did? I don’t know hence why I’m asking.
I think the difference is that historically China had excellent agricultural land, a relatively modern and stable economy, and was surrounded by poorer and less advanced countries. So people had all the resources they wanted, and had little incentive to go far away. In contrast, Europe was fragmented, with Scotland, the Netherlands and Portugal actually having poor / too little land, and so there was a push for both raw materials and markets.
There are only a few good answers below that even obliquely reference historical materialism, how colonialism is related to different modes of production, the defining features of the columbian era of euro-american capitalist-colonialism, and its connections to race. You’ll likely get much better answers if you cross post this to lemmygrad or hexbear.
That shared crossposting comment section feature would come in really handy here.
Well I think we can pretty much guess what answers you’ll find at lemmygrad and hexbear.
Not more wrong or more right. Just a different lens of analysis.
They’re not genetically or intrinsically evil, and I haven’t seen anyone in lemmy (.ml, .hexbear or grad’) thus far suggest the idea if that’s what was meant by socialist spaces (if not, ignore this part)…
Europeans’ “uniquely evil” part are in thanks to their geography and other material conditions, which were largely shaped by wrecking and disfiguring more than half the planet (so basically both, but the latter cyclically enriches the former and neither are compartmentalized if that makes sense).
So naturally, reactions from leftist spaces to this will vary, an overwhelming majority of which are absolutely reasonable. It doesn’t help their case that Europe, with spearheading by the U.S., a settler-colony of their creation that they do not attribute as a settler-colony (settler-colonialism + time = totally legitimate state), continues to deprave and violate the sovereignty of the majority of the Global South via invasions, debt-traps, and genocide today.
On a socio-economic level, Europeans, including European settlers from e. g. the U.S. and the Commonwealth mind you, are also afforded privileges and treats that are just beyond the scope of imagination for many people in the Global South.
Today, Europeans generally can travel almost anywhere in the world (with a red carpet and open arms), they have almost an unlimiting access to healthcare, education, technology, food security, shelter etc… limited only by their states’ dwindling colonial reach, they can pursue whatever interests they may have, they can commit crimes within and outside their borders with punishment ranging from next to nothing to a slap on the wrist compared to crimes commited by non-white people (even when sentencing is given by a Global South country!), they do not have to justify their presence amongst the “others” (if the questions “Why are you here?” and “Why did you come here?” seem familiar, you’ll know what I mean), they do not have the same uphill struggle of having to dispel hundreds of years of actively harmful mischaracterizations and racist depictions of your place of origin/ethnicity (e.g. Orientalism) every time they interact with someone unfamiliar with their background (and there a lot of someones to go through), you get the idea.
There are also two (of the sameish) things that aren’t necessarily unique to Europe, but their variant are absolutely 100x detestable over anything I’ve seen: European denialism and whitewashing. I’m talking about things ranging from softer rose-tintedness like “these aren’t applicable to country X in Europe because it isn’t a Western European country” / “My [European] country doesn’t fit in this description” that we already see in this thread to “[European country] had to save them from their barbarism, actually” are precisely the type of white people that will continue to drive anyone so much as empathetic to anti-colonial struggles nuts.
My point is: Europeans that understand their position, privileges and relation to the Global South and actively seek to dismantle capitalism, centimeter by centimeter, and not just for their own sake, unquestionably exist, which gives no room to the idea of ontological evil.
The former.
Other people did similar things everywhere, the Europeans just managed to be the top player right when the industrial revolution made it easier. There’s even cases of native groups getting a hold of European technology and using it to genocide other native groups.
People on the “left” turn it into an ethnicity thing, because humans have always liked to do that. It’s ironic.
Some interesting tidbits from Wikipedia:
Activity that could be called colonialism has a long history, starting at least as early as the ancient Egyptians. Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans founded colonies in antiquity. Phoenicia had an enterprising maritime trading-culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC; later the Persian Empire and various Greek city-states continued on this line of setting up colonies. The Romans would soon follow, setting up coloniae throughout the Mediterranean, in North Africa, and in Western Asia.
The Japanese colonial empire began in the mid-19th century with the settler colonization of Hokkaido and the destruction of the island’s indigenous Ainu people before moving onto the Ryukyu Islands (the indigenous Ryukyuan people survived colonization more intact). After the Meiji Restoration, Japan more formally developed its colonial policies with the help of European advisors. The stated purpose from the beginning was to compensate for the lack of resources on the main islands of Japan by securing control over natural resources in Asia for its own economic development and industrialization, not unlike its European counterparts. Japan defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War to control Korea and the island of Formosa, now Taiwan, and later fought off the Russian Empire to control Port Arthur and South Sakhalin.
While colonies of contiguous empires have been historically excluded, they can be seen as colonies. Contemporary expansion of colonies is seen by some in case of Russian imperialism and Chinese imperialism. There is also ongoing debate in academia about Zionism as settler colonialism.
Of course, historical facts rarely matter when it comes to rhetoric like this.
Most human societies had been terrible and atrocious. Europeans just got the technology to be terrible and atrocious at a global level first.
Long story short, Europe was slightly ahead of Africa in terms of development when they began to really interact, around the time Europe found out about the Americas they had a bunch of new land from genocide of the natives and needed manpower Europeans could never hope to fulfill, so the slave trade started in earnest.
Europeans would only trade their goods for slaves, which started the slave industry in various African nations that wanted these goods, which stalled development in Africa while dramatically increasing development in Europe, widening the gap until the colonial era. Over time, this gap began to increasingly be seen as its own justification, and Europeans became increasingly racist towards Africans.
It isn’t about inherent evil. Europe was beginning to become capitalist while the most developed nations in Africa were developed feudal kingdoms, and the geography of Africa and Europe had more to do with that than any genetics could ever hope to cover. The narrow gap was exploited by Europeans and widened until the modern era of imperialism and neocolonialism.
I highy recommend How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney. We’re doing a readalong over in Hexbear.net if you want to join!
It’s worth noting India and China were wealthier than both until pretty far into the modern period. Maybe Japan too, I’m not sure.
Edit: And maybe SE Asia, they had their own maritime empires and interacted with Australians before the Europeans, which is neat.
Yep. The huge advancements in technology brought about by colonialism and capitalism in Europe compelled their naval supremacy, which allowed Europe to dominate trade routes, leapfrogging India and China who were still more of a developed feudal-sort of stage. This led to the Opium Wars, colonization of India and China, and eventually their independence movements that propelled China into socialism and India into its own capitalist system (which is a whole other discussion).
Yep. The huge advancements in technology brought about by colonialism and capitalism in Europe compelled their naval supremacy
I think you’ve got that backwards. After Rome, it was pretty much a cold, marginal peninsula off of Asia full of starving peasants, until they invented practical seafaring. The wealth that made them a player in the first place came from their ability to travel to the New World and exploit the technological and societal gap present there, and to bypass the silk road.
Europe had practical seafaring since antiquity. European naval technology during the discovery of the Americas was on par with other Eastern Hemisphere naval powers.
The naval technology empowered the discovery, but it isn’t like Europe was special at the time.
Also, it still took a while to bypass the Silk Road. Even when Europe did, it still ran into an issue that China wouldn’t trade for any European manufactured goods, just gold and silver.
Europe had practical seafaring since antiquity. European naval technology during the discovery of the Americas was on par with other Eastern Hemisphere naval powers.
No and no. In antiquity they followed the coasts most of the time, and followed really safe routes across mostly-closed seas the rest of the time. Trireme construction was good enough to take rough weather, while it existed, but for one thing they had trouble with navigation.
Chinese boats of the early modern era were leaky and unseaworthy by comparison, if sometimes extremely large for show, and their sails didn’t tack nearly as well.
The Vikings did manage seafaring, but they had a very specific design that was pushed pretty much to it’s limits. You can’t make a clinker-built longship any bigger or better really, and eventually economic conditions meant they stopped bothering with the big expeditions. Later on some of those same techniques made their way into the caravel.
The Polynesians managed it much earlier, and did spread around, but they were otherwise in the literal stone age. It is still pretty curious they didn’t leave more impact on the Americas.
Sort of. There was a decent bit of naval development which enabled the initial slave trade and colonization of the Americas, but they didn’t truly leapfrog India and China until they used the spoils to reach dramatic capitalist development, industrialization, and purposefully direct research and tech into millitary and naval development so as to become uncontestable. This turned trade from being somewhat dominated to fully dominated and uncontestable.
One of the most interesting explanations I’ve seen is that Western Europe was politically fragmented just enough so that big enough entities were competing with each other for dominance. So there was no central authority strong enough to pacify it, and the individual states were powerful enough to mobilize resources, creating a competitive power race. It was in trying to beat each other that they reached out and colonized the rest of the world.
Edit: I’m thinking now how during the apex of pax Americana, space exploration really subsided for example. When the US and the USSR were competing it was on. Now that US hegemony is declining, it’s seems to be on again. Too strong of a political unification keeps the centrifugal forces in check.
Of course. Just look at europeans : their squinty eyes ! their devious mouths ! always plotting, discussing their next colony !
don’t forget about our phrenology. our colonial center in the brain is much larger than that of normal humans!
yes hmmm, I can see the slavery neocortex is exacerbated and swollen !
Geography and circumstance.
I’d recommend reading Why the West Rules - For Now by Ian Morris. The book is controversial and definitely not the last word, but is worthwhile for its grappling with the big picture.
Relevant to your question, Morris makes the case that there was economic pressure on Europeans to sail west. Everybody wanted silk and spices from India and China. For Europeans, this meant trading with Arab, Iranian, and Turkish merchants, and so spices were expensive. Finding direct routes to China and India meant people would be able to buy silk and spices more cheaply, which would make people rich. So lots of people were very interested in sailing all the way around Africa, or going west to get to the East.
Hence Columbus stumbling onto the Americas. And then colonialism happened.
But this isn’t a uniquely European thing. When Columbus arrived, the Quechua were already doing very European-style colonialism, and the Aztecs had a form on imperialism quite similar to the ancient Greeks. Carthage, Greece, Iran, and tge Arabs all engaged in imperialism and colonialism, but the European powers won.
Which, to be clear, doesn’t mean it’s right for anybody to do it.
I like the the book “Caliban and the Witch” by Silvia Federici. Among other topics it discusses how European commoners fought the rise of privatization and capitalism. About the “colonization” of Europe if you will. I don’t think Europeans as a whole are uniquely evil, we just lost that initial struggle.
I don’t subscribe to the notion that any particular race or (physical, not sociological) group can be evil.
People fight for resources. Sometimes with other people. History is littered with people doing the wrong things for the right causes.
Genghis Khan was from Mongolia and has killed so many people it actually affected climate at that time.
Even if you believe certain actions of certain people were evil, it’s difficult to generalize them to the whole population. Especially if they had no way to influence their decisions.
How could have a Dutch farmer change anything in the Kingdom of Netherlands? And how can a minimum wage brick-layer in England be responsible for what a UK king ordered 400 years ago?
Just as an example: look at the world today. America, Russia and Israel elected their presidents. Without getting to much into political discussion, at least some of their actions might be viewed (today) by majority of people as “evil”. Does that make all the residents of those countries evil? And their children? And grandchildren?
I really do believe that the reasoning is much simpler. And that, unfortunately, hasn’t changed even today: those who are in power and have wealth, will fight tooth and nail to keep it. By any means necessary.
I don’t thing so necessarily, look at the Vikings. Sure, they would pillage towns to survive, but even though they discovered America way before Columbus, they didn’t go in and invaded and killed almost every native there like Columbus did. I think the colonization is more of an ideology that came upon some groups that happened to be led by sociopaths (i. e. The Romans, The Greek, and The Mongols).
Hell, look historically at the Incas, the Chinese empire, and the mongols under Ghengis Kahn, none of them weren’t white but they where all colonizers as well, just small fry to the Romans who then turned to the English, Spanish, and I think Dutch.
The other factor is religion, Christianity was a common factor in all these white colonizers who came to America. Buy the real reason was to find gold to fund their expansions. If Columbus wouldn’t have seen any gold jewelry on the chief of that first village and found no other precious metals, who knows what would have happened, maybe other Europeans might have visited later again, but it could have been with a much less colonizer mentality and more of simply exploration.
Vikings were colonizers, though. England was somewhat colonized under the Danelaw and Dublin was founded as a Viking colonizer’s stronghold. It just happened to be that Viking colonies in the New World were in Northern Canada, a place where large settlements still don’t exist.
The demonization of the Romans is silly.
