British Empire

[Harkat]

cyber bullying

[nobody]

speaking of selfies, someone should bump the pretty ttaz thread

[Dystinkt]

I think you can probably argue it was the worst and the best in almost equal measure. It's difficult not to sound like the stereotypical patronising European to argue it was good, but for all its failings, it arguably did more to unite the world and lay the foundations for the "globalisation" which American quasi-imperialism built on in the 20th Century than anything else. We wouldn't have had the World Wars without all the vying empires, but we probably wouldn't have things like the UN and the WHO and we wouldn't have 'learnt our lessons' as a species about the dangers of naked Imperialism... hell, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this on the Internet. If we hadn't gone through the enormous global trade boom of the Industrial Revolution (yes, globalised down the barrel of a rifle) we may not have ever built the institutions that will stop it happening again.

But yeah, I think all Imperial ages tend to be run so much in the self-interest of the Mother country that the spread of enlightenment and 'order' is always incredibly unfair. I don't think India would be the burgeoning economy it is today if it hadn't been on the journey it has, but I'm not sure you can ever truly justify the horrors that occurred there... horrors we and they are still feeling the effects of today. Worse, the British Empire helped create and enforce the institutionalised slavery of black people and it's difficult to even turn on the radio without being reminded of that at some point. It also got a fuckload of Chinese people addicted to opium and the rest of us addicted to sugar.

I don't see the British Empire as an isolated event really... I think if we went back to a non-industrialised world and forgot all the advances from the 1700s onwards, the first country to work it all out whilst sitting on an island full of coal would create an Empire in order to spread that knowledge and power. It's happened at all points of human civilisation when a power gap has appeared... the difference with the British Empire is that when it ended, wider civilisation didn't follow suit. When the Roman Empire went down it took European civilisation centuries to get properly back on track... Britain was plunged into the Dark Ages and an awful lot of knowledge was lost. Arguably, the British Empire's greatest victory was that it was so effective at spreading knowledge of the sciences and (maybe more importantly) philosophy/politics that it practically brought about its own end... the Romans would've never been stupid enough to export John Stuart Mill to their colonies!

When the British first went to India, the plan was always for it to be independent eventually. Even as far along as McCaulay and the British Raj, the overriding aim (along with "casshhhhh") was to take a vast, populous country that struggled to organise itself and turn it into a modern industrial utopia that had favourable business ties to Britain. That idea sort of got lost along the way and they eventually had to seize independence for themselves, but the end result, 300 years later, isn't really that far off. The same can't always be said of India's neighbours where the Empire didn't get involved...

I've never truly made my mind up about Empire. I'm glad we appear to be over that now because I've only got the stomach for it in history books. Imagine if the French had taken America instead though? Just IMAGINE.

As for the "worst" thing to happen... the Holocaust stands out for me. 6 million dead on racist grounds in a matter of a few years.



tl;dr I don't know.

I think that would lead to a discussion on whether or not globalisation and things like the UN are really doing more good than harm (mainly globalisation, the UN is pretty benign). My argument was more based on the fact that when the Empire began to dissolve, it just seemed to go around creating countries willy nilly without really looking at the local populace and how it would affect them. Out of this in my mind a lot of the division in the world today has arisen, notably in the middle east. Nobody gives a fuck about what country they are over there and ethnic and tribal ties are treated as hugely more important than any kind of nationalism. Industrially and scientifically the Empire was a massive force for good (besides the horrors of slavery and general exploitation of it's colonies as you mentioned earlier) but I do think all the good the Empire did in those regards was offset by the chaos it's engendered by appointing itself the decider of what country goes where if you follow me. This si a pretty half formed thought but I wanted to explore it a bit further, so thank you for the well thought and interesting response. Also, it goes without saying that the Holocaust was the worst human tragedy in either recent or the entirety of human history and I would be absolutely mortified if anyone thinks I'm trivialising or ignoring an abhorrent event like that, but it wasn't the cause of any new conflicts, as the Allies were already at war with the sizan when it was going on.

[ezza]

i bet wolfs got 50 more mates than op

[Dystinkt]

I have a feeling he's a ginger

nope, not ginger in the slightest, sorry to disappoint you man

[nobody]

I have a feeling he's a ginger

nope, not ginger in the slightest, sorry to disappoint you man

Dammit, can you please start a 'guess what I look like thread'

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to start it

[Dystinkt]

(gold star for anyone that can find another 19 year old that enjoys discussing historical and philosophical debates as opposed to taking selfies)

come on now, this is just a descriptive selfie

you got me, my Facebook is littered with written selfies

I'm sorry if you guys thought I was being arrogant I really didn't intend to come across that way

Gold star for guessing which bit made you sound like an arrogant twat!

But ultimately I think you need new friends.

Like I said, apologies for coming across that way, and apologies for being an arsehole in my reply. You're right, I do need some new friends to discuss stuff like this with

[Dystinkt]

I have a feeling he's a ginger

nope, not ginger in the slightest, sorry to disappoint you man

Dammit, can you please start a 'guess what I look like thread'

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to start it

I doubt people would be interested, hardly Burial am I

[Forum]

I have a feeling he's a ginger

nope, not ginger in the slightest, sorry to disappoint you man

Dammit, can you please start a 'guess what I look like thread'

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to start it

http://www.dogsonacid.com/threads/youfo ... 291/page-7

[nobody]

I miss his endless selfie posting

[jrkhnds]

I think the worst thing european colonialisation brought to the world was us exporting our understanding of morals and values (as in: economic growth, structure of society, etc.) to people who couldn't have cared less and were probably fairly well off with their own set of rules. having forced the entire globe to play the european game was what arguably caused most of recent conflicts, and proves in unparalleled manner how dangerous ideas can be. the amount of people who died in the name of civilization / ideology is beyond belief. imagine China without all the cultural impact that lead to their take on communism.
however, it's a bit silly to argue all of this was the Empire's fault (although it must be mentioned that the British were notoriously bad at installing stable governments; they even sucked at it compared to the French, who until this day have a very different understanding of colonial responsibility). the bare concept of imperialism outdates the Empire by a few centuries. finding new lands to exploit has always been a driving factor for many rulers, their stakeholders and, in consequence, their subjects. the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Italian, heck, even the Dutch all did their fair share in preparation for what would become the British Empire.

in the end, I guess american imperialism brought worse implications to the table. contrary to the european imperialists, the americans still live under the impression of never having acted in imperialist manner. and thus have never had the possibility to learn from their mistakes, instead embrace every opportunity they get to point fingers.

[kaili]

lloll i read this thread earlier and i knew everyone would go off about that line in the OP

[OGLemon]

did a google image search of British nationalism and found this


I can't believe they used a George Orwell quote to support nationalism.

[Jizz]

sarcasm is integral to being British

na they were most probably deadly serious

[OGLemon]

How many people died as a direct result of British imperialism?

[Dystinkt]

lloll i read this thread earlier and i knew everyone would go off about that line in the OP

It was pretty much the most poorly thought out sentence I've written on DSF, totally misjudged how people would take it

[test_recordings]

How many people died as a direct result of British imperialism?

Even just in India in just the late 19th century, up to 29 million apparently http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 04631.html

List of the supposedly worst (I say supposed because there could be more and even worse stuff either not considered or even documented) stuff the Empire got up to: http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil ... sh-empire/

The level of ignorance about this kind of stuff in the UK is insane and still causes massive amounts of mistrust in the world. Japan and China, for example, just don't trust white people full stop. You might think it's weird that I say Japan but if you live here you'll realise they just don't really want you here and just tolerate your presence, they hate learning English and Japanify everything foreign so the original context is almost incomprehensible.

The effects are still being played out because all the previous colonies have no industry and are stuck with selling natural resources to supply rich countries' factories who then sell the goods back at mark up to keep themselves rich. The whole aid industry should be abolished and the money should just be given to people directly, it's been to actually improve things permanently instead of just being a sticking plaster.

[jaydot]

Yet we're still the greatest country in the world.

[ehbes]

Yet we're still the greatest country in the world.

lol step aside

[sigbowls]

japan and the uk are equally the best countries