> It's subtle, but it feels like the argument you put forth implies the colonized were lesser than the British in a fundamental sense.
Ah, this is not at all my sentiment. Perhaps because I chose England people feel this way? I did it because it's a common frame of reference, anyone discussing on this site in English knows about the British Empire. But I just as much love studying histories of other periods, and am greatly impressed with people like Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu during Sengoku Japan, Sejong of Korea, Ismail of Morocco, Mehmed of the Ottomans, Mustafa Ataturk of Turkey, Cyrus of Persia, Shah Jahan of India, Saladin of Arabia, Trajan, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius of Rome, the eight great builder-kings of the Khmer Empire, Deng Xiaoping of China, Washington, Jefferon, Franklin, and Jackson of America, and many more really. I've spent most of my time learning the history of the Americas, Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia with less about other places, because I've spent most of my time in the Americas, Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, and I usually learn about the cultures I'm in. So I was finding it kind of strange to get accused of a bias for Euro-dominance - people are reading something I'm not saying into what I'm writing. I picked the British Empire because everyone knows the basic story. People are probably less familiar with the Roman territories, their names, and the relative prosperity of them during different eras of Roman rule. And still less so about the Ottoman Empire, or the Carthaginians, or the Khmer, and so on.
> But it's important to remember the native population had no role in government. They never were taught how to govern by the British or allowed to develop their own methods of governing, because it was the British intention that their colonies always be dependent on Britain. The collapse after British withdrawal backs this up I think.
Yes and no. One of the largest checks and balances on nations in history has been that a grossly misgoverned country could be conquered by its neighbors. It made rulers need to keep the progress of science, commerce, civil order, and general health of the population so that they could have the resources to make an adequate defense. If a place gets corrupt, incompetent, or backwards, it falls to its neighbor. For instance, Rome goes more corrupt and falls to the Vandals. Then, almost always, the conquering side installs their own governors. It's how the world has worked for a long time, really up until mutually assured destruction actually. The Korean War is probably the last "this place near us is mismanaged, let's take it over" war on a large scale.
> There's also the fact that the British enslaved millions while building their empire. The military that created the stability you admire was paid for by the lives of millions of Africans. Seems like there is something wrong about glorifying that stability, given how it came about.
I'd be sympathetic to that point of view, except the British conquered Africa from Shaka Zulu, a brilliant but extraordinarily viciously brutal man. Like, Shaka makes Genghis Khan or Alexander look mild at times. It's really pretty inarguable that the British ruled a hell of a lot better than utter brutality, genocide, and massacre that was Shaka.
> I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the stability provided by the British Empire was a false and immoral stability.
They took over by force - this is questionable, but it's the history of the world of that era. It's what pretty much everyone was trying to do, everywhere; just, Britain succeeded. But anyways, that part is morally grey.
Once they were in charge though, they were generally pretty good and stable administrators. They built a lot of infrastructure, had pretty low taxes outside of wartime usually, in most places took a live-and-let-live approach with the natives, brought education, sanitation, and industry with them, and the people usually got wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous in places they governed.
> I'm not sure. I think there is something important to what you are saying, but it is difficult to frame it without implying that the colonized are inferior.
Well, this is a good point. I'm not sure how I'd do it, but I should bear it in mind. Mind you, I've got some Polish blood in me, I've got some Irish blood in me, I've got some French blood in me. I've got ancestors who were enslaved and kicked around by the English, Germans, and Russians. But none the less, I'm generally an admirer of the good English, German, and Russian governments, and not a fan of the bad English, German, and Russian governments. I'm just a fan of good government.
But I understand what you mean about inferiority. I was never too proud of my Irish or Polish heritage in particular until I learned of certain people I greatly admired - Derek Gleeson who rebuilt the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Polish-Jewish woman in Los Angeles whose relatives were Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis, and later black market smugglers during the Soviet Occupation.
Yeah, some places my ancestors hail from got their asses kicked by other nations. That's history, we were an incredibly violent and warlike species until recent history, the winners won, and any of our ancestors who lost would've done it similarly to the other side if they could. But I've come to this conclusion with lots of reading and lots of time, so I should be more sensitive that a lot of people don't feel the same way. I'm not sure how to carefully pick my words on a topic to not hit at someone's emotions, but I'll think about it. Thanks for the feedback.