Mainly the reason liberating the Jews was not a cause of the war is because the countries that would eventually defeat Germany were not the ones who started it.
L'Oreal sack first transgender model for racism
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I don't think you understand how things work around here. Allow me to give you a refresher.
Each post has a report function where users can report a post because they object to its content. When that happens, it goes into a queue where mods see it and take action by generally issuing warnings/infractions. Earlier, another poster reported that they objected to Dumat getting bullied by insults, which I saw a few minutes ago and came into this thread and rather than issuing an infraction because I knew how heated this thread has become, I just made an ordinary post reminding users to avoid the insults.
If you or anyone takes issue with anything Dumat or anyone else posts, rather than kicking up a fuss here, it is your responsibility to use the report function to report the post in question and be specific about what part of its content you deem objectionable and why. At that point, the mods will review it and consider whether or not its appropriate to take any action.
What you should not do is make a post insulting the modding by inferring that we tolerate racism because you the poster, whose responsibility it is to report objectionable content, have not followed the rules.
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Well the point of debate is to reach consensus through argument in order to further understanding. Dumat's position is that colonialism benefited the colonized to some degree (or in every degree, I'm not sure). A controversial stand, though you can argue it. It isn't necessarily a racist argument either. History isn't sacred. It demands to be pulled apart and retold at every instance because accepted norms being immune from challenge is a dangerous state of affairs. There are exceptions. The Holocaust, for example. If you wish to assert that something factually demonstrable never took place, then you don't deserve to be listened to. It can be empirically defined, so why waste time debating its existence?
Colonialism is a lot more nuanced. Instinctively we might think that nothing good ever came from it, but you can argue that some good did come from it, in a non-intended perverse way. It's a far more metaphysical debate because we aren't arguing that it happened, only about its legacy and its effects.
Plenty of people might use such rhetoric as a means of propaganda (depending on ideological orientation), but that's beside the point.
Which brings us to the part in bold. If people say things which we consider absurd, then the point is to inform them why. Assuming racism a priori is never a good idea, even if arguments people use carry the taste of other unpalatable arguments used previously by other unpalatable people.
If he's wrong, then tell him why. If you believe you're right, and he believes he is, and neither are willing to budge after 20+ pages, then perhaps you might consider that this isn't a thread where some magic consensus will originate from.
I don't agree with him, but I stopped responding a few days ago. The thread piqued my interest today because I was curious as to how it was still going.
I don't really want to make any grand points on WW2, I was just correcting something that was factually wrong.
What point are you trying to make to me, that colonialism is a very bad thing? Agreed.
The only reverence I hold for the British Empire is maybe the scale of it, not its methods or how it functioned.
All the Empires I have studied conquer and make the vanquished pay for that conquest. They are expensive to run and generally they end when they don't have enough money or they run into a more powerful empire.
They are by their nature expansionist and most of the countries in the world were formed on or by these principles too.
Sad to say I don't think the friendly nice empires made it.
Small rant about the thread/discussion in general:
More of @Brwned's style of arguing would be lovely in here.
(for the record, far from everyone is going about it the way I'm commenting, and most who have a bad comment here and there also have good and informative posts)
Don't hang him for his arguments, destroy the arguments.
Edit as I've read the last posts here:
I wasn't the one reporting in this instance.
Honestly I've followed this thread all the way and while there has been some comments that have come across as weird from Dumat to me, people are going overboard.
He might be wrong (i wouldn't know, which is why I'm not arguing in this thread but asking questions and taking all answers/posts with a pinch of salt as I can't be arsed to look everything up), but he hasn't explained stuff so much from his perspective, but more from the perspective he thinks/his research show they had in the times he's talking about. People go on to associate him with how they viewed things back then and then insult him or call him racist because of that - which in and of itself is anti-discussion. If he's wrong then as some earlier did, just do a write up about stuff from history you find wrong in his posts and link to sources. Calling him a racist (whether he is or not) isn't putting down his arguments.
He might be wrong (i wouldn't know, which is why I'm not arguing in this thread but asking questions and taking all answers/posts with a pinch of salt as I can't be arsed to look everything up), but he hasn't explained stuff so much from his perspective, but more from the perspective he thinks/his research show they had in the times he's talking about. People go on to associate him with how they viewed things back then and then insult him or call him racist because of that - which in and of itself is anti-discussion. If he's wrong then as some earlier did, just do a write up about stuff from history you find wrong in his posts and link to sources. Calling him a racist (whether he is or not) isn't putting down his arguments.
More of @Brwned's style of arguing would be lovely in here.
(for the record, far from everyone is going about it the way I'm commenting, and most who have a bad comment here and there also have good and informative posts)
Don't hang him for his arguments, destroy the arguments.
Edit as I've read the last posts here:
I wasn't the one reporting in this instance.
You, now:
You, a few hours ago:
From that lens, it is logical that it was Nazi rule that transformed the French tendency of rebellion and change into a passive ordered citizenry fit for a modern capitalist liberal democracy. This is ignoring the direct economic benefit in the form of the economic plans De Gaulle inherited and implemented. And, "whether or not you think the deaths left in its trail were justified is an entirely different matter."
There are a fearless few who advocate re-colonisation of India and of Belgian Congo. Denying the good the Nazis did is harmful in the present, when this re-colonisation advoacy cannot be extended to all the countries which might be helped by colonial rule. For example, Britain today has far higher poverty than Germany and its security services can't keep a lid on their own population. An honest assessment of Nazi benefits in France suggests that a Fourth Reich with its attendant stormtroopers and central planning would decrease short-run unemployment and improve law and order.
(Edited at the last line)
You, a few hours ago:
The implicit assumption being that the colonised people could never achieve that on their own.
From that lens, it is logical that it was Nazi rule that transformed the French tendency of rebellion and change into a passive ordered citizenry fit for a modern capitalist liberal democracy. This is ignoring the direct economic benefit in the form of the economic plans De Gaulle inherited and implemented. And, "whether or not you think the deaths left in its trail were justified is an entirely different matter."
There are a fearless few who advocate re-colonisation of India and of Belgian Congo. Denying the good the Nazis did is harmful in the present, when this re-colonisation advoacy cannot be extended to all the countries which might be helped by colonial rule. For example, Britain today has far higher poverty than Germany and its security services can't keep a lid on their own population. An honest assessment of Nazi benefits in France suggests that a Fourth Reich with its attendant stormtroopers and central planning would decrease short-run unemployment and improve law and order.
Can you then see why a colonizing power might be worse for the conquered than, for example, the Mughals who stayed after conquest?
(Edited at the last line)
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I'm not sorry.
But I won't reply to him to avoid upsetting anyone who felt offended by what I said to him.
Yes, I know. My main point was that there is a difference between a genocide of millions of people in the space of a few years HUNTED actively no questions asked, no negotiations to be had and the only thing that was wanted from them was their death and a 'genocide' spanning centuries where most of those 'genocided' died from various diseases and only a small percentage of the population killed by various vigilantes and wars in which they died.
I'll stop here because there is really no point in continuing as the only thing we seem to do is giving the mods and people that run this site more and more headaches. And it all seems pretty pointless, it's painfully obvious that neither I or the people I've argued with will change our opinion on this. Suffice to say i've been called bigot, racist, ignorant, stupid and whatever else you can think of just because I try to look at history from a neutral perspective and not the 'whites are evil and so they shall burn in hell' that's being pushed constantly in our culture these days. Don't have any idea how that makes me racist, but it's fine, I guess. Everything these days can be qualified as 'racism' to some people.
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I'm not sorry.
But I won't reply to him to avoid upsetting anyone who felt offended by what I said to him.
No one asked you to not be sorry. Just follow the rules by reporting posts rather than making a big deal of it in the thread. We look at every reported post and decide on the appropriate action that needs to be taken.
You, now:
You, a few hours ago:
The implicit assumption being that the colonised people could never achieve that on their own.
From that lens, it is logical that it was Nazi rule that transformed the French tendency of rebellion and change into a passive ordered citizenry fit for a modern capitalist liberal democracy. This is ignoring the direct economic benefit in the form of the economic plans De Gaulle inherited and implemented. And, "whether or not you think the deaths left in its trail were justified is an entirely different matter."
There are a fearless few who advocate re-colonisation of India and of Belgian Congo. Denying the good the Nazis did is harmful in the present, when this re-colonisation advoacy cannot be extended to all the countries which might be helped by colonial rule. For example, Britain today has far higher poverty than Germany and its security services can't keep a lid on their own population. An honest assessment of Nazi benefits in France suggests that a Fourth Reich with its attendant stormtroopers and central planning would decrease short-run unemployment and improve law and order.
Do me a favour, quote the whole post in its entirety, please.
World War 2 - lest we forget
Colonialism - can we move on please?
Colonialism - can we move on please?
You, now:
You, a few hours ago:
The implicit assumption being that the colonised people could never achieve that on their own.
From that lens, it is logical that it was Nazi rule that transformed the French tendency of rebellion and change into a passive ordered citizenry fit for a modern capitalist liberal democracy. This is ignoring the direct economic benefit in the form of the economic plans De Gaulle inherited and implemented. And, "whether or not you think the deaths left in its trail were justified is an entirely different matter."
There are a fearless few who advocate re-colonisation of India and of Belgian Congo. Denying the good the Nazis did is harmful in the present, when this re-colonisation advoacy cannot be extended to all the countries which might be helped by colonial rule. For example, Britain today has far higher poverty than Germany and its security services can't keep a lid on their own population. An honest assessment of Nazi benefits in France suggests that a Fourth Reich with its attendant stormtroopers and central planning would decrease short-run unemployment and improve law and order.
The problem I'm having in this thread is that people keep quoting me in grey and then add other posters comments or their own comments in the grey box under my name. Like you have done in this post.
Please stop doing this as I am more than capable of losing an argument and looking like an idiot defending my own views without being hauled over the coals for arguments I never made.
I don't think you understand how things work around here. Allow me to give you a refresher.
Each post has a report function where users can report a post because they object to its content. When that happens, it goes into a queue where mods see it and take action by generally issuing warnings/infractions. Earlier, another poster reported that they objected to Dumat getting bullied by insults, which I saw a few minutes ago and came into this thread and rather than issuing an infraction because I knew how heated this thread has become, I just made an ordinary post reminding users to avoid the insults.
If you or anyone takes issue with anything Dumat or anyone else posts, rather than kicking up a fuss, it is your responsibility to use the report function to report the post in question and be specific about what part of its content you deem objectionable and why. At that point, the mods will review it and consider whether or not its appropriate to take any action.
What you should not do is make a post insulting the modding by inferring that we tolerate racism because you the poster, whose responsibility it is to report objectionable content, have not followed the rules.
Exactly. You reviewed it so you can't wash your hands of it and say 'someone reported it so that's that' you made a conscious decision that something needed to be said and you said something. You could have ignored the user report, you could have decided that Dumat deserved to be called out for his posts, you could have asked why Dumat's getting such a severe response from posters if you aren't sure, you could have locked the thread and decided that redcafe wasn't the forum for the debate if you didn't want to do that, but instead you chose to defend his right to say it without criticism. That's a choice you made and I don't see why you think that that choice is somehow sacrosanct.
I appreciate that modding is a time consuming and thankless task, I'm not asking you to proactively mod every thread on this website, but boiling it down to it being somehow our fault that you' said what you said is downright disingenuous. No one forced you to rebuke vi1lain.
Maybe you can and maybe you can't, but you certainly can't in the way that he has. I haven't engaged with Dumat because I don't think it's worthwhile. He's apparently interested in the subject but is ignoring a vast swathe of postcolonial theory and historiographical trends because it doesn't fit with the narrative he wants to believe. The only excuse for that is ignorance (he's unaware of it) wilful ignorance (he doesn't want to believe it so ignores it) or because he prefers to hear the outdated histories written by white nation builders and apologists for Empire over anything else. There may be an interesting debate to have in this field still, Niall Ferguson is still a prominent apologist for Empire employed by a big University (although even he would not argue as strongly as Dumat has here, and he is increasingly outspoken in his field), but it's not with a poster on redcafe who doesn't appear to have reasoned himself into the position.
@Don't Kill Bill Sorry, I was going to respond to you and then it all kicked off in here. I might PM you over the weekend if you don't mind? It's a huge topic to try and cram down into an accessible post without over simplification so I might just try and dig out some articles if you're interested.
I quoted the next line within my post, and my main issue was with that line anyway.
See, this is the funniest part.
I've a graduate degree in it and did an honors research fellowship in Genocide Studies.
Historically, you've absolutely no clue what you're talking about.
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The problem I'm having in this thread is that people keep quoting me in grey and then add other posters comments or their own comments in the grey box under my name. Like you have done in this post.
Please stop doing this as I am more than capable of losing an argument and looking like an idiot defending my own views without being hauled over the coals for arguments I never made.
That was true in the very last line, I have moved it.
You obviously still don't get it. When a post is reported it will be reviewed and if its a legitimate complaint, then some sort of action will be taken. Dumat's posts are completely separate issue. I still haven't seen you report any one of them, so I am going to presume you don't have a problem with them until I see something in our report queue. The rules have now been explained to you twice and you have used up all your rope to complain about the modding in this thread. Going forward please use the report function to prevent being perceived as derailing this thread.
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To be absolutely clear about this.
Please go back in the thread and find my original post and quote it all of it. I am asking you to do so because I don't think it exists unless I've developed a split personality and my other self is blindsiding me.
No, really find the post or edit the comments you ascribe to me in error. Please.
Ah goddammit, the quotes were @Dumat12 all along.
That's the luck I'm having this week. I could have been mixed up with a well-liked and respected poster posting on top form. No, it has to be the most contentious poster and post in the entire thread.
FML
FML
" Can you then see why a colonizing power might be worse for the conquered than, for example, the Mughals who stayed after conquest? "
Back on topic.
Yes, I can see that all forms of Empires are not the same and that the consequences to the conquered might differ.
I don't think that would mitigate the intention of the Empire at the time though if we are engaged in an argument about morality.
It might just be that Empires got better at draining and using the conquered land and population as technology improved so later Empires are just worse on the subjugated.
It could also be that the perception of the conquerer changes as the distance in time increases and it all becomes less personal and immediate.
Back on topic.
Yes, I can see that all forms of Empires are not the same and that the consequences to the conquered might differ.
I don't think that would mitigate the intention of the Empire at the time though if we are engaged in an argument about morality.
It might just be that Empires got better at draining and using the conquered land and population as technology improved so later Empires are just worse on the subjugated.
It could also be that the perception of the conquerer changes as the distance in time increases and it all becomes less personal and immediate.
Definitely an interesting discussion to be had on what, if anything, morally distinguishes the European imperialism of modern times from the pre-modern forms of imperialism which dominated civilized political life across Eurasia for millennia beforehand (the obvious technological advances which made the practice of empire so much more efficient, and the impact of the process of modernity in general is another question really). In terms of the topic of this thread, I would venture to say that the modern European powers were probably the first to completely close off the possibility of the subjugated majority becoming absorbed into the minority ruling class on the basis of race. Whereas the Romans offered citizenship to all the subjugated peoples of the empire, and the Islamic empires held out conversion to Islam as the basis on which to potentially participate in the highest echelons of power, the Europeans (certainly the British - I'm less familiar with the others admittedly) ultimately ruled as a racially-defined class apart in non-white lands, with miscegenation increasingly frowned upon as the 19th century wore on and the possibility of a true Anglo-Indian fusion in the manner of the Mughal Indo-Islamic fusion rejected. Having said that, I know nothing really about how the various Chinese dynasties operated, I'm sure there are posters here who could shine some light on that.
Which is not to say that other forms of 'othering' didn't also impact on the shape of imperial rule. There is a great little book called Ornamentalism by David Cannadine which argues that the behaviour of the British ruling elite can be better understood in terms of their class status back home in the Britain, and that such men naturally felt more affinity with the maharajas and sultans whose cooperation was so vital to the continuance of British rule than with the average working-class Joe back home.
Which is not to say that other forms of 'othering' didn't also impact on the shape of imperial rule. There is a great little book called Ornamentalism by David Cannadine which argues that the behaviour of the British ruling elite can be better understood in terms of their class status back home in the Britain, and that such men naturally felt more affinity with the maharajas and sultans whose cooperation was so vital to the continuance of British rule than with the average working-class Joe back home.
I actually don't see why either of these points couldn't be fairly considered, if done so in a thoughtful, dispassionate way. That isn't really the problem. Historical revisionism, if it is to have any value, requires great skill, study and knowledge. It's not something you can knock off in half an hour on a footy forum and expect to be taken seriously. The likes of Irving and Icke are not always wrong about everything but we don't have to be fair to them because their beliefs, ideologies and history of bad practice taint their entire works. Which brings us to:
The idea that accusations of merely attempted genocide (successful or otherwise) can be entirely dismissed, if members of the targetted people are still alive, is very sinister. I've met an Armenian and many Jews and that told me absolutely nothing about systematic killing under the Nazis and Ottomans.
A generous reading of the statement would dismiss it as bad history and a rotton attempt at logic. There could well be a far darker motive behind it.
'Become as civilised as we are...or we'll murder you.'
I think one of the reasons colonialism still rankles is that the very state that carried it out still exists. Elizabeth is the success of Victoria. King Philipe is the successor of King Leopold. Macron is De Gaulle's successor.
While I don't think you can trace the current Mongolian state to Genghis Khan, or modern Italy to Julius Caeser, etc.
Another thing would be the distance between the ruler and the ruled. At least in the case of India, which was invaded many times, it was a novel development that the ruler remained in a foreign land and primarily diverted resources there.
There was group discrimination associated with each previous conqueror, but again I think colonialism took racism to a new level, backed by pseudo-science, religious zeal, etc.
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This is essentially what I argued above. And it's not necessarily about the physical distance (see the case of Ireland). Pre-modern empires seem to have left the potential open for some sort of cultural fusion, in one direction or the other. Very often we see the conquerors, often relatively unsophisticated 'barbarians' from the periphery of civilized life, become absorbed into the more sophisticated civilization or culture which they had conquered. From the other direction, those empires which conquered on the basis of extending their own self-perceived superior civilization and culture to the barbarous generally found ways of leaving the door open for the conquered/subjugated to join and integrate with the superior conquerors. With the modern European empires, this latter possibility seems to have been closed off, primarily on the basis of race (but also in the case of Ireland, on a sectarian basis, which was in fairness often the case in other pre-modern empires).
'But thank us for doing you a favour either way!'
I'd say by far the biggest difference is the success and consequently the reach. Non of the former empires have been global. The technological/knowledge gap between conquerer and conquered was bigger.
Total and lasting domination not just in war but in peacetime afterwards became a possibility. That allowed a form of rule that was previously impossible/unsustainable
I think most of the other differences are consequences of these changes.
Yes, that is essentially the process of modernity I referred to in my earlier post above. By far the biggest factor distinguishing the European empires from what came before, and something we're all still trying to come to terms with.
Mongolia still exists and you can bet your life it diverted resources to Mongolia post conquest and that being Mongolian was a huge advantage while India was ruled by Mongols.
Has there ever been a more vile paragraph written IN Caf's history?
Well you've clearly wasted your time there. You should google more!
That is one of the most ignorant and racist things ever posted on here.
You don't need to be personally at fault of what your ancestors did to regret or be ashamed of their actions. German people can be ashamed of their Nazi history without being in any way personally to blame. If you can be proud of your country you can also be ashamed of action taken in its name.
Colonialism was borne out of opportunity, a desire for wealth, influence and resources combined with racism institutionalised in state and religious affairs. Taming the noble savage
The idea that we "uplifted" anyone except in minor accidental detail would be laughable if it wasn't so cruelly ignorant. Ask the Australian indigenous people how uplifted they have been.
You last sentence is probably the worst.
Yep. I need to email my professors and berate them for the lack of random google search results and YouTube videos used during instruction
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