Simone Weil

[Catlick]

Dear Western World,

so hey thanks for setting up extractive institutions, enslaving us, widespread poverty and disease and dumping all of your trash in our backyard because train stations.

 

yours truly,

africa and the asian coutries such as

 

I almost can't believe somebody is trying to whitewash the evils of imperialism but it IS the internet after all.

 

In, say, 1700 Africa had far more extractive institutions, slavery, poverty, and disease than in 2000. 

 

By the way, I should've been more careful, Americans often lack a nuanced understanding of colonialism, having no substantial colonial tradition themselves. 

Edited February 10, 2015 by Catlick

[BarbTherese]

I used to have a cassette tape (disappeared somehow) with haunting music and equally haunting male-spoken (not sung) lyrics.  One of the lines ran "wherever the white man goes, he leaves a trail of destruction and greed".   Not far wrong rather often I don't think.

 

I can't find the cassette through Google and I can only recall the above lyric not the title -  the tape disappeared many years ago now.

[Maggyie]

Ok, "wherever the white man goes, he leaves a trail of destruction and greed" is pretty pathological and you should probably avoid listening to hate tapes.

[Kia ora]

In, say, 1700 Africa had far more extractive institutions, slavery, poverty, and disease than in 2000. 

 

By the way, I should've been more careful, Americans often lack a nuanced understanding of colonialism, having no substantial colonial tradition themselves. 

 

oh please. this is north america you're talking about. there's three countries on it that were built on colonialism. that is, built on the dispossession and suffering of others.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2015 by Kia ora

[Catlick]

Pretty much 90% of all the people who have converted to Roman Catholicism between 33 and 2015 AD, have converted after Catholic warriors killed their pagan priests and cut down their 'sacred' trees. Always funny to see Catholics fervently denounce conquest, one of the Holy Spirit's favorite means.

[Era Might]

By the way, I should've been more careful, Americans often lack a nuanced understanding of colonialism, having no substantial colonial tradition themselves. 

 

We have a fine tradition of colonialism, we murdered and plundered with the best of them. And since you're a European, be sure to submit to American hegemony, since you are such a believer in colonialism, because we no doubt are better than whatever shrimp-sized European country you hail from. 

Edited February 10, 2015 by Era Might

[Catlick]

We have a fine tradition of colonialism, we murdered and plundered with the best of them. And since you're a European, be sure to submit to American hegemony, since you are such a believer in colonialism, because we no doubt are better than whatever shrimp-sized European country you hail from. 

 

One should distinguish exporting godless liberal democracy from exporting the Faith. The Americans do the former, the Portuguese and Spanish did the latter. I am very much aware of the great slaughters they initiated. But in most cases mistreatment of the locals was ultimately caused by Europeans giving greed the upper hand, instead of listening to the Church, e.g. in Her commanding proper treatment of Christian slaves.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Catlick

[Era Might]

One should distinguish exporting godless liberal democracy from exporting the Faith. The Americans do the former, the Portuguese and Spanish did the latter. I am very much aware of the great slaughters they initiated. But in most cases mistreatment of the locals was ultimately caused by Europeans giving greed the upper hand, instead of listening to the Church, e.g. in Her commanding proper treatment of Christian slaves.

 

The Faith is not part of the Gross National Product, but the fact that you speak of it as an economic good reflects how disgusting colonialism is. When you wander the earth to satisfy your insatiable hunger to acquire and control, you had best have a friend in the skies to lead the way.

[BarbTherese]

Ok, "wherever the white man goes, he leaves a trail of destruction and greed" is pretty pathological and you should probably avoid listening to hate tapes.

 

Thank you, Maggie.  Certainly yours is a perspective on the tape.  Mine is different. :)

[Kia ora]

Pretty much 90% of all the people who have converted to Roman Catholicism between 33 and 2015 AD, have converted after Catholic warriors killed their pagan priests and cut down their 'sacred' trees. Always funny to see Catholics fervently denounce conquest, one of the Holy Spirit's favorite means.

 

Jesus is the prince of peace, not the prince of peace through superior firepower.

 

War is not one of the Holy Spirit's favourite means. War is one of man's favourite means.

 

Christians confuse the two.

 

Weil criticised precisely this, when many Catholics combined an unholy love of country with an unholy love of their faith, whether it be in the Spanish Civil War or during the Occupation or throughout the French colonial empire.

[BarbTherese]

General comment not necessarily related to previous posts:

The Church teaches, and I believe, that there is such a thing as just war which is conditional on certain circumstances.  But I don't think war and related  deeds could ever be called good, nor an act of Praise and Thanksgiving to God.

A just war with related conditions fulfilled, can be a necessary evil - but it can only ever be the finite human estimation of the lesser of two evils.

War of any kind and also any form of violence should always, to my mind, bring grief even to those not connected to same and merely onlookers even quite distant onlookers.

Catholic Catechism:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2307

 

 

 

2305 Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic "Prince of Peace."100 By the blood of his Cross, "in his own person he killed the hostility,"101 he reconciled men with God and made his Church the sacrament of the unity of the human race and of its union with God. "He is our peace."102 He has declared: "Blessed are the peacemakers."103

 

2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.104

 

Avoiding war

 

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.105

 

 

Edited February 11, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[Ice_nine]

We have a fine tradition of colonialism, we murdered and plundered with the best of them. And since you're a European, be sure to submit to American hegemony, since you are such a believer in colonialism, because we no doubt are better than whatever shrimp-sized European country you hail from. 

 

America **** yeah!

 

In, say, 1700 Africa had far more extractive institutions, slavery, poverty, and disease than in 2000. 

 

By the way, I should've been more careful, Americans often lack a nuanced understanding of colonialism, having no substantial colonial tradition themselves. 

 

Good to see the European superiority-complex still alive and well.

 

In addition I appreciate insults upfront. If you're going to insinuate I'm too stupid (i.e. lack nuance) to understand your very well-nuanced argument of "look there's roads and trains colonialism was great!" because I'm just a dumb American or something then come out with it. Don't insinuate these things and then hide behind them as if to say "oh me, I would NEVER insult the intelligence of people on the internet whom I only know of from a solitary paragraph they wrote." Just call me an idiot outright.

 

One should distinguish exporting godless liberal democracy from exporting the Faith. The Americans do the former, the Portuguese and Spanish did the latter. I am very much aware of the great slaughters they initiated. But in most cases mistreatment of the locals was ultimately caused by Europeans giving greed the upper hand, instead of listening to the Church, e.g. in Her commanding proper treatment of Christian slaves.

 

So you're really knowledgeable of the atrocities committed but still willing to gloss them over? I think it does a disservice to the faith to whitewash terrible things people have done in the name of your faith, in the name of your God. It's really a cop-out. In addition it wasn't just about greed. It was about people having zero respect for other cultures because you think hey yours is obviously the best so we're doing everyone a favor by foisting it upon them.

 

Speaking of Christian slaves, you wouldn't mind being a slave right? And then just leave it to your masters whether they want to listen to the church or  succumb to greed. I'm only asking because it doesn't seem like you have much a problem with enslaving people so surely you wouldn't mind the other side of the coin?

[Not The Philosopher]

Communism helped modernize Russia and make their army into a force that could successfully repel Nazi Germany. That does not make communism a good ideology.

 

Making disciples of all the nations is an essential part of the faith. If making disciples = culturally assimilate them, then please note that this command was incidentally first issued to a bunch of Jews in the Near East.

[Kia ora]

the jews didn't really go for that 'cultural assimilation' thing. if making disciples is cultural assimilation, well then, the romans were the great evangelisers of jupiter's divine mandate to conquer and assimilate. the jews were the colonised ones in that situation.

 

but somehow i don't think that's what god meant by giving the church the imperative to spread the good news. the good news should change and fit wherever it goes, for every people it lands upon is different. even within the catholic church, look at the difference between say the maronites and the latins. who would dare to say that this diversity is a shame?

 

difference is a good, not a defect.

 

 

Edited February 12, 2015 by Kia ora

[Not The Philosopher]

the jews didn't really go for that 'cultural assimilation' thing. if making disciples is cultural assimilation, well then, the romans were the great evangelisers of jupiter's divine mandate to conquer and assimilate. the jews were the colonised ones in that situation.

 

but somehow i don't think that's what god meant by giving the church the imperative to spread the good news. the good news should change and fit wherever it goes, for every people it lands upon is different. even within the catholic church, look at the difference between say the maronites and the latins. who would dare to say that this diversity is a shame?

 

difference is a good, not a defect.

 

My point was that Christianity shouldn't be conflated with European culture.