calvinhobbesliker
Member
http://iq2.podbean.com/2004/06/01/the-british-empire-was-a-force-for-good/
What do you think about the British Empire?
What do you think about the British Empire?
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Debate: Was the British Empire a Force for Good?
- Thread starter calvinhobbesliker
- Start date
Ad Initium
Member
What he thinks:
Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter
Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter
australopithecus
Active Member
My personal opinion based on the fact I'm a Limey is that while it did indeed help progress and disseminate the industrial revolution and such globally, I can't defend the concept of Empire. Screwing over millions of people in the name of such a thing is unconscionable.
Andiferous
Active Member
I can't speak for the rest, but I like having a Queen on my money. That said, we have been shafted a few times through history.
Memeticemetic
Member
Andiferous said:
Hell yeah, I want Queen on my money:
I dunno.
On the one hand, empires are almost always more than a little evil.
Take your Romans with their slavery, aggressive expansionism, gladiatorial combat and massive corruption. You'd be hard pressed to point out any society in the ancient world that was noticeably more vicious than the Romans. The Huns maybe, but it was about equal all things considered. The Roman armies committed the same atrocities against their enemies.
But at the same time, the Romans developed and perfected the technology that still forms the backbone of civilization today. Road building, plumbing, architecture, many of the things we have that make civilization work ever so much better than hunter gathering, the Romans did, if not first, then on a scale that had never been done before. And they were able to do it BECAUSE of how vicious their empire was. You can't build aqueducts without huge amounts of man power. For that you need slaves, which means you need to be conquering people. It's evil, absolutely, but at the same time, I feel the effects of that to this day every time I take a shit and flush the result down the toilet. That's thanks to the Roman empire.
Same deal with the British empire, it's not that nobody else was doing the things they were doing well, it's that because they were doing it on such a big scale, the rest of the world had to either keep up or be made irrelevant. Absolutely people suffered from the effects of rapid industrialization. That's a very painful transition for any society to make, but at the same time, you can't compete economically with a heavily industrialized nation except by adopting the same policy and trying to do it better. 200 years down the line, we're really feeling the positive effects of there having been a British empire.
The real difference with empires over non empires is just the capacity to get shit done. If an empire wants something done, no matter how impossible it might seem, they make it happen. The same can be said with the U.S. and going to the moon. If it wasn't for all those B-52 bombers they built to annoy the russians, we wouldn't have gone to the moon.
Ultimately it would be nice if we didn't have to rely on such a natural selection based system of improvement, but until we come up with a better one, I think it's always going to be a good thing to have empires.
On the one hand, empires are almost always more than a little evil.
Take your Romans with their slavery, aggressive expansionism, gladiatorial combat and massive corruption. You'd be hard pressed to point out any society in the ancient world that was noticeably more vicious than the Romans. The Huns maybe, but it was about equal all things considered. The Roman armies committed the same atrocities against their enemies.
But at the same time, the Romans developed and perfected the technology that still forms the backbone of civilization today. Road building, plumbing, architecture, many of the things we have that make civilization work ever so much better than hunter gathering, the Romans did, if not first, then on a scale that had never been done before. And they were able to do it BECAUSE of how vicious their empire was. You can't build aqueducts without huge amounts of man power. For that you need slaves, which means you need to be conquering people. It's evil, absolutely, but at the same time, I feel the effects of that to this day every time I take a shit and flush the result down the toilet. That's thanks to the Roman empire.
Same deal with the British empire, it's not that nobody else was doing the things they were doing well, it's that because they were doing it on such a big scale, the rest of the world had to either keep up or be made irrelevant. Absolutely people suffered from the effects of rapid industrialization. That's a very painful transition for any society to make, but at the same time, you can't compete economically with a heavily industrialized nation except by adopting the same policy and trying to do it better. 200 years down the line, we're really feeling the positive effects of there having been a British empire.
The real difference with empires over non empires is just the capacity to get shit done. If an empire wants something done, no matter how impossible it might seem, they make it happen. The same can be said with the U.S. and going to the moon. If it wasn't for all those B-52 bombers they built to annoy the russians, we wouldn't have gone to the moon.
Ultimately it would be nice if we didn't have to rely on such a natural selection based system of improvement, but until we come up with a better one, I think it's always going to be a good thing to have empires.
The Felonius Pope
Member
When examining the morality of a nation's actions it is best to keep in mind that every country has its low and high points. The Germans had their 'final solution', the Russians had their holodomor, and we Americans had the atomic bombings. Getting to the point, when weighed against the other nations of its time the British Empire was generally a force for good. We have the British to thank for people like John Locke, Thomas Paine, Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, and Bertrand Russell.
australopithecus
Active Member
The Felonius Pope said:
But are they products of Empire, or would they (or their contributions) have been made regardless?
It brought progress and literacy to many people on Earth, but it also oppressed and enslaved people, plus helped the spread of Christianity. One of the most lamentable things about it is that its horrors gave rise to a nasty tradition of guilt, which makes everyone in the west hesitant to speak up against the cruelties and inhumane customs of foreign cultures lest we be acting like imperialists all over again.
The Felonius Pope
Member
You bring up a valid point there. A nation is not necessarily a force for good simply becuase of the people that happen to
have been born there. People like Schopenhauer, Einstein, and Nietzsche came from Germany and yet most people I
know still look upon Germany as a nation that is symbolic of moral failure. I do, however, believe that the socio-economic
factors at work in the British Empire especially after the conquest of places like Canada, Australia, etc. contributed to the
mind sets and attitudes that gave us people like the ones I listed in my previous post.
have been born there. People like Schopenhauer, Einstein, and Nietzsche came from Germany and yet most people I
know still look upon Germany as a nation that is symbolic of moral failure. I do, however, believe that the socio-economic
factors at work in the British Empire especially after the conquest of places like Canada, Australia, etc. contributed to the
mind sets and attitudes that gave us people like the ones I listed in my previous post.
nudger1964
Member
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions "
sums up my answer quite nicely
sums up my answer quite nicely