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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utcs!clarke
From: clarke@utcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Better DEAD than RED
Message-ID: <706@utcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 13:30:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcs.706
Posted: Fri Jun 21 13:30:30 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Jun-85 13:45:26 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5710@utzoo.UUCP> <703@utcs.UUCP> <5712@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: clarke@utcs.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX
Lines: 39
Summary: 

In article <5712@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> Well, apart from that phrase "in the first place", which is a bit of a
>> weasel -- we all start at home, after all -- ...
>> there's a bad side too, and you can't just dismiss complaints of exploitation
>> as "silly".
>
>Who's dismissing them as silly?  If you re-read my past postings, I have
>quite explicitly said that the West has abused its dominant position.
>My point was that "in the first place" is *not* a weasel -- we started
>out at home, and rose a long way under our own steam before we reached
>a position where we could start to oppress others.

It is a weasel (apologies to weasel-lovers:  maybe I shouldn't have
picked that word in the first place) in the context of a discussion
on whether or not western nations have a history of colonial exploitation
from the beginning of their colonial activities.  It is a weasel because
it implies that we are thinking about the history of our culture from
its own beginning -- if that event is well-defined -- rather than from
when it began to colonize abroad.  I think the question we started with
(if *that* event is well-defined) is something like, "Did western
industrialization receive significant benefit by mistreatment of colonies?"

My answer is a loud, "I don't know," followed by a quieter, "Well, there
are some unpleasant but significant examples."

>                                                    To repeat a previous
>point:  a culture that is *physically capable* of oppressing people on
>the other side of the planet is hardly primitive or undeveloped.  It
>may be distasteful in certain ways, but it is hardly undeveloped.

I still like the Mongolian example.  It's a long way from Ulan Bator to
Moscow, especially when you're busy in Delhi at the same time.  And
(sorry, Mongolian-lovers) I don't think the Golden Horde could be described
as "developed" in the terms of this discussion.  It might even be called
"primitive" by comparison with, say, Union Carbide.

[Most people I talk to think I'm a bit of a reactionary.  I don't know why
I'm sounding like this here.  Electronic conversations do strange things
to a guy's personality.]