It's always interesting to see that things we take as "givens" (modern nation-states and standing armies for example) weren't always thus. When people despair over our modern wars, I remind them that not so long ago, war was often looked at as a simple economic venture and even less pretext was needed-and that neither "colonialism" nor "imperialism" were seen as "bad".
I see a lot of memes using the term "settler-colonialism" nowadays, and I sometimes feel obliged to remind the poster that however true it may or may not be, just using the term doesn't convince those who need to be convinced because it doesn't carry the moral weight it should-the views of the Nineteenth Century are still with us.
It's always interesting to see that things we take as "givens" (modern nation-states and standing armies for example) weren't always thus. When people despair over our modern wars, I remind them that not so long ago, war was often looked at as a simple economic venture and even less pretext was needed-and that neither "colonialism" nor "imperialism" were seen as "bad".
I see a lot of memes using the term "settler-colonialism" nowadays, and I sometimes feel obliged to remind the poster that however true it may or may not be, just using the term doesn't convince those who need to be convinced because it doesn't carry the moral weight it should-the views of the Nineteenth Century are still with us.