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> But I detest trying to shut someone up This is your imagination. Challenging someone's ideas is not shutting them up. Especially if their ideas are as misgu

by yoo1I 10y ago

> But I detest trying to shut someone up This is your imagination. Challenging someone's ideas is not shutting them up. Especially if their ideas are as misguided, and yes, racist, as to believe the whole continent of Africa was unable to develop without the help of the white Europeans. > I personally don't know whether Africa was on track to have civilization without colonialism Are you seriously suggesting that there was no civilization in Africa before colonialism ? You know, I'm not trying to shut you up, by this point you're so far off, that it doesn't even make sense to have a conversation. Or said much more succinctly: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it, and ain't nobody got time for that.

omonra 10y ago
What I meant was not a civilization in the abstract sense of the word but rather what we consider modernity (as brought to us by Europe). My understanding is that Asia is widely expected to get there without Europe - but it's not clear for Africa. In the case of America there actually were quite a few civilizations on the upswing when Europeans arrived (and killed everybody off with their diseases). I am yet to see the same said about Africa.
- meira 10y ago
  I think you probably watched too much whitewashed movies about the Egypt and internalized that it is an European country, don't you?
- carapace 10y ago
  On a visit to England, Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea." I think you're confusing "modernity" with the steam engine and the Scientific Method. Little else distinguishes modern civilization from those of the past. The Renaissance was "re-birth" of something that had gone before, etc... Everyone thought the Egyptians were the height of Civilization, except the Egyptians themselves. They thought it was the Nubians.

by yoo1I 10y ago

omonra 10y ago

What I meant was not a civilization in the abstract sense of the word but rather what we consider modernity (as brought to us by Europe). My understanding is that Asia is widely expected to get there without Europe - but it's not clear for Africa. In the case of America there actually were quite a few civilizations on the upswing when Europeans arrived (and killed everybody off with their diseases). I am yet to see the same said about Africa.

meira 10y ago
I think you probably watched too much whitewashed movies about the Egypt and internalized that it is an European country, don't you?
carapace 10y ago
On a visit to England, Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea." I think you're confusing "modernity" with the steam engine and the Scientific Method. Little else distinguishes modern civilization from those of the past. The Renaissance was "re-birth" of something that had gone before, etc... Everyone thought the Egyptians were the height of Civilization, except the Egyptians themselves. They thought it was the Nubians.