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> As another counter-example, why did the US acquire Hawaii? It was not part of the continentalism "Manifest Destiny", nor was it part of the Americas under the

• eesmith 8y ago
  Which is imperialism, yes? I want to see wahern explain the US acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines in the framework of the US being "inward looking" non-imperial country bound by continental Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
  • wahern 8y ago
    No, it's not imperialism. I don't know if there's a word for it. Colonialism and imperialism imply much more cohesive political, economic, cultural, and military strategies. They're meaningful terms because they help to neatly describe both the shared motivations of powers (mostly European in recent history) and the shared experience of those who suffered under those powers. Using those labels in the context of American occupation of and atrocities in the Philippines and elsewhere doesn't add any clarity or explanatory power to American motivations or the experience of the victims. Some things are just things unto themselves, or require drawing much less convenient parallels--say, to modern China or ancient Persia. That's why I saw it's lazy and pernicious. Lazy because I think it's a framework that permits privileged American academics to criticize opponents (e.g. in the debate over the Iraq war, or in the debate over the legacy of slavery) without having to come to terms with their own culpability and inheritance; because colonialism and imperialism are so truly foreign to the American experience that one can easily see other Americans (now or historically) as imperialist but not one oneself. Fabricated narratives are more malleable that way. Pernicious because it only adds obfuscation and confusion, which is anathema to the truth and to the task of preventing future harms.
    • eesmith 8y ago
      There are several types of imperialism. US imperialism of the 18- and 1900s is grouped into "New Imperialism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism ), subcategory "American imperialism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism ). The US goals were based on the desire for economic and political influence, and by the racist view that it was the "White Man's Burden" to educate and civilize non-Westerners. These twin goals are characteristic of the New Imperialism era. "imply much more cohesive ... strategies" Like the long use of US military to support US business interests through gunboat diplomacy, going all the way back to Fillmore's mission that Perry, with his Paixhans shell guns, open up Japanese ports for US trade? BTW, how do you explain that in your viewpoint of America's lazy imperial exceptionalism? Similarly, explain the large number of US military interventions in the Americas under the 'Roosevelt Corollary' upending of the Monroe doctrine. The members of the American Anti-Imperialist League would also have disagreed with you. As do the many historians to who refer to American imperialism so often. Eg, see a Google Scholar search for "American imperialism" at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22american+imperialism%22&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22american+imperialism... . (To be fair, a small minority disagree with that characterization.) Since so many people with much more experience on the topic disagree with you, I think you understand why the onus is on you to be more persuasive, especially as your given explanation seems to be it "just happened". Contrary to your assertion, it does give clarity or explanatory power to American motivations in the Philippines. One factor leading to those atrocities was the use of military troops which existed, and expanded, primarily to fight the wars against the native peoples of North America. That is, American continental expansion drove the desire to expand internationally, and provided the cultural and organizational framework by which to control (and destroy) other populations. It also can and does get people to understand their "culpability and inheritance". How do you view the California Genocide if "colonialism and imperialism are so truly foreign to the American experience"? While I see the history of US westward expansion as a story of colonialism, in need of public "Truth and Reconciliation" commissions to help align general US cultural views of our history with the actual history. In hopes, I'll add, of preventing future harms. A point of this New York magazine article, after all, was to highlight that the current narrative is fabricated, and thus (to use your words) more malleable and pernicious. I quote from the article: > Only an American such as myself could be so totally oblivious to their own country’s imperial past. “One of the truly distinctive features of the United States’ empire is how persistently ignored it has been,” the historian Daniel Immerwahr writes in his introduction to How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, his new book on the United States’ overseas empire. Triumphalist accounts of the U.S.’s rise to superpower status usually begin with World War II: Pearl Harbor roused the sleeping giant to save the world from fascism. But if the United States had been sleeping, it was only a brief nap after a vigorous workout. From the early 19th century through the 20th, the U.S. assembled a sprawling overseas empire, which grew to include the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, the Panama Canal Zone, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, comprising millions of colonial subjects. This story resists a happy moral arc.