5 ms·

I think this kind of sugarcoating is commom across Europe. Usually history is treated here like WWs were kind of an anomaly in an otherwise glorious history. We

I think this kind of sugarcoating is commom across Europe. Usually history is treated here like WWs were kind of an anomaly in an otherwise glorious history. We all know that this is not the case. European history is riddled with tales of genocide and oppression, mostly in the colonies sometimes within Europe. So what you see here is a data point in a general pattern.

malandrew 6y ago
There’s nothing particularly European about what you describe though. These types of events have occurred pretty much everywhere in the world throughout history. They aren’t European patterns. They are human ones.
- eru 6y ago
  The Europeans were just particularly good at it. Much better especially at war than the rest of the world for a while. Many people around the world had the will, but the Europeans also had the means.
  - zpeti 6y ago
    Europeans are also good at feeling ashamed of it, and talking publicly about it, and shaming themselves about it. Somehow the fact that the soviets and maoist killed more people each than "europeans" (this is quite the american generalisation) is forgotten, as are japanese atrocities, as are cambodian ones. Also no one seems to talk about the middle east being the centre of the world wide slave trade for a very long time, as opposed to Europeans being at fault for all of it.
    - thecleaner 6y ago
      It takes courage to admit one's dark history. And kudos to Europe for that. Secondly, why the shaming ? Historical facts should be stated as it is and people living in the present shouldnt be shamed for it. That feels wrong. But one cant adjust admit to some glaring faults and say everything else is great. Colonial mindset is still a thing across Europe. Just look at poverty tourism in Africa. Most tourists are Europeans. Its also very much true that European tourists who go to Vietnam or India or Thailand dont go there for experiencing their culture but to feel better about how life is better in Europe as most would very much tell you in private conversations. There is also the mindset of grateful immigrants rampant across Europe. Like somehow if someone makes it here they should sing the praises of their country because it is clearly a one-sided deal.
      - kieckerjan 6y ago
        Extraordinary claims require better evidence than private communication. People travelling to the other side of the world to feel better about their home country? I am pretty sure you overestimate the lengths that people will go to for a little smugness.
        thecleaner 6y ago
        Sure. Lets remove private communication out of the equation. But poverty tourism is definitely true. The large fraction of tourists are European.
        morsch 6y ago
        What do you mean, it is "true"? It's a thing that exists, sure. But not all tourism to poor countries is sensibly defined as poverty tourism (otherwise the category is worthless). Maybe you can dig up some actual numbers. I'm sure many people visit e.g. Vietnam because it's a convenient way to see a tropical rainforest, or experience the prototypical white sand beach. You might think less of them because they don't care about the culture -- and I think it's a callous waste of resources -- but it's not poverty tourism. Furthermore, I'd naturally assume a large fraction of all long distance travellers to be Europeans, regardless of the motivation. Simply because Europeans make up a large fraction of the world population who can actually afford to do it.
    - mda 6y ago
      Eh, I lived in Europe, never got that feeling of the things you described. Sins of fathers are nigh but forgotten / justified (sometimes with whataboutism).
    - cafard 6y ago
      The Viennese Jewish writer Egon Friedell wrote somewhere that modernity has the advantage of a bad conscience. But weren't most of the Soviets Europeans?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >Somehow the fact that the soviets and maoist killed more people each than "europeans" (this is quite the american generalisation) is forgotten, as are japanese atrocities, as are cambodian ones. Also no one seems to talk about the middle east being the centre of the world wide slave trade for a very long time, as opposed to Europeans being at fault for all of it. Until quite recently it was accepted belief in Europe that people from (approximately) east of the Oder and/or south of Constantinople were inferior. "Savages behaving like savages" was generally not paid much attention to (the exceptions being mostly when building a narrative to support conquest and/or religious conversion) by historians and writers because it was written off as them not knowing better. Smart, proper Europeans who should know better killing each other? Well that just can't stand. Even today you still see a lot of this in how events in "less civilized" parts of the world are discussed in the first world. It'll take a couple of centuries for all the spoken and unspoken prejudices of the people who recorded events and studied history in centuries past to filter out.
      - brnt 6y ago
        You are confusing Europeans with Brits here I believe. And while you'll need to speak other languages to capture most of it, us mainlanders have our opinions of them as well. And of course about each other. It's plural place after all, one of the many things that appears to be lost amongst anglosaxons.
      - eru 6y ago
        > Until quite recently it was accepted belief in Europe that people from (approximately) east of the Oder [...] The Oder wasn't a border until fairly recently. For quite a while, it was just Germany on both sides, without too many distinctions. (Of course, if you go even further back, things get more complicated.) Do you have any sources for your assertions?
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    Not really, the Mongols did quite well with much larger area and far fewer people by suppressing resistance through sheer terror.
    - ahartmetz 6y ago
      In their time, yes. But in more recent times "Europeans realized that they had become too good at their favorite activity, killing each other, so they decided to put an end to it". (paraphrased from Chomsky)
      - seemslegit 6y ago
        I mean, I fully trust Chomsky to find a way in which trying to end over two millennia of hostility and subjugation is somehow used to discredit the West but...
        ahartmetz 6y ago
        I actually see it as a kind of ambivalent compliment, even if it wasn't meant that way. You don't want to mess with people who are very good at killing you if they have to. Having an effective army isn't easy at all.
seemslegit 6y ago
If the "colonies" had kept their history recorded prior to being colonized it would not have been prettier than whatever was done in Europe or by Europe - the Chinese, Persians and Mongol/Turkic occupied lands that did record history from pretty early on have documented every kind of mass, group and individual atrocities imaginable take place. Same for everything that as far as we know took place in the Americas prior to colonizaton.
- knolax 6y ago
  whataboutism.
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    what about it ?
- thecleaner 6y ago
  Colonies did keep their histories recorded. It was systematically destroyed. Dutch in Indonesia, British in India, Europeans in America. It is very common to find mass graves in Africa even now for which there doesnt seem to be any records about how they came to be.
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    The lack of recorded history is more about the west-central African, Caribean and American colonies. India has a decent historic record surviving today and it shows the usual story of class-stratified kingdoms waging wars, persecuting ethno-religious outgroups etc. Source for the systematic destruction of historic documents in India and America ?
    - jan_Inkepa 6y ago
      Not an answer to your question, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256?scroll=top&needAccess=true#_i4 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2017.1... doesn’t speak about India (which I fully accept might be a counter-example), but you can add Sri Lanka/Malaysia/Malta to the list of places with untrustworthy records, and it casts suspicion on others. (the article also makes clear at least sometimes it was done with the consent of the new regime).

malandrew 6y ago

There’s nothing particularly European about what you describe though. These types of events have occurred pretty much everywhere in the world throughout history. They aren’t European patterns. They are human ones.

eru 6y ago
The Europeans were just particularly good at it. Much better especially at war than the rest of the world for a while. Many people around the world had the will, but the Europeans also had the means.
- zpeti 6y ago
  Europeans are also good at feeling ashamed of it, and talking publicly about it, and shaming themselves about it. Somehow the fact that the soviets and maoist killed more people each than "europeans" (this is quite the american generalisation) is forgotten, as are japanese atrocities, as are cambodian ones. Also no one seems to talk about the middle east being the centre of the world wide slave trade for a very long time, as opposed to Europeans being at fault for all of it.
  - thecleaner 6y ago
    It takes courage to admit one's dark history. And kudos to Europe for that. Secondly, why the shaming ? Historical facts should be stated as it is and people living in the present shouldnt be shamed for it. That feels wrong. But one cant adjust admit to some glaring faults and say everything else is great. Colonial mindset is still a thing across Europe. Just look at poverty tourism in Africa. Most tourists are Europeans. Its also very much true that European tourists who go to Vietnam or India or Thailand dont go there for experiencing their culture but to feel better about how life is better in Europe as most would very much tell you in private conversations. There is also the mindset of grateful immigrants rampant across Europe. Like somehow if someone makes it here they should sing the praises of their country because it is clearly a one-sided deal.
    - kieckerjan 6y ago
      Extraordinary claims require better evidence than private communication. People travelling to the other side of the world to feel better about their home country? I am pretty sure you overestimate the lengths that people will go to for a little smugness.
      - thecleaner 6y ago
        Sure. Lets remove private communication out of the equation. But poverty tourism is definitely true. The large fraction of tourists are European.
        morsch 6y ago
        What do you mean, it is "true"? It's a thing that exists, sure. But not all tourism to poor countries is sensibly defined as poverty tourism (otherwise the category is worthless). Maybe you can dig up some actual numbers. I'm sure many people visit e.g. Vietnam because it's a convenient way to see a tropical rainforest, or experience the prototypical white sand beach. You might think less of them because they don't care about the culture -- and I think it's a callous waste of resources -- but it's not poverty tourism. Furthermore, I'd naturally assume a large fraction of all long distance travellers to be Europeans, regardless of the motivation. Simply because Europeans make up a large fraction of the world population who can actually afford to do it.
  - mda 6y ago
    Eh, I lived in Europe, never got that feeling of the things you described. Sins of fathers are nigh but forgotten / justified (sometimes with whataboutism).
  - cafard 6y ago
    The Viennese Jewish writer Egon Friedell wrote somewhere that modernity has the advantage of a bad conscience. But weren't most of the Soviets Europeans?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >Somehow the fact that the soviets and maoist killed more people each than "europeans" (this is quite the american generalisation) is forgotten, as are japanese atrocities, as are cambodian ones. Also no one seems to talk about the middle east being the centre of the world wide slave trade for a very long time, as opposed to Europeans being at fault for all of it. Until quite recently it was accepted belief in Europe that people from (approximately) east of the Oder and/or south of Constantinople were inferior. "Savages behaving like savages" was generally not paid much attention to (the exceptions being mostly when building a narrative to support conquest and/or religious conversion) by historians and writers because it was written off as them not knowing better. Smart, proper Europeans who should know better killing each other? Well that just can't stand. Even today you still see a lot of this in how events in "less civilized" parts of the world are discussed in the first world. It'll take a couple of centuries for all the spoken and unspoken prejudices of the people who recorded events and studied history in centuries past to filter out.
    - brnt 6y ago
      You are confusing Europeans with Brits here I believe. And while you'll need to speak other languages to capture most of it, us mainlanders have our opinions of them as well. And of course about each other. It's plural place after all, one of the many things that appears to be lost amongst anglosaxons.
    - eru 6y ago
      > Until quite recently it was accepted belief in Europe that people from (approximately) east of the Oder [...] The Oder wasn't a border until fairly recently. For quite a while, it was just Germany on both sides, without too many distinctions. (Of course, if you go even further back, things get more complicated.) Do you have any sources for your assertions?
- seemslegit 6y ago
  Not really, the Mongols did quite well with much larger area and far fewer people by suppressing resistance through sheer terror.
  - ahartmetz 6y ago
    In their time, yes. But in more recent times "Europeans realized that they had become too good at their favorite activity, killing each other, so they decided to put an end to it". (paraphrased from Chomsky)
    - seemslegit 6y ago
      I mean, I fully trust Chomsky to find a way in which trying to end over two millennia of hostility and subjugation is somehow used to discredit the West but...
      - ahartmetz 6y ago
        I actually see it as a kind of ambivalent compliment, even if it wasn't meant that way. You don't want to mess with people who are very good at killing you if they have to. Having an effective army isn't easy at all.

seemslegit 6y ago

If the "colonies" had kept their history recorded prior to being colonized it would not have been prettier than whatever was done in Europe or by Europe - the Chinese, Persians and Mongol/Turkic occupied lands that did record history from pretty early on have documented every kind of mass, group and individual atrocities imaginable take place. Same for everything that as far as we know took place in the Americas prior to colonizaton.

knolax 6y ago
whataboutism.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  what about it ?
thecleaner 6y ago
Colonies did keep their histories recorded. It was systematically destroyed. Dutch in Indonesia, British in India, Europeans in America. It is very common to find mass graves in Africa even now for which there doesnt seem to be any records about how they came to be.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  The lack of recorded history is more about the west-central African, Caribean and American colonies. India has a decent historic record surviving today and it shows the usual story of class-stratified kingdoms waging wars, persecuting ethno-religious outgroups etc. Source for the systematic destruction of historic documents in India and America ?
  - jan_Inkepa 6y ago
    Not an answer to your question, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256?scroll=top&needAccess=true#_i4 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2017.1... doesn’t speak about India (which I fully accept might be a counter-example), but you can add Sri Lanka/Malaysia/Malta to the list of places with untrustworthy records, and it casts suspicion on others. (the article also makes clear at least sometimes it was done with the consent of the new regime).