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This wikipedia entry only very briefly touches on some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_significance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B

by bh42222 15y ago

This wikipedia entry only very briefly touches on some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_significance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_signi... But saying only that To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No sentence describing the British empire should start with "To make a long story short".

lionhearted 15y ago
> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't talked about. In a number of their African wars, they were destroying cities that had altars of human sacrifice where the blood was made to keep wet - constant non-stop human sacrifice. I forget the chief's name and Wikipedia isn't helping me, but he claimed credit for over 180,000 sacrifices before losing to the Empire. The Boers are interesting. I kind of sympathize with them a little philosophically as rough individualists, but they were nasty motherfuckers as well. Brutal slavedrivers and merciless during ambushes in wartime. Again, I've actually got quite a bit of admiration of their good points and they were tough as nails, but they could really be sick bastards sometimes. (I think most of their modern descendants would say that's a fair description, and might even smile at it.) This is before even getting into all the science, culture, law, engineering, infrastructure, and technology that British culture fostered. Yes, they did more net good than anywhere else in history. That's not even a particularly bold statement to make.
- eliasmacpherson 15y ago
  As Assistant Secretary to the Treasury he was placed in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population". He described the famine as "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baro... In Ireland this man was responsible for administering famine relief, and I respectfully disagree with your contention. Perhaps he felt he was doing net good. What he then felt he was doing and what he actually did are different things. He changed his mind later on, but his policies are believed to have lead to the death of over one million three hundred and eighty five thousand Irish.
  - untog 15y ago
    Right, no-one was disagreeing that the British did many bad things in their colonies. But the point lionhearted is making is that they did more good, overall. Picking a specific example of bad doesn't counter that argument effectively.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - chakde 15y ago
      There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view. Opposing viewpoints are not hard to find if you actually take the time to look. See Mike Davis' Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world which I think is the best explanation of why the differences between east and west are now so great. Or R.C.Dutt's "Early economic history of the british empire". It's seriously astounding how much money was funnelled out of India and used to build modern Europe and America, while the native Indian industry was killed off. All this makes the British PR effort entirely justified of course. Indians came across the 3 monotheistic religions in reverse of order of their birth and their ethos being completely different from their own, did'nt realize their aggressive nature - India had become pacifist since the time of Buddha and Ashoka. By the time the british came, India had already been weakened by the Muslim rules which itself had fallen out of dominance because of new trade routes. So India was doubly weak and this allowed the British to use their resources to easily win and weaken India even further. The fact that a few Indians were able to leverage the internal dissensions within Europe to their advantage gets very little coverage but was the real story of how the course of history was overturned.
      - nagrom 15y ago
        > There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view. That's odd - I grew up in Scotland and our history lessons were mostly about how bad the British empire was and how evil our imperialistic ancestors were. We weren't taught anything about the instilled systems of law and governance, the ending of the slave trade, the breakthroughs in science and engineering, etc. - I've discovered all these things afterwards, by myself. Generally speaking, I would say that the majority of the British public have a negative view of the empire and are pretty much blind to the fact that it did a lot of good as well as harm.
- olalonde 15y ago
  > By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. From an utilitarian point of view, correct.
  - chakde 15y ago
    The greatest good for the smallest number ?
- samyzee 15y ago
  >British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just content with taking all the money....they also wanted to starve people to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India 3)The british rule was very racist too.Indians were not allowed to travel or dine in the same places as the British.They called us "dirty kaffirs". 4)Even when these motherfuckers were leaving coz they got fucked in WW2 and did not have any more money to rule India(by then the british had sucked all the money from India anyways) they seperated the country into India and Pakistan based on religion."Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives
  - learc83 15y ago
    >Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
    - samyzee 15y ago
      haha ....I got a little too emotional over there(edited) that part...but dont tell me you dont know about the gradual shift of power and revenue from the western to the asian markets....watch the documentary two million minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1E3SSTAM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1E3SSTAM
    - learc83 15y ago
      @samyzee Stack level went to deep so I'm replying to my own post. I agree that Asians are underrepresented in terms of global GDP, and with time their share of the pie will grow much larger in keeping with their share of the population. However economics is not a zero sum game. I'm not adversely affected if Asia's economies grow. In fact, I'd love to see them succeed. More wealth anywhere is good for free people everywhere; it give's me more people to trade with.
- learc83 15y ago
  Analyzing history through the lens of modern values is a foolish effort. At some point every person on the planet had ancestors who conquered, killed, and held slaves. When discussing Alexander the Great we talk about how he spread Hellenistic culture and gave rise to western civilization. It doesn't turn into a flame war about how many Persians he killed, or how many slaves he owned. If we judge historical cultures by modern standards none of them would come out smelling like roses.
- thomasz 15y ago
  > By pretty much any reasonable metric Name one.

by bh42222 15y ago

lionhearted 15y ago

> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't talked about. In a number of their African wars, they were destroying cities that had altars of human sacrifice where the blood was made to keep wet - constant non-stop human sacrifice. I forget the chief's name and Wikipedia isn't helping me, but he claimed credit for over 180,000 sacrifices before losing to the Empire. The Boers are interesting. I kind of sympathize with them a little philosophically as rough individualists, but they were nasty motherfuckers as well. Brutal slavedrivers and merciless during ambushes in wartime. Again, I've actually got quite a bit of admiration of their good points and they were tough as nails, but they could really be sick bastards sometimes. (I think most of their modern descendants would say that's a fair description, and might even smile at it.) This is before even getting into all the science, culture, law, engineering, infrastructure, and technology that British culture fostered. Yes, they did more net good than anywhere else in history. That's not even a particularly bold statement to make.

eliasmacpherson 15y ago
As Assistant Secretary to the Treasury he was placed in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population". He described the famine as "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baro... In Ireland this man was responsible for administering famine relief, and I respectfully disagree with your contention. Perhaps he felt he was doing net good. What he then felt he was doing and what he actually did are different things. He changed his mind later on, but his policies are believed to have lead to the death of over one million three hundred and eighty five thousand Irish.
- untog 15y ago
  Right, no-one was disagreeing that the British did many bad things in their colonies. But the point lionhearted is making is that they did more good, overall. Picking a specific example of bad doesn't counter that argument effectively.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - chakde 15y ago
    There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view. Opposing viewpoints are not hard to find if you actually take the time to look. See Mike Davis' Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world which I think is the best explanation of why the differences between east and west are now so great. Or R.C.Dutt's "Early economic history of the british empire". It's seriously astounding how much money was funnelled out of India and used to build modern Europe and America, while the native Indian industry was killed off. All this makes the British PR effort entirely justified of course. Indians came across the 3 monotheistic religions in reverse of order of their birth and their ethos being completely different from their own, did'nt realize their aggressive nature - India had become pacifist since the time of Buddha and Ashoka. By the time the british came, India had already been weakened by the Muslim rules which itself had fallen out of dominance because of new trade routes. So India was doubly weak and this allowed the British to use their resources to easily win and weaken India even further. The fact that a few Indians were able to leverage the internal dissensions within Europe to their advantage gets very little coverage but was the real story of how the course of history was overturned.
    - nagrom 15y ago
      > There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view. That's odd - I grew up in Scotland and our history lessons were mostly about how bad the British empire was and how evil our imperialistic ancestors were. We weren't taught anything about the instilled systems of law and governance, the ending of the slave trade, the breakthroughs in science and engineering, etc. - I've discovered all these things afterwards, by myself. Generally speaking, I would say that the majority of the British public have a negative view of the empire and are pretty much blind to the fact that it did a lot of good as well as harm.
olalonde 15y ago
> By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. From an utilitarian point of view, correct.
- chakde 15y ago
  The greatest good for the smallest number ?
samyzee 15y ago
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just content with taking all the money....they also wanted to starve people to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India 3)The british rule was very racist too.Indians were not allowed to travel or dine in the same places as the British.They called us "dirty kaffirs". 4)Even when these motherfuckers were leaving coz they got fucked in WW2 and did not have any more money to rule India(by then the british had sucked all the money from India anyways) they seperated the country into India and Pakistan based on religion."Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives
- learc83 15y ago
  >Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
  - samyzee 15y ago
    haha ....I got a little too emotional over there(edited) that part...but dont tell me you dont know about the gradual shift of power and revenue from the western to the asian markets....watch the documentary two million minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1E3SSTAM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1E3SSTAM
  - learc83 15y ago
    @samyzee Stack level went to deep so I'm replying to my own post. I agree that Asians are underrepresented in terms of global GDP, and with time their share of the pie will grow much larger in keeping with their share of the population. However economics is not a zero sum game. I'm not adversely affected if Asia's economies grow. In fact, I'd love to see them succeed. More wealth anywhere is good for free people everywhere; it give's me more people to trade with.
learc83 15y ago
Analyzing history through the lens of modern values is a foolish effort. At some point every person on the planet had ancestors who conquered, killed, and held slaves. When discussing Alexander the Great we talk about how he spread Hellenistic culture and gave rise to western civilization. It doesn't turn into a flame war about how many Persians he killed, or how many slaves he owned. If we judge historical cultures by modern standards none of them would come out smelling like roses.
thomasz 15y ago
> By pretty much any reasonable metric Name one.