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Nit: Congo free state and Scramble for Africa were pretty different as I believe most Europeans didn’t realize and/or accept that sub Saharan Africans are human
by pfannkuchen 1y ago
Nit: Congo free state and Scramble for Africa were pretty different as I believe most Europeans didn’t realize and/or accept that sub Saharan Africans are humans at that point. They had an extremely different exposure to them (level and type) than we have today, and I don’t think we today can say whether we would have reacted differently to the Africans immediately post mass scale contact.
Do people in the west today consciously consider Palestinians to be subhuman? I don’t think so? So this today is like much much worse actually IMO from a moral defensibility standpoint.
This is orthogonal to your point, I agree with your point.
- runarberg 1y ago[flagged]
- churchill 1y agoI think your point has some merits, but ultimately, intent doesn't matter: action does. if the West keeps funding Israel's genocide in Gaza, then yes, it's because they believe the Palestinians are sub-human. Haven't you seen the outpouring of support for Ukraine since they were invaded? Yet, Western nations are funding (not overlooking, but actively paying for) something worse - a continuous, ongoing genocide - and it's supposed to be an oversight?
- pfannkuchen 1y agoI disagree that intent does not matter when judging the morality of an action. I believe this is the supermajority view in the west. Which doesn’t make it right, of course, I just assumed we all thought that and if you don’t I’m not going to argue with you about it.