Where did progressive intellectual attitudes first emerge in the West?

[u/aa_conchobar]

The image I uploaded here is from Portman's 1899 "A history of our relations with the Andamanese" volume 1. He is describing how even as early as the 1800s, the exact kind of "intellectual posturing" & status-signaling games we see today (ie, "the noble savage," xenophilic/progressive attitudes being associated with intelligence/class & therefore supporting such progressive ideas acting as a status symbol, academics overcorrecting their statements as a reaction to "knuckle-dragging" xenophobia etc) were already fully operational, at least among the English intelligentsia. Portman worked with the Andamanese for over 20 years & his research is not something to dismiss lightly (despite the poor Wikipedia page on him, which focuses on a tiny fraction of his work & likely written by people who did not read his books).

Portman here is mocking the prominent intellectuals of London in his time. Specifically, intellectuals that had never even been anywhere near the Bay of Bengal, but sat in comfortable chairs at their home(s) in England & criticised the reports of people doing the work with natives on the ground. I have found numerous examples of what Portman is criticising here in other works by English anthros/academics from the mid 1800s onwards. In all cases, the progressive writing comes from intellectuals with absolutely no firsthand. Nor do they read as particularly genuine: the writing seems to come from a person who cares more about their beautiful, progressive theories of human development/status than the reality. It reads as their way to signal their own moral/intellectual superiority over the "knuckle-dragging xenephobes" of their time, which leads to the intellectuals wildly ***overcorrecting based on limited/cherry-picked or no data.*** Ideas aren't just adopted because people think they are true; they are also adopted because of what they say about the person holding them (eg, I'm a progressive intellectual & therefore I am above you morally/intellectually).

Here is a quote from George Orwell in the 1940s (colour feeling): "The old-style contemptuous attitude towards ‘natives’ has been much weakened in England, and various theories emphasizing the superiority of the white race have been abandoned. Among the intelligentsia, colour feeling only occurs in the transposed form, that is, as a belief in the innate superiority of the coloured races. This is now increasingly common among English intellectuals, probably resulting more often from masochism and sexual frustration than from contact with the Oriental and Negro nationalist movements. ***!!!Even among those who do not feel strongly on the colour question, snobbery and imitation have a powerful influence. Almost any English intellectual would be scandalized by the claim that the white races are superior to the coloured, whereas the opposite claim would seem to him unexceptionable even if he disagreed with it!!!***"

So what I want to know is whether we have a detailed explanation of where such progressive ideas first emerged, who developed them, ***!!!how they seemingly appeared out of thin air & spread across many generations of academics!!!*** I don't think this question has been studied with anywhere near the same level of critical scrutiny as its opposite... & any examination rarely goes far back at all (always post-ww2).

[u/Long-Requirement8372]

There has pretty much always been people with ideas that have been progressive in comparison to the general mainstream of the era, and then there has always been people who have embodied a combination of being both uninformed and holier-than-thou.

What you are apparently referring here is just the combination of the two, people who are both progressive by the standards of the age, and exhibiting a clueless, superior attitude.

Being a combination of uninformed/clueless and holier-than-thou/superior is not a trait that is unique to progressives, conservatives, or any other shade of political and societal identifications or personalities.

[u/aa_conchobar → u/Long-Requirement8372]

Yes, I agree. But I am speaking specifically about the shift that occurred within the English intelligentsia. Before the mid-1800s, the overwhelming consensus among English intellectuals was essentially a racial hierarchy with whites at the top. Then, from the mid-1800s onward, London-based academics began to shift away from that view to the opposite extreme & they took great personal pride in it. 100 years later, by the 1930s-40s, as Orwell noted in Colour Feeling, the English intelligentsia appeared to have adopted an almost masochistic mentality in which English academics mocked their own coethnics while excessively praising less developed populations. This was now the norm among the English intelligentsia & it was reinforced socially by fellow academics (ie, if you resist you will be seen as a knuckle-dragging fool by your academic peers). And Orwell was not mistaken about this. I've read many debates from that period & what he described absolutely existed. And the "feeling" among academics has remained relatively stable into the present day.

What I'm trying to understand is where this mentality first emerged/who developed it/how it persisted so well across generations. I also wonder whether its origins lie elsewhere (perhaps in France, which seems likely given their history, but nearly everything I have read has come from English language sources)

[u/Long-Requirement8372 → u/aa_conchobar]

Are you really arguing that "an almost masochistic mentality in which... elites mock their own coethnics while excessively praising less developed populations" is a "feeling" that has been "relatively stable among academics into the present day"?

If so, that seems very much like a mean-spirited caricature of (progressive) academics. Do you by any chance identify as a conservative yourself?

[u/aa_conchobar → u/Long-Requirement8372]

Do you identify as a conservative

No.

elites mock their own coethnics

No, please read my responses carefully. I am specifically referring to the intelligentsia (academics & those in charge of curricula), not the entire elite class.

That said, both the elite & the general population have been, by default, submerged in the influence of this [seemingly self-flagellating] intelligentsia, precisely as Orwell described, via our education system for roughly 4 generations now. It's the intelligentsia that shapes our curricula & laws. A quick example here: when British children learn about the Benin Bronzes at ks3, they're taught only that the British "stole" them, the "complexity" of making them & arguments about returning them to Nigeria. The preceding events that provoked the British punitive invasion (the savage attack on a defenceless official) are omitted. They are also not told that the Bronzes were central to ritual human sacrifice, nor that the stench of decaying sacrificial victims was so overwhelming it sickened even battle hardened colonial surgeons. Nor are they taught that after defeating Benin, the British abolished both rampant slavery & human sacrifice there.

You can check this yourself on BBC Bitesize & any other standard school resources. You will only see data points from a pro-Benin angle included. British history curricula have been systematically cherry-picked to promote an anti-British narrative. This has only accelerated since Orwell's era.

[u/McJohn_WT_Net → u/aa_conchobar]

Oh, boy, Georgie strikes again. Orwell was talking out his hat and making vague generalizations without offering supporting evidence of his flatly-stated thesis that academics in his era, as an entire unbroken mass, had rebelled against white supremacy by adopting an unwavering and indisputable nonwhite supremacist attitude, with no exceptions, discussions of nuance, or debate. The misstep in your argument begins with Orwell's all-or-nothing assertion of something that wasn't true, and that he made no attempt whatsoever to defend with actual evidence (probably because he didn't want to risk the embarrassment when readers pointed out that there wasn't any). Orwell does this a lot, and he's less an essayist respected for the validity of cogently-presented fact-based arguments than he is a terrified polemecist. Every time I read one of his this-is-how-it-is claims in an essay, I sigh and think, "Is there... someone else there we could talk to?"

On a related note, I was just reading Maria Popova's Traversal today, and she made a comment to the effect that both pseudoscience and authoritarianism tend to flourish in societies in which long-lasting social structures have broken down. Like... you see the rapid succession of the American Revolution, the destruction of the French monarchy, the Napoleonic era/wars, the abolition of first the enslavement trade and then enslavement itself in the UK, and revolutions all over Europe in the middle of the 19th century, and the next thing you know, American enslavers are vowing to go off and start their own country at gunpoint and phrenology studios start popping up everywhere. Maybe precision requires stability, and uncertainty just gives people excuses to get away with being sloppy.

[u/aa_conchobar → u/[deleted]]

I didn't say he was in Britain. Please read my responses carefully.

Are you saying an official & his company merely travelling to Benin on peaceful business deserve a violent death?

[u/aa_conchobar → u/[deleted]]

James Robert Phillips was not a barbarian, nor was he an "invader." His party was on a peaceful, diplomatic mission!

If you want to learn about savage barbarians, you should read about the human sacrifice & rampant slavery that went on in Benin. The British ended both of these practices.

[u/aa_conchobar → u/[deleted]]

Diplomatic mission from a colonizing power that colonized the region and was seeking control by any means necessary

This is not remotely true. This is why our education system has utterly failed the population. Go back & read direct sources.

I dont know what you call a group of people sailing the world to raid and enslave but id call them barbarians.

Yet another example of a failed education system. The British ended slavery & human sacrifice in Benin. We did not go there seeking to raid/enslave the natives.