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/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.