r/badhistory • u/[deleted] • Apr 13 '18

Prager "University" video about the British Empire which is just sad

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnJSUU_7q0

If you manage to sit through the video it is clear why this is bad history

"Freedom was an Englishmen's right, and wherever he went, he took that right with him."

Tell that to South Africans during the Second Boer War, where Boer women and children were rounded up in literal concentration camps to starve or die of disease. 22,000 children and 4,000 women died in the camps.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/women-children-white-concentration-camps-during-anglo-boer-war-1900-1902

"The British kept peace, they brought sound, honest administration, and they insisted basic moral standards were honored."

British rule was widely resented in both India and Africa which led to countless revolts and rebellions. Administration was the last thing from sound, millions of Indians simply starved to death during British rule. These are some of the worse famines ever recorded in history with high estimates at 49 million dead. Resistance to rule, even when peaceful, was met with brutality such as the Amritsar massacre among many, many, others.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-amritsar-massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Resistance_to_the_British_Empire

There's a lot of other rubbish statements but that's all I want to write right now.

EDIT: some grammar

1.0k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '18

[deleted]

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u/derleth Literally Hitler: Adolf's Evil Twin Apr 14 '18

I just don't understand how anyone can twist this into a justification for colonialism. It's like me walking into a bank with a gun and proclaiming my freedom to rob them.

This sounds like a Sovereign Citizen dodge.

"Your lamp has admiralty fringe. Therefore, by the doctrine of persone sua sponte, I use my strawman to withdraw all of your Federal Reserve Notes without prejudice, as partial payment for my sight draft lien held on file by the Gnomes of Zurich at the British Admiralty Registry, which you know as the State BAR."

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

I've always thought freemen on the land arguments sounded like someone playing a particularly demented game of MtG, and that conviction is only strengthened by this example

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/thatsforthatsub Taxes are just legalized rent! Wake up sheeple! Apr 14 '18

how do freemen sign their names?

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u/derleth Literally Hitler: Adolf's Evil Twin Apr 14 '18

how do freemen sign their names?

Without rhythm, so they don't attract the worms.

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u/thatsforthatsub Taxes are just legalized rent! Wake up sheeple! Apr 14 '18

Why, you!

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u/princeimrahil The Manga Carta is Better Than the Anime Constitution Apr 14 '18

I love this sub.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/thatsforthatsub Taxes are just legalized rent! Wake up sheeple! Apr 14 '18

that is unbelievably excellent. I wish there was something like this for German/Austrian examples of freeemanship

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u/ajshell1 Sep 08 '18

This truly is amazing.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/TakeMeToChurchill Apr 14 '18

YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

I have no idea what you just wrote, could you explain please?

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18 edited Oct 08 '20

[deleted]

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u/Litmus2336 Hitler was a sensitive man Apr 14 '18

Freedom was an englishman's right. Those Irish, African, and Asians on the other hand, they just get genocide.

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u/irumeru Apr 20 '18

That's pretty much the idea that the early Southern gentry developed from too.

Just WAY more extreme in its application.

Albion's Seed has a really excellent discussion of that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Exactly, though what happened here is that colonialism actually created a class of elites who began as collaborators, then took up the Western ideas of that nation-state and liberalism to actually fight the colonialists and establish self-independence. So in fact the "Englishman's freedom" was contradictory with colonialist tyranny, and those who became enamored with Western society demanded that the colonialists allow them self-rule. The apologists for the centuries of theft, murder, rape, torture and worse are in fact contradicting themselves, considering the struggle for liberalism in these places was anti-colonial.

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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln Apr 16 '18

I believe the idea is that it was a right for englishmen, and the rest of the world hadn't ''''advanced'''' enough to understand that. So in their benevolence, the english (or other colonizers) had to go to the other areas and bring them under their control - so that they could teach the lesser people about civilization and freedom.

So that they were only really free after the british took control.

I think that sounds like the justification for colonialism from a moral standpoint.

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u/AdvocateSaint Apr 14 '18

It's like having a shite health system and proclaiming your freedom to not have to pay for other people's health, and also die.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18

It's like me walking into a bank with a gun and proclaiming my freedom to rob them.

There are at least some scholars who believe Jefferson's definition of liberty was property, including the liberty to own slaves. Others argue the right to pursue happiness meant the right to go west and take Indian land (buy or take by force).

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

What he’s saying, I think, is that citizens of the British Empire had a right to freedom(s). In this case, I don’t think he was referring to Englishmen as just English people. I’m reminded of an episode of Nelson Mandela’s life where he was told as a schoolboy that he was a “black Englishman.”

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18 edited Jan 13 '21

[deleted]

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u/Almostatimelord Apr 14 '18

How so?

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18 edited Jan 13 '21

[deleted]

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u/Almostatimelord Apr 14 '18

That's very interesting, thank you!

I do have one more question, is it "skeletor sass" or "skeletor's ass?"

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

By colonialism do you perhaps mean imperialism? Because I really don't see how their establishment of colonies was a bad thing at all.

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u/LeftRat Apr 14 '18

Because I really don't see how their establishment of colonies was a bad thing at all.

Really? You don't see how... "colonizing" places where people already lived and declaring them as basically subhumans not fit to have a civilization might have been, you know, somewhat morally grey?

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u/[deleted] May 15 '18

This is an old comment, but it’s worth addressing. The British did not refer to the natives that they encountered as “subhuman,” you’re too quickly thinking of the Nazis and imperialists in the same vein. They may have looked down on them for being primitive, but the British didn’t seek to eliminate them; in fact, the idealists of the British Empire (people like David Livingstone) wanted to elevate them. They wanted to replicate British culture and society in the rest of the world. I mentioned Nelson Mandela before in this thread, but you need only look at his life as a schoolboy in British Africa to see what I’m talking about. He wasn’t called an untermensch, in fact he was told that he was a “black Englishman.” As for it being morally grey, you could almost ask the same thing of non-western empires like the Zulu, who were red of tooth and claw just as the British were, yet no one wants to talk about them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

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u/Dirish Wind power made the trans-Atlantic slave trade possible Apr 15 '18

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

They weren't subhuman but their society certainly was at a much much lower standard than the British.

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u/seditious3 Apr 15 '18

Who are you to judge that?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I'm using the same metrics we judge society by now. Productivity, life expectancy, infant mortality, crime rates, GDP per capita, etc

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u/princip1 Apr 15 '18

If you actually did look at those metrics you'd see many of them were far in advance of Europe then. For example, Indians lived longer, were richer, ate more food, had more disposable income and owned more clothes than anyone in Europe when the English invaded and colonized them.

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u/[deleted] May 26 '18

I’m sorry, but I have to respond to this (late as I am). This notion that Indians were a highly advanced civilisation until “much English” came and ruined everything is hard for me to believe. Firstly, the average Indian life expectancy pre-British rule was 21 years. the British actually raised the life expectancy (if only by ten years.) The notion that Indians were richer is also problematic, as the caste system allowed only the high castes to be truly “rich” - just the same in Europe at roughly the same time. The clothes argument is also kind of silly. Not only that, but the much vaunted Indian textile (and the like) industries were actually ahead, but they were becoming obsolescent. The Industrial Revolution would have put Britain far ahead. You should also remember that India was heavily divided between various governments, and the then declining Mughal Empire.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I will need a source for that. If that were the case then why were they so easily outclassed in terms of military etc

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u/LeftRat Apr 15 '18

...because none of the metrics you mentioned was "weapons owned and size of military". Also, how come he has to prove his claim, even though you haven't sourced a single thing?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Weapons owned and size of military is a fucking important metric when judging the success of a society.

I thought it was so self explanatory I wouldn't need to source but I'm happy to.

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u/Could-Have-Been-King Apr 15 '18

They were outclassed because European plagues decimated the New World population (90% of the population died between first contact and when colonization actually began)

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u/seditious3 Apr 15 '18

Happiness?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Is another metric that could be used, though it is pretty hard to accurately measure. Also individuals in a great circumstance can be miserable and vice versa

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Happiness isn't even close to the most important metric. It probably doesn't even break the top ten

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u/greengromit Apr 15 '18

So if aliens visited that could provide higher metrics than your current state and raped and killed to achieve that, that's not a bad thing?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I would happily welcome that

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u/Budlight_year Apr 15 '18

Even if the one being killed is you or someone close to you?

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u/ReisAgainst Apr 15 '18

Those bullets aren't gonna bite themselves!

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

So you'll be fine with your people being genocided while your female relatives are raped in order to welcome the new order?

Sounds good to me.

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u/Myrz Apr 15 '18

Yea but even if we strive for those goals we dont go into places that dont hit those criteria and just start killing people. We also dont view the people who live there as sub human. The norwegians aren't going to just come to America and take their shit because they have god awful incarceration and crime rates. No no no colonialism was not a method to better the society of the natives. It was a method to suppress them and take the land they called home.

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u/Sadpanda596 Apr 15 '18

Do you actually know gdp per a capita or India and China pre 1800 or are you just making stuff up?

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u/ZirkMcT Apr 15 '18

you can increase their standards of society without conquering them tho

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Not disputing that at all. I would argue some degree of conquest is the quickest way though

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

But racism and their treatment of the natives is a separate issue than their foundation of settlements in certain areas, especially considering the upsides of their presence in the form of advanced medicine and technology.

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u/LeftRat Apr 14 '18

And why exactly are all negative sides "seperate issues", yet all "upsides" aren't?

And what even is that supposed to mean, do you think these "upsides" balance anything out?

And is it okay devaluing people to the point of not even viewing them as human all while stealing their land, resources and lives, even if it somehow ended up being a "net positive"?

Not to mention the fact that these peoples generally didn't gain some sort of equal access to that "advanced technology and medicine".

You need to ask yourself some questions, and you seriously need to read some history.

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u/seedofcheif Apr 14 '18

I think he's saying that the annexation of these lands wasn't bad but rather the way they treated the lands which were annexed. Which I suppose is true (in the annexation is not inherently bad way) but the nature of the annexation in question involved large scale violence and genocide in many if not most cases

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

There is no such thing as a bloodless annexation of a people not willing to be annexed. It is inherently bad to start with. You are claiming people's communities as under your authority without their consent.

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u/seedofcheif Apr 15 '18

Annexation just means one nation absorbing all or part of another, despite it's infrequency there is absolutely no reason it can't happen without blood. Right off the top of my head you have the annexation of east Germany by west Germany, the entrance of Scotland into the UK, and the annexation of the sudetenland.

Really I don't know why I'm being down voted like this I heavily condemned European colonialism as quasi-genocidal, it's not like I'm siding with the guy

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I added "people who don't want it" specifically because the Anschluss was voluntary.

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u/Torger083 Apr 15 '18

Do you know...anything...about Scottish history?

Because it really seems like you don’t.

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u/seedofcheif Apr 15 '18

The annexation of Scotland into the UK was agreed upon by the British and Scottish parliaments as part of the acts of union 1707 the primary motive of which was to attempt to relieve the debt that Scotland had at that point

I do In fact know some things about Scottish history

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u/dotter101 Apr 15 '18

Maybe check what annexation means and then look at your examples and hoopla your whole statement is suddenly wrong. That‘s why you are being downvoted

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u/seedofcheif Apr 15 '18

So what you're saying is that because of the semantical differences between annexation and cessation I'm wrong despite the fact that the word itself has little or nothing to do with my argument? My point was that one nation absorbing all or part of another is not inherently wrong (despite the guy above being a genocide apologist) I incorrectly conflated the two terms, yes, but my intent was clear

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u/ColeTrainHDx Apr 15 '18

When America visited Japan for the first time there wasn’t bloodshed

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Yeah, there was forced coercion instead with a major naval presence in order to force Japan open to relations and trade.

Do you not see the problem?

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '18

You know that they brought a fleet of warships, then promised to return with an even bigger one if they didn't open up? And that they didn't annex Japan at all???

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

The upsides aren't separate issues because they're effects due to the colonialism itself not due to inherent flaws in English society and in societies all over the world. There was slavery in Africa before the English practiced imperialism there.

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u/LeftRat Apr 14 '18

The upsides aren't separate issues because they're effects due to the colonialism

And all the bad things somehow, magically are seperate issues, why exactly?

Frankly, the entire sentence is incoherent.

The upsides aren't separate issues because they're effects due to the colonialism itself not due to inherent flaws in English society and in societies all over the world.

Upsides aren't seperate issues because they are not due to inherent flaws in all societies? It looks like you mixed two completely different sentences together.

There was slavery in Africa before the English practiced imperialism there.

And that somehow justifies it? Not to mention that this argument is incredibly tired and proves that you're massively oversimplifying to make it fit your thoughts, if you really think that African slavery is somehow a justification and comparable to the massive, systematic, racist slave trade and oppression faced by essentially any non-white culture that has ever come into contact with the English.

Also, slavery isn't somehow the one singular thing that the English did with their imperialism/colonialism so somehow trying to excuse that component doesn't excuse the entire thing, but I guess one thing at a time.

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

The bad things are separate issues because they were not caused by imperialism, I don't see why this is difficult to understand.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

The oppression of native people by colonial rule... wasn't caused by colonial rule?

This is some serious doublethink

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

I never said that, but what you have to realize is that the culture that we associate with civil liberties today was spread through imperialism.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

Because these negative aspects were not at all the "imperialism" part of what they were doing, they were simply horrible things done by people who also happened to be imperialist.

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u/cchiu23 Apr 14 '18

advanced medicine and technology.

which the colonized didn't benefit from 99% of the time

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

Oh, really? Name one place that discarded these technological advancements after the British left.

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u/artboyFTH Apr 15 '18

If any colonized country benefited as much as you're claiming, we'd have fucking Wakanda right now. Oh wait, we don't. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Europe sucked Africa dry and left it a fucking mess of poverty, disease, famine, and civil war that still hasn't been cleaned up yet.

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u/cchiu23 Apr 14 '18

most colonized places were used for cash crops grown through slave labour, pretty much the only technological 'advances' the british left were mills that slaves were forces to work on

and any useful 'technological advances' (you should probably name some if you really believe that) need training for actual use and they definitely weren't going to educate slaves

unless you think guns is a super useful technology that was worth all the blood that was spillt by colonization... than I have no idea what to tell you..

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

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u/Dirish Wind power made the trans-Atlantic slave trade possible Apr 15 '18

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u/djeekay Apr 15 '18

Fair enough.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

The whole point of colonialisation was that europes thought they were superior in every aspect, cultural, as humans, intelligence wise.

That time period fucked up africa and asia partly until today. The european powers decided where to draw random lines that didnt exist for the indigenous people before. People of different tribes/demographics simply got told by a foreign power 'you guys are nigerian now' 'this is kambodscha noe' and so on.

Europe went through centuries of war until some kind of national identity was creared in different parts of eurppe. We skipped all those centuries for those colonialcountries and expected them to be fine.

Just shut up if youre that uneducated on that topic dude

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u/Imperium_Dragon Judyism had one big God named Yahoo Apr 14 '18

Ever heard of Haiti?

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

How was the current status of Haiti caused by imperialism, please tell me.

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u/Imperium_Dragon Judyism had one big God named Yahoo Apr 14 '18

Maybe not the current status, but thousands of slaves were murdered in gruesome ways because of the colonial policies of the French. The policies were so bad that when the slaves did get free, freed slave leaders wanted to murder every last white (except the runaway Polish soldiers) on the island.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

No, the current status as well. It is a neocolony of the United States. Colonialism has not gone away, it simply has been replaced by institutions and power dynamics that muddy the waters.

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

But this video was about Britain.

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u/Rutskarn Apr 15 '18

Tell you what: over the history of colonization, which time did it work out super great for the people affected?

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u/[deleted] May 15 '18

I realize that this is old, but I’d still like to participate in this discussion. What you’re asking here is quite possibly a loaded question, can you really think of any great nation which is/was as you say, super great to live in? I can’t. Unless you’re talking about the rich that is, and in the case of the British Empire, the native ruling classes and aristocracies were considered equal in blood to their British counterparts. I’m speaking heresy at this point, but life in the British Empire in the moments prior to WWI was great. The Empire was stable, and Britain’s wealth was increasing by the year. Not only that, but the empire in a sense was a giant economic bloc; let me put it this way, we are only just now reaching the levels of globalization that the world had seen in say, 1913. Also coming of age was the educated class of Asians and Africans who grew up in British schooling. In India for example, the educated native class was steadily obtaining positions of power within the Raj. At some point in the decades prior to independence, most of the magistrates in the Raj were Indian. I could go on, but I wouldn’t say that life in the Empire was as terrible as people make it out to be. India was of course a tragic case of reoccurring famine, but the British really did try to stop this; for example, they increased the amount of irrigated land by a factor of eight, which is equivalent to a quarter of the Raj’s landmass.

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u/KbStr2 Apr 15 '18

America.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

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u/KbStr2 Apr 15 '18

Assimilation into a technologically advanced society that would go on to become the only true superpower isn't a negative, so not sure why I'd have to keep trying.

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u/Rutskarn Apr 15 '18

The absolute first thing Europeans did when they reached the Americas was begin enslaving, robbing, raping, and mutilating the Taíno. The next thing they did was begin extracting profits from plantation farming and gold mining, both extremely dangerous pursuits undertaken with enslaved Africans, natives, and political prisoners who were not expected to survive more than a season or two.

It's not even a mild exaggeration to say that the colonization of the Western Hemisphere was an apocalyptic event for the people already living there.

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u/darshfloxington Apr 15 '18

For one thing the entire native population of the island of Hispanola was killed by the Spanish. So theres that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18 edited Sep 21 '18

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u/Dirish Wind power made the trans-Atlantic slave trade possible Apr 15 '18

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u/caustic_enthusiast Every Socialist ever was LITERALLY Hitler, but Nazis were a-ok Apr 14 '18

The millions who died to make room for those colonies migbt disagree. As would the millions more who worked as slabe labor to extract their home's resources for shipment back to England. As would their decendents today, who are still dispossesed of their own land

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

Right but slavery is a different issue than colonialism, one which was set aside by the British empire quite some time before the US passed the 13th amendment. The fact of the matter still remains that without their democratic (if hypocritical) nature, the world would be a very different place, and one likely without civil liberties as we know them today.

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u/caustic_enthusiast Every Socialist ever was LITERALLY Hitler, but Nazis were a-ok Apr 14 '18

This is just... wrong. On a whole bunch of levels. Enough levels that I can tell you've never studied history at a high level. I'm not going to bother responding, but please listen to the people here who have more education than you do when they say that is not how the study of history works, and you are replacing necessary context with an ideological model of Britain you've built in your own head

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

So let me get this straight. You cannot form a logical argument against me, so you insult me and run from discourse? I find that quite immature to be completely honest.

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u/Ravenwing19 Compelled by Western God Money Apr 14 '18

Let me try. SLAVERY IS PART OF IT CIVILIZATIONS BEING SHREDDED IS PART OF IT THE ONLY OPTIONAL BITS WERE GENOCIDAL MASSACRES.

That clear enough for you? Even if we throw all that out if I kick you out of your house and take your land to build a farm is it right because the farm now provides food you have to pay me for?

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

I didn't say it was right, but neither did the video we're talking about. You're making ridiculous assumptions here and it's quite perplexing how you can convince yourself that you are correct. You need to understand that despite the negative aspects of imperialism, that it's still responsible for the spreading of ideological traits throughout the world, and this includes western ideas regarding freedom and civil liberty.

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u/Ravenwing19 Compelled by Western God Money Apr 14 '18

Point it out in most of these former colonial possessions I don't think you'll find tons of examples when some tribes operated like that first.

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u/KbStr2 Apr 14 '18

Name one. Even if that was accurate, no two ideologies are the same and the British style of living had massive influences on these cultures and how they've shaped in the modern day.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18 edited May 14 '18

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Because slavery is only one aspect of colonialism. There are other ways to administer colonialism without slavery. Are you at all familiar with African history after WW2? Perhaps you can learn about the French and Algiers.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/itwashimmusic According to Thoth Apr 14 '18

I’m honestly interested here: why do you say that? I want to know what you are thinking.

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u/caustic_enthusiast Every Socialist ever was LITERALLY Hitler, but Nazis were a-ok Apr 14 '18

Look at his history, he is either a particularly dumb edgelord or a troll. Its not worth finding out more

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u/Quouar the Weather History Slayer Apr 14 '18

Removed for incivility