Colonialism: Imperial greed or evolutionary imperative?

[zee]

Well, gosh Zee, that's quite a claim. I am not sure how you have been able to determine how much time I have spent in the Third World. Perhaps you have gleaned snippets from a variety of my posts and added them all up. I am impressed. Very studious of you. Please do tell me then, how much time have I spent in the Third World? I am anxious to know the definitive figure. You must have it to be sure that you have spent more time than me.

 

By the way, you may well have done so. If you have lived in the Third World all your life, and are not still a teenager, then you would have. I simply asked you how long you had spent there in order to arrive at the absolute conclusion that people in the Third World were unhappy. Will you share that with us now?

i could say this thread is not about you or me.or any out of control teenage hormones. if you want to know my age just ask me, why beat about the bush? by the way i am 120 years old. happy?

[Queso]

i could say this thread is not about you or me.or any out of control teenage hormones. if you want to know my age just ask me, why beat about the bush? by the way i am 120 years old. happy?

 

You've been alive 120 years? :)

[zee]

people can tell by now that i am anti globalization. and you can read about the things i talk about on the anti-globalization websites.

[Queso]

people can tell by now that i am anti globalization. and you can read about the things i talk about on the anti-globalization websites.

 

Mhmmm...But have you really been around for 120 years? :)

[zee]

You've been alive 120 years? :)

;)

[Queso]

:)

;)

[Eclogite]

Zee, you are still avoiding the question. On what basis do you claim that those in the Third World are unhappy?

 

You have stated that you have spent more time in the Third World than I, and it is presumably this time that has enabled this insight into the people's hearts and minds.

 

If this is the source of your contention it is reasonable to know how long you have spent there. If you are relying on anecdotal evidence to support your contention, I think it is proper that I can respond with comparable anecdotal evidence and so the location and duration of our stays becomes relevant.

 

If your source for this contention is not personal, please cite references for it.

[MagnetMan]

people can tell by now that i am anti globalization. and you can read about the things i talk about on the anti-globalization websites.

Globalization is the 5th logical step in human evolution.

Count to five with me.

 

1. Family cooperation 2.5 million B.C.

2. Clan cooperation 15,000 B.C.

3. National cooperation 4,000 B.C.

4. International cooperation 500 B.C.

5. Global cooperartion 1900 A.D.

[Eclogite]

Globalisation is not so much about global cooperation as global exploitation by self selected individuals, businesses, governments and societies. As such it is not necessarily a good thing for humanity at large.

 

If you have a distorted view of neo-Darwinian evolution, believing that survival of the fittest means survival of the meanest, nastiest, strongest, most selfish, then you might consider globalisation in its current form as positive. Otherwise, I suggest, one should be at least suspicious of it, and more likely aghast at its worst excesses.

 

Globalisation has provided a means for laissez faire capitalism to express itself through the weaknesses or corruption of third world governments. It is no more attractive for the Indonesian citizen encouraged to smoke themselves to an early grave by tobacco companies loosing business in the West, while she works for a few rupiah making cheap clothes for your children, than it was for the factory workers of the Industrial Revolution, working long hours with no concerns for their safety or welfare.

 

Cooperation, whatever form it takes, should be for the benefit of all, not the self selected few. Globalisation, in its present form, does not meet that goal.

[MagnetMan]

.

 

Cooperation, whatever form it takes, should be for the benefit of all, not the self selected few. Globalisation, in its present form, does not meet that goal.

 

Agreed on both points.

 

We are in a transition mode. We are still basically running on the old colonial exploitation model. It would be nice if mass change took place peacefully and the large-scale challenges of planet management were taken up rationally. But historically that has not been the case. It has alweays been rather the devil we know - even if he is making life hell on earth - than let go of entrenched cistoms and sacred totems. Traditionally, each New Age has been preceeded by a dark era of chaos before the emergeance of a new enlightement.

 

Elements of that chaos are everywhere apparent even as we watch our own Congess mill around aimlessly - completely unaware of the fact that representative giovernment and party politics and current economic ideologies have become an outright hinderance to future progress. Let us give a couple of instances: There is enough tidal power in the Gulf of California to energize the whole country, including Mexico. We also talked about the space elevator that might allow increased use of nuclear energy. The raw material. labor and technology for those large-scale engineering projects is there - but capital has set up artificial paper barriers that make huge planet management proposals like those unfeasible. And Congress is quite willing to vote billions for a Gulf War to secure a tiny fraction fothe energy the other Gulf can supply. And so, in the confusion, while we argue about the need for massive changes, Mickey Mouse corporate goals give globalism a bad name.

 

One can see by the arguments we are having on this forum, how difficutt it is to get even intellectuals to contemplate large-scale ideas that require a paradigm shift of awareness.

 

On the plus side, the process of global stewardship has started. That ethic as settled in the consciounsess of many millions of truly concerned humanitarians and environmemntalists. More and more of us will see the long-term advantages their efforts and proposals they have for our common survival. The current pressures on, food, housing and energy will keep building exponentially and will eventually force all of us to recognize the new reality.

[Webbly]

Zee, if really 120 you'd be helping the medical science forum. And orbsycli, that's not a real name, I checked Wikipedia. You can't believe forum posters.

[zee]

Zee, if really 120 you'd be helping the medical science forum. And orbsycli, that's not a real name, I checked Wikipedia. You can't believe forum posters.

yes indeed , i intend to make history.:QuestionM

[Boerseun]

Ain't resurrection grand?

 

...of old threads, I mean.

[Webbly]

Well, Boerseun, if this thread lacks anything, it’s not grandeur and depth of your avatars and signature quotes.

 

Hmm, in these echoing chambers a note to myself.

 

For little it’s worth, I wuz having a thunk, something I do best when the thread is long deserted. Strange, too, because when this discussion began all those months ago I had nothing original to offer and could only barrack for poor old MagnetMan, but chose to participate because there was something important here (though couldn’t quite finger it).

 

Today, over morning tea, discussing with a colleague something or other led to me saying “.. but the Asians generally are far more spiritual than western cultures."

 

To which she countered “Not at all, that’s a mere perception. There are equally spiritual people anywhere, any culture.” Dang, thought me, neutralized again. This can only end in a statistics competition, and that would be resorting to damn lies.

 

Tonight, ten hours later, the idea suddenly firmed (a little) and memories of this thread jumped into my internal spotlight (in which I stand interminably monologuing).

 

Animism is what I vaguely had in mind as ‘spiritual’ (and modern westerners are anything but animistic) and it extends across all continents, still, today. Then the vision of imperialism played in my head, depicting greedy ‘westerners’ spreading like a plague, corrupting and consuming ‘primitive’ and (mostly, including ancient European – am I correct?) animistic societies and cultures – progressing thus to this moment in its maturing phase.

 

Though a poor student of history - and even a good student might find the edges rather blurred – I might assume that with migrations and invasions par for the course of history, and pre-history, there must have been the seed of ‘non-spiritual selfishness’ – an unbeliever, a non-innocent – that became a disease of the mind (a culture) and brutally spread, evolving into classic imperialism – and it’s equally classic corruptible and cynical power centers (religion/state/corporate/military) - we know and love today.

 

So, to the question: “Colonialism: Imperial greed or evolutionary imperative?” Well, to answer “both” might be a cop-out, but it’s a chicken and egg question. Aren’t they all?

 

In everything humankind has done there was a choice. But, like all choices involving competitively-selfish individualistic (the cult of ‘I’) entities, rationale intrudes to falsify motives. The only ‘choice’ remaining for such self-serving entities (individuals, cultures, societies, and civilizations) is to benefit from the moment ‘because if I/we/nation/corporation doesn’t, another will – and we can’t let that happen, can we!!

 

This one primal consideration overrides all choice at all levels, from individual through corporation to nation - short-sighted, ignorant, greedy, and foolish. One might say the animal is choosing, not the human - even say it of corporations, with both their shareholder-obeisant helmsmen and the unspoken rules of engagement with opponent behemoths. Grand if not grave philosophical implications flow from this regarding our future.

 

This so-called ‘choice’ is the pointy end of a natural (noospheric?) force that drives modern commerce, government, and science, and has us all on a roller coaster to nowhere, a random walk into an unplanned future.

 

Choice no longer considers what is best for us, or the planet – only for ‘me,’ now.

 

Would the noble savages we smothered decide the tribe’s future that way? That’s another debate, for anthropologists.