Are you an imperialist? For the past five decades, it has been politically correct and even fashionable to oppose imperialism. Westerners of contrary views were thought to be bigoted and worse. We are all too familiar with the negatives of imperialism—that is exploitative, inherently racist, and in violation of several principles of international law like sovereignty and self-determination. Yut these ideas are based in feeling but not fact. You see, the anti-imperialist has the utmost compassion for the plight of the Third World, and insofar as this compels justice, this sentiment is noble. Something curious happens with anti-imperialists, though; they come to regard the things they have that Third Worlders do not as badges of shame through identification. Anti-imperialists feel their their electronics, their air-conditioned homes and offices, their clean running water, and even their health are ill-gotten gains because, with this discrepancy, what else could it be? But our intuitive sense of fairness does not always work correctly in complex globalized situations such as this. In other words, anti-imperialism is merely a projection of self-loathing.
However, it is not the case that Westerners, as a general rule, exploit their Global South counterparts. The relationship is complex and symbiotic. A simple thought experiment can confirm this: You are financially secure and stable, but your brother has made a series of unwise decisions and is now homeless, so you take him in, and in gratitude, he offers to do a few chores around the house. Has he been exploited? Has he been subjected to bigotry? The imperial class's relation to its subject peoples is comparable. We in the West brought industry, scholarship, markets, Christianity, in short civilization itself to the benighted nations. We had, so we reached out—with bayonets and canon, but this exertion of force is comparable to that used to sequester a brother experiencing command hallucinations and suicidal-homicidal ideation. In short, the sometimes aggressive face of imperialism covers the its true benevolent nature. The peoples of sub-Saharan Africa would be even worse off than they are now if it were not for European colonialism and imperialism.
The reason I bring this up is that we who have Asperger's syndrome are in a position towards the NTs analogous to that of the British towards the Zulu and Indians in the 19th century. We have the opportunity to conquer and then enlighten NTness with our keen sense of logic, our intense interests, and our more direct form of socializing. Who will answer the call?
06 Mar 2008, 11:11 pm
