19th century vs 21st century europe

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Vexcalibur
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17 Nov 2011, 9:36 am

ruveyn wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

the French Revolution is one of the most wonderful achievements in human history in my mind.

.

The French Revolution produced 20,000 dead during the Terror and unleashed Napoleon on the world. Are you still happy with that Revolution?

Vivre La France!

ruveyn

It provided the framework for the US constitution.

Bang!

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naturalplastic
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17 Nov 2011, 11:49 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

the French Revolution is one of the most wonderful achievements in human history in my mind.

.

The French Revolution produced 20,000 dead during the Terror and unleashed Napoleon on the world. Are you still happy with that Revolution?

Vivre La France!

ruveyn

It provided the framework for the US constitution.

Bang!

Huh?

The US Constitution was penned in 1787.

The French Revolution started in 1789,

peebo
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17 Nov 2011, 12:21 pm

Tequila wrote:

peebo wrote:

as it's a somewhat asinine argument to attempt to mitigate the role of white europeans in the slave trade by implicating africans.

Or the fact that, er, they're still doing it when Britain was the first to abolish it?

We've grown up; they haven't and a lot of them still behave like savages. Simples.

it's quite incongruous to compare what is referred to as slavery today in africa with the atlantic slave trade. and your argument is quite simply over-simplistic. domestic slavery and sex trafficking, for instance are still fairly commonplace in europe, england included. it's a big problem. and indeed, to refer to africans as "savage" is clearly racist.

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Oodain
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17 Nov 2011, 12:27 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Vexcalibur wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

the French Revolution is one of the most wonderful achievements in human history in my mind.

.

The French Revolution produced 20,000 dead during the Terror and unleashed Napoleon on the world. Are you still happy with that Revolution?

Vivre La France!

ruveyn

It provided the framework for the US constitution.

Bang!

Huh?

The US Constitution was penned in 1787.

The French Revolution started in 1789,

but the swedish constitution was drafted a decade before that.

in reality consitutions are as old as the pyramids with some recorded in 2500 BC

they havent been an innovation for centuries.

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Abgal64
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17 Nov 2011, 12:58 pm

Tequila wrote:

And Abgal64? That computer you type your bile on exists, in part, due to colonialism. Live in a Western country? It was created or influenced by colonialism. In fact, almost everything about the modern world we live in today is shaped, in some way or form, by colonialism and its effects and after-effects.

Did you read my last paragraph, a "What If?" question on why could some far more benevolent state, such as the Indus Civilization or Song China, give us the good of the Industrial Revolution without much of the bad? It of course would be an oversimplification to say that China was a perfect, but just have a look at Song inventions and innovations: Movable type printing, the Bessemer Process, mechanical clocks, paleontology, the trip hammer and the quilling wheel: All came from Song China. I suggest you read Kenneth Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence" on a very intelligent idea why China did not industrialize in the later Qing Dynasty (the Song did not industrialize due to the Mongol Hords....)

And as for the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC): In the Bronze Age, they standardized an octal (base

metric system-like system of measurement, had dentistry, almost universal indoor toilets, covered sewers and plumbing and, perhaps most incredibly, they had the assembly line and mass production. And the IVC was close to genderblind: See here: http://bradford.academia.edu/EmilyFiocc ... vilization .

Tequila wrote:

So you can take your attempt at guilt-tripping and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

I have been decent to you, seeing no reason to do otherwise towards you, and I ask for you to be decent to me. This is the second time you have insulted me. Please, let us be civil to one another.

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Tequila
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17 Nov 2011, 3:21 pm

ICY wrote:

I merely mention the UK Overseas Territories, with no mention of my view on their continued status or system of government and you reply with this.

Because I perceived it as an attack on them - "¡Gibraltar Español!", "¡Las Malvinas son Argentinas!", oh and "Ireland unfree shall never be at peace" and so on. I've heard enough bile over the years from those two countries over the state of our loyal citizens.

Also:

(not taken by me but I think it's rather fetching - taken in Gibraltar)

I think this is a rather fetching photo.

Basically, my point was that they're not 'colonies' and really have very little to do with the Empire apart from the fact that they're British posessions often obtained before the main British Empire was in full swing and remain under British jurisdiction entirely willingly. Basically it's almost the opposite of Empire.

And Malta should have been integrated with Britain - there were moves to do this in the 1950s and we should have taken them up on it. I blame the Foreign Office for this.

Last edited by Tequila on 17 Nov 2011, 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tequila
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17 Nov 2011, 3:25 pm

Abgal64 wrote:

Who's to say they would have remained benevolent to the people they compromise? Think of what Lord Acton said.

And if I was 'rude' I cite as mitigation your comments regarding not shedding a tear over modern-day Europe finding itself in difficulties. That didn't go down well (it's pretty insulting to all the people in Europe suffering to be honest) especially as a lot of European countries had very little to do with empire.

naturalplastic
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17 Nov 2011, 3:38 pm

Oodain wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

Vexcalibur wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

the French Revolution is one of the most wonderful achievements in human history in my mind.

.

The French Revolution produced 20,000 dead during the Terror and unleashed Napoleon on the world. Are you still happy with that Revolution?

Vivre La France!

ruveyn

It provided the framework for the US constitution.

Bang!

Huh?

The US Constitution was penned in 1787.

The French Revolution started in 1789,

but the swedish constitution was drafted a decade before that.

in reality consitutions are as old as the pyramids with some recorded in 2500 BC

they havent been an innovation for centuries.

What does THAT have to do with anything?
That doesnt change the fact that Vex has his dates mixed up and is casting Thomas Jefferson as a time traveler who could be influenced by something that hadnt happened yet.

Both revolutions were inspired by 18th Centurey French and British Enlightenment thinkers- so they both sprang from the same sources.
So you could say that thats what Vex meant, he didnt say it that way.

Abgal64
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17 Nov 2011, 3:46 pm

Tequila wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

Who's to say they would have remained benevolent to the people they compromise? Think of what Lord Acton said.

Their precedent seems rather good: The Chinese never abused Korea but only took tribute from it; they even defended Korea from the Japanese, and later the French, on many occasions. Furthermore, China had a long history of preferring making weaker states tributaries to colonizing them; and when they conquered peoples, the Chinese did not subjugate them but rather assimilated them: This is why China is more or less homogeneous with regards to its population today. And the IVC had the largest territory of any state in Bronze Age Eurasia, yet there is no evidence for a military origin of this territory.

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Oodain
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17 Nov 2011, 3:52 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Oodain wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

Vexcalibur wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

the French Revolution is one of the most wonderful achievements in human history in my mind.

.

The French Revolution produced 20,000 dead during the Terror and unleashed Napoleon on the world. Are you still happy with that Revolution?

Vivre La France!

ruveyn

It provided the framework for the US constitution.

Bang!

Huh?

The US Constitution was penned in 1787.

The French Revolution started in 1789,

but the swedish constitution was drafted a decade before that.

in reality consitutions are as old as the pyramids with some recorded in 2500 BC

they havent been an innovation for centuries.

what im saying is that the process of revolution as you put yourself is not as simple as a date and a year.
they build upon everything before them untill they reach a critical mass and become full blown revolutions.

(not that i think you disagree, i agree with your assesment of a common source or ideology)

(

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the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.

Tequila
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17 Nov 2011, 3:54 pm

Abgal64 wrote:

Tequila wrote:

Abgal64 wrote:

Who's to say they would have remained benevolent to the people they compromise? Think of what Lord Acton said.

Tibet?

And who can know if they would have stayed that way?

DC
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17 Nov 2011, 4:31 pm

Abgal64 wrote:

Explain to me how it had to be Britain instead of Song China, the Mali Empire or the Indus Valley Civilization, to industrialize first. And why do you think the cosmopolitan and tolerant Malians, the highly educated Song Chinese or the peaceful people of the Indus Valley Civilization would be worse than Britain as a dominant world culture?

I am a little confused, are you trying to suggest that Europe & Britain were somehow far more bloodthirsthy and barbaric than all the other civilisations that have ever existed?

The Song Dynasty had plenty of wars, modernish China has done plenty of nasty things 10 million dead in the muslim rebellion? It's not as if the formation of China was exactly a peaceful one either, these are the people that wrote 'the art of war' after all.

Relatively little is known about the Indus Valley Harappans, but it is very poor thinking to suggest that absence of evidence of violence is evidence of the absence of violence because we know so little about them.

The Mali Empire was just as soaked in blood as all the others, they did plenty of war and nastiness.

donnie_darko
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26 Nov 2011, 5:36 pm

I think it's wrong how Europe is being punished by immigration. I think it has to do with white guilt. Europe destroyed the culture and people of the Americas and Australia, and now some self-righteous people feel like Europe 'deserves' to be forced to become just another part of Asia.

I do think people of any color should be allowed to come to Europe, but 'when in Europe, do as the Europeans do'. Now in America, with the Mexicans, we have no right to tell them to leave, since white Americans are not indigenous to this land. But white Europeans are indigenous to Europe. Anyone who is against the Europeans takeover and oppression of indigenous New World people should be against forcing Europe to become more like Africa and Asia.

peebo
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26 Nov 2011, 5:41 pm

donnie_darko wrote:

nobody is forcing europe to be more like africa and asia.

donnie_darko
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26 Nov 2011, 5:44 pm

peebo wrote:

nobody is forcing europe to be more like africa and asia.

By forcing multiculturalism on countries that are populated by their indigenous people, yes, they are. Because most of the people who come to Europe are from Africa and Asia. I wouldn't have a problem with it if they made an effort to join the people they choose to live amongst, and I'm sure a lot do. But multiculturalism is different from simply being pro-immigration. It's based on the idea that it's inherently ideal for a geographic area to be ethnically mixed rather than having a unique regional culture.

pandabear
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26 Nov 2011, 7:41 pm

ICY wrote:

Tequila wrote:

The struggle for India's independence did not reflect well on the British, I agree with that. That said, India benefitted from the infrastructure that the British installed in their country. We're not Belgians, after all.

Regarding your last line in the first post of yours I quote, I can see your British stiff upper lip is in full effect :lmao:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the "We're not Belgians, after all" is in reference to the notorious rape by Belgium of her African colonies.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep19 ... -s06.shtml

Anyway, at least at present, European countries don't seem to be especially inclined to go to war with each other any more.

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