Quote:
Originally Posted by ianch99
But that takes you nowhere. There is no "better" way of being invaded - if it wrong, there is no less wrong. This road leads to mitigation and validation.
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Well, yes and no.
Unequivocally, we now see it as wrong. We believe in a rules-based world order which respects the right of nations to self determination; we promote economic and social development through trade and cultural exchange.
However, it is problematic to go too far down the road of applying modern understanding of the world on history. Our modern understanding can explain the reasons why things have changed but it doesn't necessarily help us understand the motives of the people who lived at the time. TheDaddy, for example, makes a perfectly valid point when he suggests the British empire might have been better than the alternatives. if you live in a 19th century Europe in which it is accepted, without question, that it is the duty of the white man to civilise the black man, or a 19th century Africa in which you are powerless to challenge that view or to resist it, the reality is that colonisation is going to happen, and thus it's a legitimate line of historical inquiry to ask whether one nation's colonial habits were better than another's.
None of this means we can't be critical, however it does us no good at all to pretend these circumstances didn't exist. To fail to understand history is to risk repeating it. 'Mitigation and validation' are things you can do with an understanding of history but they are not inevitable and should not be used to try to forbid legitimate lines of academic study.