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Political Science Randy Newman. No one likes us, I don’t know why We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try But all around, even our old friend put us down. Political Science Randy Newman. Let’s drop the big one, and see what happens!. Political Science Randy Newman.
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Political ScienceRandy Newman No one likes us, I don’t know why We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try But all around, even our old friend put us down
Political ScienceRandy Newman Let’s drop the big one, and see what happens!
Political ScienceRandy Newman We give them money-but are they grateful? No, they're spiteful and they're hateful They don't respect us-so let's surprise them We'll drop the big one and pulverize them
Political ScienceRandy Newman Asia's crowded and Europe's too old Africa is far too hot And Canada's too cold And South America stole our name Let's drop the big one There'll be no one left to blame us
Political ScienceRandy Newman We'll save Australia Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo We'll build an All American amusement park there They got surfin', too
Political ScienceRandy Newman Boom goes London and boom Paris More room for you and more room for me And every city the whole world round Will just be another American town
Political ScienceRandy Newman Oh, how peaceful it will be We'll set everybody free You'll wear a Japanese kimono And there'll be Italian shoes for me
Political ScienceRandy Newman They all hate us anyhow So let's drop the big one now Let's drop the big one now
IMPERIALISM We’re only helping you help yourselves…
We’re only helping you help yourselves What does this statement imply?
Imperialism: • The extension of rule or influence by one government, nation, or society over another • Three basic flavors: Military, economic, cultural • Power relations: Dominance and subjegation
A rough timeline • Early empires: Egypt, Persia, Rome, the Mongols • Classical imperialism: 15th-19th century—rise of the nation-state. * Dutch and Portuguese build shipping empires * Spanish and Portuguese “find” New World
A rough timeline • Classical continued… * British and French massively expand colonial presence through Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean * America establishes the Monroe Doctrine and begins the westward expansion in the name of Manifest Destiny
A rough timeline • Modern imperialism: * Rise of cultural imperialism and the “white man’s burden” * International liberation movements post-World War I and II * Neoimperialism, international economics and the spread of mass communication
Take up the White man's burden --Send forth the best ye breed --Go bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives' need;To wait in heavy harnessOn fluttered folk and wild --Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half devil and half child.Take up the White Man's burden --In patience to abide,To veil the threat of terrorAnd check the show of pride;By open speech and simple,An hundred times mad plain.To seek another's profit,And work another's gain.Take up the White Man's burden --The savage wars of peace --Fill full the mouth of FamineAnd bid the sickness cease;And when your goal is nearestThe end for others sought,Watch Sloth and heathen FollyBring all your hope to nought.Take up the White Man's burden --No tawdry rule of kings,But toil of serf and sweeper --The tale of common things.The ports ye shall not enter,The roads ye shall not tread,Go make them with your living,And mark them with your dead! Take up the White man's burden --And reap his old reward:The blame of those ye better,The hate of those ye guard --The cry of hosts ye humour(Ah, slowly!) toward the light: --"Why brought ye us from bondage,"Our loved Egyptian night?"Take up the White Man's burden --Ye dare not stoop to less --Nor call too loud on freedomTo cloak your weariness;By all ye cry or whisper,By all ye leave or do,The silent, sullen peoplesShall weigh your Gods and you.Take up the White Man's burden --Have done with childish days --The lightly proffered laurel,The easy, ungrudged praise.Comes now, to search your manhoodThrough all the thankless years,Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,The judgment of your peers! --Rudyard Kipling, 1899 The White Man’s Burden
Anti-Imperialist: Franz Fanon • Black Skin, White Masks "What does a man want? // What does a black man want? // At the risk of arousing the resentment of my colored brothers, I will say that the black is not a man. // There is a zone of nonbeing, an extraordinarily sterile and arid region, an utterly naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can be born" (8). "In the collective unconscious, black = ugliness, sin, darkness, immorality. In other words, he is Negro who is immoral" (192). "Moral consciousness implies a kind of scission, a fracture of consciousness into a bright part and an opposing black part. In order to achieve morality, it is essential that the black, the dark, the Negro vanish from consciousness. Hence a Negro is forever in combat with his own image" (194).
Anti-Imperialist: Franz Fanon • The Wretched of the Earth “Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to over-simplify, very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the systematic enslaving of men and women.” “The struggle for freedom does not give back to the national culture its former value and shapes; this struggle which aims at a fundamentally different set of relations between men cannot leave intact either the form or the content of the people's culture. After the conflict there is not only the disappearance of colonialism but also the disappearance of the colonised man. “
Figuring out the imperial drive Let's proclaim this new demand: we need a critique of moral values, and we must first question the very value of these values. For that we need a knowledge of the conditions and circumstance out of which these values grew, under which they have developed and changed (morality as consequence, as symptom, as mask, as hypocrisy, as illness, as misunderstanding—but also morality as cause, as means of healing, as stimulant, as scruples, as poison), a knowledge of the sort which has not been there until now, something which has not even been wished for. --Friedrich Nietzsche, Prologue, Genealogy of Morals
Figuring out the imperial drive • What are the values that inform the affirmative or the negative? • Democracy • Freedom • Security • Prosperity
Imperialism’s crimes • Intangible • Physical
Weakness of imperial power • The imperial archive—a vast archive of all knowledge about the colonial holdings • “the nerve center of all possible knowledge, the library of all libraries, and the museum of all museums.” Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of an Empire, p. 11
Weakness of imperial power But the imperial archive did not exist!
Weakness of imperial power “In this utopian space, disorder was transformed to order, heterogeneity to homogeneity and lack of political control and information to an imaginary empire of knowledge and power.” Yannis Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political, p. 82
What to do? • Reject the logic of the white man’s burden
What to do? • Reject the logic of the white man’s burden • Refuse to buy in to the fantasy of control
What to do? • Reject the logic of the white man’s burden • Refuse to buy in to the fantasy of control • Affirm the power of the people
Think on this: That same Europe where they were never done talking of Man, and where they never stopped proclaiming that they were only anxious for the welfare of Man: today we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for every one of their triumphs of the mind. Come, then, comrades, the European game has finally ended; we must find something different. We today can do everything, so long as we do not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe.
Think on this: My final prayer: O my body, make of me always a man who questions!
