The Death of a Dream

Imperialism and Western Culture 1870 – 1914

I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire.

- Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness” 1902

Death of what dream?

- Renaissance - Enlightenment worldview

William James

Seeds of the New Consciousness

Is “progress” rational, liberal, moral?

Is humanity fundamentally rational or irrational?

Is Imperialism proof of Western superiority or underlying barbarism?

I. The New Imperialism

• Older Empires slipping

• Russia, America continental expansion

• Africa, SW Pacific, SE Asia

Conrad = “The Heart of Darkness”

Nietzsche = Nihilism / order out of chaos

Freud = unconscious desire

A. Technology of Empire

1. Transportation

2. Communication

3. Military technology “Whatever happens we have got/ the Maxim gun and they have not”

4. Chemicals

- gin and conquest

II. Motives for Empire

A. Glory

1. Benjamin Disraeli - Crystal Palace Speech, 1872

- national/personal prestige

“jingoism” = use colonial adventure to smooth over domestic political divisions

2. Popular Empire- newspapers, businessmen, politicians profit

3. Heightened militarism / nationalism- New Navalism

-Alfred Thayer Mahan

The Influence of Sea Power on History (1890)

dreadnoughts

B. Gold

1. Remedy for boom-bust cycle- monopoly, oligopoly, cartel- expansion of consumerism

- “captive” markets

2. Economics of addiction- rubber, petroleum, tea, coffee, cotton, fruit, labor- Ecological consequences

C. God / cultural hegemony

1. Provided moral justification for colonial expansion

- Albert Schweitzer = cure for cultural decay- Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden

Enlightenment turned on its head

2. expression of cultural hegemony

- Social Darwinism repudiation of Enlightenment- racial radicalism

British Empire, ca. 1914

French Empire, ca. 1914

III. The nature of imperial control

Legacy of Imperialism

Berlin Conference, 1884

“effective occupation”

“Hammering”1. Crush resistance quickly

- Islamic resistance, the Mahdi

Omdurman, 1898

2. Resistance

Emperor Menelik, Ethiopia

Samory Toure, West AfricaZulu War, 1878 – 1879

Exposed domestic division

King Cetswayo

3. Exposed domestic division- Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor 1881 - Mohandas K. Gandhi Civil Disobedience/Passive Resistance

- Vladimir Lenin “Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism”

C. Boer War 1899 - 1901

1. Afrikaners

2. guerilla tactics and modern warfare- trenches, blockhouses, concentration camps

Methods of conquest in Africa exposed inconsistency in Western values…

- racial radicalism- brutal suppression of resistance

- national competition

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)

D. Europeans in Asia1. British Raj

- East India Company

- 1861, Indian Viceroy

- 1877, India and Empire

Rule through minorities,

princes, caste system

2. China and the Opium War 1839-1842

- Treaty Ports & Concessions

3. French in Southeast AsiaCambodia, Indochina

“Metropol”

Corruption of Western culture

1. competition / nationalism

2. racism, anti-semitism, Social Darwinism

3. extremist, anti-liberal political ideologies - anarchism, bolshevism, fascism, militarism

4. Relativism - Is there Truth, constancy in nature or society?