LogFAQs > #956654707

Firstly you are taking a viewpoint that can ONLY exist in a vacuum. For example, Japan was never colonized by Europe and, instead, became it's own colonial power dominating much of China and the Pacific Ocean (amazingly brutally I might add) yet no acknowledgement is made about such things.

Okay, let's back up. How are we defining "colonialism"? We probably have different definitions.

Colonialism is not simply violent oppression and slavery. It's also the Westernization of non-European (descended) societies. I said colonialism "exports" European culture. More modernly, American culture is exported. Our corporate brands--Disney, Coca-Cola, McDonalds--are not only recognized worldwide, but adopted, imitated, etc. And when the world is consuming our media, for example, they are consuming our culture, and will inevitably reshape some of their own culture according to it.

This is different than, say, the Pokemon craze in the United States. Although we are consuming Japanese culture, this is not colonial due to the power imbalance. And there is a long history of this. We can look back to the 1850s when Matthew Perry demanded Japan end its isolationist policy of sakoku by trading with the United States. His forces totally outmatched Japanese forces, not unlike how Cortes' forces dwarfed the Aztecs. Another example, obviously, would be the Potsdam Declaration, which was a formal Westernization of Japan.

I'm not reading the rest of what you wrote because it's not worth my time to break down every single thing that's wrong with it. I feel like I already put in a lot of effort into this bullshit.

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PotD Paradiso
www.potdparadiso.net