LogFAQs > #956661433

wydrah posted...

also does not mean exclusively. if you want an exhaustive definition, go read a fuckin book

How ironic. Telling me to go read a book when you get caught up changing definitions. Here is your definition, in full, that you provided.

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.

You also made sure to specify that:

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.

In your own definition, that you provided, you made it clear that it:

1) Exports European Culture

2) Involves westernization of non-europeans

3) Could happen when a culture isn't colonized but simply through colonial export.

However you then turned around and said that it didn't apply when there was a power imbalance. You also cited how America opened up Japan in the 1850's for trade as proof of this imbalance and ignored entirely how Japan had changed and grown as a country to the point where, in the 1940's, it was its own colonial empire that went toe-to-toe with America but I shouldn't be surprised that you're cherry-picking at this point.

Because you can't remain consistent. If colonialization, like in your earlier statement, isn't exclusively European then the whole notion of westernization, export of European culture, and that it can happen through the export of western products falls apart. However if it is an exclusively European thing that requires those things then you are willfully ignoring things like the Mongols, Ottomans, China, Soviets and the like who engaged in practices that would, by any sane and consistent definition, be considered colonialism.

So come on. Give me a straight, consistent, definition. What is colonialism? What is 'white'?

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I am the gentle hand who heals, the happy smile who shields, and the foot that will kick your ***! - White Mage