現在的英國人是如何看待自己國家對他國殖民的歷史的？
翻譯筆記（隨時更新）：大部分英國人對這些事情一無所知，因為英國課堂上基本上是不教大航海時代的那些黑暗歷史的。除了少部分歷史愛好者，大多數人不知道。知道的人分成兩派，一派感到羞愧，但這部分人是少數，大部分英國人並無感（其中一部分感到自豪）。無感的理由主要是：（1）我曾爺爺乾的事怪我屁事。
（2）所有當時的歐洲帝國都在殖民，我不列顛殖民地多隻不過因為我們牛逼。
（3）不要用維多利亞時代的道德標準綁架現代人。那時候可沒力薄儒。————————————————————————————————————British People of Reddit, what do you really feel about Britain"s colonial era? : AskRedditReditt上有個類似的問題，是06 Oct 2014發的，裡面很多英國人的回答，我就直接搬過來了，一點一點翻譯。–]brisketwhiskers 27 points 13 days agoIndividually,
when you"re young you end up feeling proud of it, without knowing the
full details. Then you get older and learn about the atrocities, and you
realise that going around forcing people to be subjects, to a land they
didn"t even know existed before we arrived, just isn"t on.
You can"t feel guilty about it though, because you weren"t personally
responsible, and you know you wouldn"t do such things yourself given
the choice, the morals were just different back then. There"s also a
sense of, if we weren"t doing it, then another European country would
have.
I think society as a while finds it embarrassing. There are no movies
or tv shows about empire, just twee Victorian costume dramas. History
lessons at school jump from the Tudors to the first world war, with a
bit on slavery in between.
我個人認為小時候會覺得很牛逼，畢竟那時候我們不知道真相。
等我們成熟以後逐漸開始了解到這種行為的殘忍，意識到跑到全球那些在我們到達以前從來不知道我們的存在的地方並強迫別人服從我們一點都不好。你不會對於這些不是你個人過錯導致的問題而內疚，你也知道如果給你一樣的機會你不會做同樣的事情，因為當時的道德標準是不同的。
還有一種說法是，如果我們不做，歐洲其他國家也會做。我認為這段歷史對我們社會至今有點難以啟齒。我們看不到帝國題材的電影和電視劇，有的只是矯情的維多利亞時代古裝劇，又比如歷史課從都鐸王朝跳到一戰，中間稍微穿插一些奴隸制度。
[–]Eoiny 3 points 13 days ago
I
just wonder why the dark side of empire isn"t taught in British
schools? In America, everyone know about the wrongs of slavery, the
Trail of Tears, even the Vietnam war. Doesn"t make them any less
patriotic.
[–]HeNeLazor 2 points 13 days ago
Most level-headed answer I"ve seen. This is much the way I feel about it too.
這是我見過的最冷靜的答案，跟我的想法差不多。[–]sellerofdreams 2 points 13 days ago
That"s
funny because every former British colony makes their schoolchildren
learn a HUGE chunk of what happened during British colonial rule. I
remember being in 4th standard and having my blood boil. One way to get
us patriotic I guess.
[–]KyleGG 2 points 13 days ago
Historically the British were better than the Portuguese and the Spanish if it is any consolation
歷史上說英國人比葡萄牙人和西班牙人好得多，如果這能讓你們好受一點的話。[–]Dresner29 9 points 13 days ago
This post makes me feel slightly ashamed about how little I know about my country"s history...
這帖子讓我對自己國家歷史的無知感到很羞愧。[–]Dresner29 1 point 13 days ago
I"ve had a quick browse.
Thing is, my shame in not knowing is greatly outweighed by my apathy.
I"m just not that interested in history in general. I think it"s
important to know about major historical events, but then again, these
were mostly taught in school; as someone else has mentioned, without a
personal interest, a lot of people won"t know the ins and outs of a lot
of history.
[–]eternityinspace 3 points 13 days ago
From
my experience, I feel like it"s a part of our history we didn"t learn
about at school, so unless you researched it out of interest, there"s no
way you WOULD know about it.
[–]bleeeepblooop 2 points 13 days ago
Exactly,
the only British history I remember learning at school was a little
about the Celts in Year 3 or 4, and the Tudors and shit in year 7ish.
Mind you, I quit history after Year 9.
[–]TimMarben 1 point 13 days ago
Yup. Maybe some classics (Egyptians and Romans) in Primary school.
GCSE History is modern history that basically goes from the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand starting WWI up to the end of the Cold
War. All from a very British perspective of course.
[–]Venti_PCP_Latte 5 points 13 days ago
To
be honest, I"m not sure if colonial British rule was anywhere near as
oppressive as Belgian colonial rule in the Congo. That was probably the
pinnacle of the oppressive colonial archetype. Check out King Leopold"s
Ghost for them deets
Ghost
[–]OctopusGoesSquish 9 points 13 days ago
It
saddens me how many people are proud of it. I"m not ashamed, as there
is nothing we can do to change the past, but many of the problems in
lesser developed countries today are the result of colonialism.
So many people die, to this day, in wars over the arbitrary land
borders we threw up, or over the tribal groups that we almost randomly
decided should be given authority over others.
有那麼多人為此感到自豪讓我悲哀，我不慚愧，畢竟我沒辦法改變歷史，但發展中國家現在的很多問題都是源自於殖民統治。
太多人因為我們隨意畫的國境線，和我們隨機決定的某些部落領導權導致的戰爭中死亡，
[–]Boornidentity 3 points 13 days ago
I think tribes we colonised would have been at war before we arrived and would have stayed at war even if we never came.
我相信我們就算沒過去這些部落也一樣會打仗。（一聽就是我不列顛人說出來的話嘖嘖）[–]Watty13 1 point 13 days ago
I
think the wars in former colonial territories are largely like you say
down to arbitrary land borders, but also because of the quick collapse
of the Empire, after WW2 the game was up for Empire, we had fought
against the Nazi empire so we could hardly justify controlling our own,
which led to quick irresponsible withdrawals from the colonies by
British forces, just getting up and going creates a power gap, causing
problems that are still there today
[–]SamRavster 19 points 13 days ago
Honestly? Quite proud.
Yes, I know colonialism is a bad thing, but back when it was growing
in size, other countries were doing the exact same thing. So, it"s not
like we have any need to feel guilty or ashamed - quite simply, it was
the done thing back then. We were just better at it than everyone else.
People just didn"t have the liberal views of today. So to apply a modern mindset to it is pointless.
老實說？我很自豪。是的，我知道殖民是壞事，但是那時我們是為了擴張，其他國家也在做一樣的事。所以，我們沒必要內疚或者羞恥，我們只是做了應該做的事。我們當時只是比別人牛逼罷了。那時的人只不過沒有現代人的力薄儒觀點而已，所以用現代人的眼光來看是沒意義的。[–]PhotonInABox 1 point 13 days ago
I
recently met a Peruvian man who told me, in earnest, that he wished his
country had been colonised by Britain instead of by Spain. I just
thought it was interesting that he had thought about that. (and hey,
he"s lucky it wasn"t Belgium!)
[–]lazy-hamish 10 points 13 days ago
Mostly
we are either indifferent of it or proud of it. I don"t know anyone who
is ashamed of it, though there is probably a minority of people who
are.
Basically it made us what we are today, also made our cities very
multicultural which I personally love and allows us to travel the world
easily with our great passports!
[–]Gorazde -2 points 13 days ago
Yes,
but it"s basic ignorance of the reality of what the British empire was
that allows you to have a benign or even positive impression of it. If
you were aware of the impact British colonialism had and continues to
have on Africa, in particular, you would be deeply ashamed.
[–]lazy-hamish 4 points 13 days ago
You
are assuming that I am ignorant of the history of the British Empire.
Yes the British Empire did some atrocious things. However so have all
empires. You cannot blame all of Africa"s problems on the British
Empire, but also on the French, Portuguese, Belgian, etc. empires.
All countries have committed acts which can be considered wrong, I
personally do not feel ashamed of the Empire as I personally had nothing
to do with it, my ancestors may have but they are not me. I will not
feel ashamed for something people I have never met have committed and
nor will I be blamed for such acts.
Furthermore I was simply answering the question as to how the general British public view the Empire.
你假設我對大英帝國的歷史一無所知。是的大英帝國做了很多殘暴的事，然而所有帝國都這麼做。你不能把所有非洲的問題都怪到大英帝國頭上，法蘭西，葡萄牙人，比利時等等都這麼做了。所有國家都犯下了被認為錯誤的行為，我個人不對帝國的行為感到羞愧，因為這對於我個人而言毫無關係。[–]Eoiny 5 points 13 days ago
Without
taking either side here, I have to ask: If you can"t be ashamed of
something because you had nothing to do with it, how is it possible (as
you suggested in your previous answer) to be proud of it?
[–]lazy-hamish 1 point 13 days ago
I"m
personally indifferent to the British Empire, my first post was just
stating that people in the UK in general tend to be either proud or
indifferent of the Empire. I didn"t state my personal viewpoint in my
first post apart from I like some of the current benefits which the
Empire gave to the modern UK (multicultural cities and a great passport)
[–]Watty13 1 point 13 days ago
I am aware and I"m not, every nation has killed in pursuit of wealth
[–]kingdids 4 points 13 days ago
Personally,
I"m privately ashamed of it. Can"t really see why we"re proud of going
round claiming countries, however accomplished it makes us look. Don"t
think I"d feel comfortable expressing this to my friends though, in fact
I can imagine some of them would be hostile to this point of view.
[–]kentuckyfriedmeerkat 2 points 13 days ago
Proud
to be British in the present; we"re a great nation (sometimes an
annoying place to live but beautiful and comfortable nonetheless) but
much of the stuff we did in the past was shitty which makes me ashamed.
[–]samusername 6 points 13 days ago
Should have kept it all going,
[–]Pat_Mustard2 4 points 13 days ago
Well
you can』t change history – it had its good points and it had its bad
points. Obviously colonialism isn』t good, but it would be interesting
to see how the world would have been shaped if we hadn"t have gone
around plonking our flag in other peoples lands…
And the chances are, if we hadn"t have done it, there were a few more
countries clinging onto our coat tails that would happily colonised the
planet…
[–]guiri-girl 1 point 13 days ago*
I"m
Northern Irish, so I"m both British and a native of a (former?) colony,
so maybe I can offer a slightly different perspective, though I"m the
first to admit I"m a lot more ignorant on this than I ought to be.
Was the British colonisation of Ireland a positive thing long term?
Well, we"ve enjoyed infrastructure, education and of course, (in the
north) our beloved NHS, etc etc, at the same level as the rest of the UK
for quite a while now. Would we not have had that without British
control? Impossible to say, but I"m gonna guess eventually. Was it worth
Cromwell, religious discrimination, the famine and the civil war?
Probably not. Add to the fact that Northern Ireland is still dealing
with the aftermath (a lot of people don"t realize that the Troubles grew
out of brutally suppressed civil rights marches against legitimate
discrimination against Catholics - gerrymandering, job prospects, state
benefits) and it"s personally hard to be a fan. But hey, we/they weren"t
Belgium at least, in the Belgian Congo hands were chopped off for the
most minor of infractions. But all this was generations ago, and
pointing fingers now helps no-one. Moving forward, now, that"s the hard
part.
[–]SMTRodent 2 points 13 days ago
You
may or may not be glad to know that as an English kid a chunk of our
history lessons at GCSE level in the late 1980s was about the Troubles,
what a complete shit Britain was to Ireland and why we were basically
being attacked by the IRA for solid reasons. Easter risings, Bloody
Sunday and a load of other stuff.
And then time moved on and suddenly it was all over. That was...
weird. I"m guessing it"s a lot less over for people in NI than it is
here in England though.
[–]guiri-girl 1 point 13 days ago*
Wow,
that"s actually really interesting, because we never studied anything
beyond partition (1921...?)! Which is a problem "cause then your
personal history of the Troubles can depend a lot on one side of the
story, and many Northern Irish people are pretty ignorant as to the
history of it, beyond pointing fingers about who started it. I guess it
would too difficult to teach it objectively, though. As for how real it
still is, it depends a lot on where you live and what time of year it is
(don"t live there now, and every twelfth of July I breathe a small sigh
of relief that I no longer have to plan my route to work around the
road blocks/riots.)
Also, thinking about it, we didn"t even end up the worst off, for a
former (cue the obligatory "?") colony, South/Sudan and Palestine
(preeeeeeeeetty sure this was a British territory pre-WWII) ended up
worse off than us, for example. And other places like Gibraltar and the
Falklands are more than happy to be and stay British. So the basic
reddit lesson against over-generalising then, maybe?
[–]Billman23 3 points 13 days ago
Parts
to be proud of (Battle of Trafalgar, Waterloo and our commitment to the
both world wars) But parts we should never forget how cruel we were
(Irish famine, Indian mutiny , the colonization of Africa and
concentration camps in the Boer wars )
I hate how in school we are taught that it was a bad thing, and while
that it is true we did do some good! (kinda like the american expansion
west)
[–]gregfeely 2 points 13 days ago
Walking around the Natural History museum is a bit of a drag after a few exhibits.
"Oh look, another group of people we shit on!"
[–]HerpAMerpDerp 4 points 13 days ago
I think you mean the British Museum, not the Natural History museum. We never shat on the Dinosaurs.
[–]sharkwithknees 2 points 13 days ago
It doesn"t bother me, i wasn"t alive for it and shouldn"t feel guilty or proud about what happened during that time
[–]chimpychimp 2 points 13 days ago
We
did a lot of bad things, especially when compared against modern values
and principles. Some of it was out of pure greed and profit, some of it
was a misguided but genuine belief that making other peoples more
"British" would be in their best interests.
However I would argue and point to any other country or empire and
ask what their sordid past was. Every country that has ever interfered
with another countries affairs has probably brought misery and ruin at
some point.
If you fast forward to modern day Britain, we are surprisingly multi
cultural and tolerant, despite what you read in the daily mail. We also
maintain many ties with other countries that we otherwise would not
have, and despite our mistreatment it gives us some common ground and
history.
[–]jm51 2 points 13 days ago
We could do it so we did it. Same as ever other country capable of building an empire.
If any Brit from 100 years ago had been told their empire would be
gone in 50 years, they would have laughed. Brits were ever so proud of
the empire. "The sun never sets on the British Empire" and "Being born
an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life" were
bandied about.
There something about being "Top Dog" that can blind people to
problems with the home country. Proud Englishmen living in rat infested
slums, children with rickets, a quarter inch of coal dust covering the
water of the local canal etc. These problems were of no never mind
because we had an empire.
Anyone see a connection with how some Americans feel about being "Top Dog"?
[–]KibaBabyfur 2 points 13 days ago
Not fussed.
Good for us and all, don"t understand why we weren"t comfortable having just the little island of UK to ourselves.
[–]DanielAntRoberts 1 point 13 days ago
Because during antiquity we were constantly, and I mean constantly
being fucked with. It started with the Celtic invasions, then obviously
the Romans occupied and buttfucked us for a few hundred years. Then
came the Germanic invasion, the Vikings raids, the Normanic conquest and
several Danish invasions. All the time our women being taken, our sons
being killed and our resources being stolen.
After about 500 years of this bullshit I am guessing we got fed up of
being fucked with. Butched up, sorted out our warring Kingdoms into a
unified Anglo-Saxon England and started to push back a little. Sure we
went a bit overboard and fucked with most of the world, but you know
what?! Fuck "em. If we are going back in time, and feeling ashamed of
our empire, I am going to go back further and defend our right to defend
ourselves.
We just got really good at war okay...
[–]DdotG 4 points 13 days ago
Honestly
I"m pretty ashamed of it.
Just because everyone else was doing it why should we? What kind of
childish, peer pressure answer is that?
I wouldn"t feel nearly as bad if we could simply consign it to an
incident in the past, all over now, water under the bridge. But problems
still persist; we gutted India, ruined Africa, gave a large helping
hand to the slave trade and sent mostly criminals to settle Australia
(love you Aussies, but your political system seems pretty fucked).
No, I"m not proud of it. That time period started this world policing,
sticking your nose in other countries business problem, because now of
course we have to help, who else is going to stop groups like ISIS?
Certainly not the countries we"ve left drained, politically unstable and
militarily incompetent.
We started this mess hundred of years ago and if we"re unlucky we still
might be hundreds of years in the future, equally incompetently. Keep an
eye of the widening global wealth gap. The bigger it gets the more
richer countries will be asked to "help". Well you"re welcome Ireland,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Hong Kong (yes, everything
you"re reading about is Britain"s mess too), Honduras, Bangladesh,
Cyprus, Pakistan, India, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Canada and the USA for all
that help we"ve given you. Thank God some of you managed to get back on
your feet.
And don"t get get me started on the amount of weapons we"ve sold to the
middle east and Africa. Capitalism at its finest.
[–]Very_Agreeable 1 point 13 days ago
I would like to know how the people of Hong Kong feel on the matter too.
[–]WhatIsEddMayNeverDie 1 point 13 days ago
Speaking
as a 16 year old most of us haven"t experienced any form of Empire,
unless you count the British Isles (I don"t) my grandad is the only man I
know alive when India left and he"s 73 years old. We do get told that
Empire was both good and bad but it depends on each nation. I don"t
think Britain can be called the sole Empire of the time. France, Germany
and Spain all had large Empires with multiple colonies. In short I
don"t really care about Empire.
[–]barnfodder 1 point 13 days ago
No
proud of some of the things, but since we can"t change it, so we"re
kind of proud of the positive fruits of the empire, like our
commonwealth and our massive international diplomatic influence.
[–]noonefuxmingerme 1 point 13 days ago
Like this pretty much...
[–]DaRealestMVP 1 point 13 days ago
Honestly, i may tell people i know in real life that i dont care / have no feelings about it, but secretly i"m proud of it.
[–]Adamf3690 1 point 13 days ago
I"m
young - in high school - and British. It"s not something that regularly
crosses my mind. It"s not something I feel very proud of though, I
don"t think most people are very proud of it either. I imagine it"s a
similar case with descendants of plantation owners and such in the USA?
[–]TimMarben 1 point 13 days ago
Embarrassed
and guilty. I may not have had a personal hand in any of the
atrocities, but I certainly benefit from all of them. What"s more, to
this very day those who were not originally affected are still feeling
the negative effects in other countries too.
A lot of small "c" conservative types phrase colonialism as us
modernising the world in exchange for resources. This is an insanely
reductive view. A large part of it was the universalising drive of
capitalism after the bourgeois revolutions in England and France. The
difference being that when capitalism was introduced in the UK and
France, the feudal system ended as the serfs were necessary to overthrow
the landed gentry.
This was not the case when different nation states were colonised, so you had a perfect marriage of capitalist oppression and feudal oppression.
To anyone who who gets misty eyed about Britain as a colonising power
(is there a word for feeling nostalgic about something you never
experienced first hand? Well, that) I just remind them of the real life
consequences to people that made "Rule Britannia" possible.
We proper fucked people and countries over.
[–]Boomerkuwanga 1 point 13 days ago
I would imagine it"s similar to how americans feel about slavery.
[–]Eoiny 1 point 13 days ago
Always
amazes me how wilfully blind a lot of British people are to the history
of the British empire. Specific events like D-Day, Armistice Day or the
Battle of Trafalgar are endlessly commemorated (witness the inevitable
"England Expects..." headlines every World
Cup), yet talk about any of it"s less glorious aspects, of which there
were many, and people "Get over it", "It was a long time ago" or - if
you"re Gordon Brown - they actually claim the Empire was something to be
proud of. Read the history of any of the Empire"s subject peoples,
however, and you"ll realise that"s far from being the case.
Take Ireland. The main assault was by Oliver Cromwell. He attacked
about a half dozen Irish towns and cities, murdered all of the
inhabitants, seized all the lands. In Dundalk, the mayor of the town was
beaten to death with his own wooden leg in order to conserve
ammunition. (Cromwell regularly a features on lists of Greatest Britons
of All Time.)
For the next 300 years or so, all Irish land was confiscated and
rented back to the Irish people by aristocratic English absentee
landlords on terms that ensured the Irish lived in a state of extreme
poverty and degradation. Under the Penal Laws, Catholics (who make up
about 80% of the population) could not own a horse or property, could
not be employed in any state job, sit in Parliament, vote for
parliament, had to pay tithes for the upkeep of the established
Protestant church of which they were not members. At the same time , the
London press routinely portrayed the Irish in a manner starkly similar to the anti-Semitic propaganda in interwar Germany.
Most British people have no idea any of this ever happened, but the
truth is a considerable body of respectable opinion in British believed
the Irish were subhuman and so prone to rebellion that it would be
better that they were wiped off the face of the earth. If you think this
sounds extreme, just read the views of poet laureate Edmund Spenser,
buried with great honours at Westminster Abbey, who believed the
British should use massacres and famine to suppress the Irish people.
When famine broke out in 1845, the man supposedly in charge of distributing relief aid
called the catastrophe (in which over a million people starved to death
and another two million were forced to flee their homes) an "effective
mechanism for reducing surplus population" as well as "the judgement of
God." The fact is the British government a huge amount of culpability
for what was effectively a form of genocide in Ireland. This isn"t an
insane conspiracy theory. There is ample evidence that member of the
government owned huge estates in Ireland wanted the land cleared.
Even if you sidestep questions of who was to blame, Ireland was
supposedly a part of Great Britain at the time. This was a disaster on a
scale far surpassing even the First World War, in terms of deaths of
"British" citizens. It was the culmination and logical consequence of
three hundred years of British policy in Ireland. Yet most British
people have only the vaguest notion it even occurred.
This is the context in which all of subsequent British-Irish history
needs to be understood. Yet while Americans growing up thousands of
miles away seem to understand this, very few Brits, whose own history
this is, seem to know or care.
[–]dirtmonster_ 4 points 13 days ago
Just
to address your first paragraph - Armistice Day is the only one of
these that receives "commemoration" (certainly no one gives a shit about
the Battle of Trafalgar). This isn"t remembered in a "yay we won" style
but more of a "loads of people died hopefully this will never happen
again" style.
I think one of the big things in understanding the British vs.
American understanding of history is that Americans tend to find their
own cultural history as something integral to their understanding of
their "self". For example; as far as I"m aware there is a huge Irish
American culture in America where a lot of people whose grandparents or
great-grandparents were Irish still identify themselves as such. In the
UK it would be strange for even a second generation immigrant to
constantly define themselves as such.
In conclusion - we know we did shitty things, but we don"t really
feel the historical fuck ups of our ancestors make much difference to
right now. Certainly not big into inherited guilt.
[–]Eoiny 2 points 13 days ago
D-Day
is also commemorated with ceremonies, books and countless TV
documentaries. And justifiably so, it was one of the greatest moral and
military undertakings of all time. But there"s a cognitive dissonance
that allows people somehow to forget that, while British forces were
liberating occupied France, they were also themselves at the same time
also occupying countries and subjugating native peoples in every
continent on earth.
It"s important to remember these things. Not to feel guilty about
them, but at least to be aware that they took place. If nothing else,
because understanding the context in which modern events take place is
vital to formulating an effective response. Look at the Middle East. If
you went by the British media, you could easily assume Britain role over
there has only ever been as a selfless promoter of human rights and
liberal democracy. But if you"re aware of Britain"s involvement in the
Arab revolt, the Balfour Declaration, the 1953 Iranian coup, your troops
would be less likely to roll into countries over there expecting to be
greeted as liberators.
[–]dirtmonster_ 1 point 13 days ago
I
would say not cognitive dissonance but the fact that no one has really
been taught about these things. You can probably blame our school
systems for doing the Romans every year and never really studying
anything in depth. It certainly wasn"t until I left school that I
realised history was at all interesting.
I don"t think think that the media in any country can claim to be a
historical educator. Admittedly I"ve never read an American paper, but
having seen some news programmes I think I can confidently say that a
complete history isn"t included as standard. I would also say that the
idea of the military and war being synonymous with liberation is a huge
Americanism that probably goes somewhat with guns = freedom. I don"t
think any British person (although there may be a small percentage of
Daily Mail readers - but every country has it"s nutters) would
confidently expect our military or any form of war to be welcome in
another country. Obviously people may like to think that we are doing
the right thing at the moment but it"s a whole different outlook.
I completely agree with what you are saying about understanding
history but it is unfortunately an ideal, not a reality. It"s the same
as expecting everyone to have read Proust or know about existentialism.
[–]Eoiny 1 point 13 days ago
Expecting
a nation to understand the complexities of it"s own history is actually
not a lot to ask. It seems to be that in America, as well as their
tremendous patriotism, there is also near universal awareness of its
dark side of their country"s history (from the Trail of Tears and
slavery to the Vietnam war.) And a huge part of this is due to the way
history is taught in schools.
The two extremes in approach here are Germany and Japan. In Germany,
children are taught in brutally frank detail about the worst excesses of
their past. As a result, specific mistakes are highly unlikely ever to
be repeated. In Japan, however, it is the exact opposite. Most kids leave school without knowing anything about the events of 1931-45. The result is perpetually strained relations with their Chinese neighbours and the near certainty of further conflict.
[–]dirtmonster_ 1 point 13 days ago
Awareness
and in depth knowledge are not the same thing - I am not saying that
people in the UK are unaware of the "dark side" of history, the majority
do not care to learn it in depth for reasons I explained in my first
post.
I feel like you are making quite sweeping statements by involving
Germany and Japan - both are unique cultural issues. You can"t expect
different cultures to follow a single business model. Germany is an
especially interesting example because although there is thorough
education concerning WW2, there is also a huge sense of national shame
that accompanies it. Honestly - I don"t think that is necessarily the
right way to go about it. Even your comment, "As a result, specific
mistakes are highly unlikely ever to be repeated." Implies that you feel
that Germany would be most likely to make those same mistakes again,
when really, it is equally important for other countries to learn what
happened so they don"t make these mistakes either.
[–]Eoiny 1 point 13 days ago
Whether
kids care to learn about it or not shouldn"t necessarily be the
deciding factor here. There are Bible belt states in the US where pupils
would probably prefer not to learn about evolution. I personally would
not have chosen to learn standard deviation. The question is whether
there is value in learning something. And in my opinion, there is value
in learning this. Without an accurate understanding of history, you turn
out kids with a black and white worldview, devoid of any context. Sure,
not every kid will grow up to be a George W. Bush. But they could grow
up to vote for one.
[–]dirtmonster_ 1 point 13 days ago
I
feel like we are discussing a really minor deviation here and that we
actually agree on the main point; that history is a useful tool for
informing how we act now.
I was really talking about adults expanding their knowledge as
opposed to children getting to choose what they do in school - as I
said, history is taught but not in depth. To address your metaphor:
these Bible belt kids probably only learn the basics of Evolution, they
aren"t going to have the same level of knowledge as a Biology graduate.
There is huge value in knowing about history, but at the end of the day
people will be interested in whatever they choose, and for a majority
that won"t be history. I"m not saying this is right but that"s how it
is.
As far as George Bush goes, people may not like him and he may have
been portrayed as stupid, but he was very highly educated - I don"t
think you can really use him as the face of ignorance. He had the chance
for the kind of education that you are advocating and still did the
things he did. I don"t think personal development is as simple as that.
[–]geraintm 1 point 13 days ago
Nothing
much. Some acted pretty crappy, some acted with what their though were
the best interests of themselves, some for the best interests of they
people they were conquering.
Hard to judge people for their actions now for things that were socially
acceptable then.
I"d say we weren"t the worst, weren"t the best, we just did so much
more of it than everyone else of course a ton of people are going to be
mad at us.
[–]Gorazde -1 points 13 days ago
Some acted... for the best interests of they people they were conquering.
List one example of where this EVER happened?
[–]geraintm -1 points 13 days ago
if
you think colonising people and bringing them education so they can
understand the word of God, then i would say that in that case people
were doing if for what they thought were good reasons.
[–]SMTRodent 1 point 13 days ago
Bits
were okay, like the increase in trade and infrastructure to remote
areas. Bits were absolutely terrible, like the slave trade and the Opium
wars. It was all one large profit-making exercise and I guess the
excuse is that everyone who could do it was. How I feel about the whole
thing is slightly ashamed, how I feel about aspects of it depends on the
exact aspect.
[–]seperationsunday 1 point 13 days ago*
You probably need to be more specific, the British Empire was extremely large.
The curriclium that I studied at school when doing History (this
would be about 5 or 6 years ago at A Level) was quite critical of the
Empire regarding their involvement in India and South Africa in the
19th/20th century.
I would recommend reading about the Indian Rebellion of 1857
(commonly known as the "Indian Mutiny"). Fascinating period, and the
domestic reaction is also very enlightening.
[–]Sonos 1 point 13 days ago
proud.
自豪[–]The_Insane_Gamer 1 point 13 days ago
ITT:
Normal British people giving real answers, and trolls yelling about how
America is dumb and Britain is the best ever and the British empire
should have never ended etc etc etc.
[–]KickLifeInTheFace 1 point 13 days ago
You"re all welcome.
不用謝
跟我們看蒙古的感覺差不多吧。
走了以後混得好的說「要不是老爺過去照顧，你哪有今天」
走了以後混得不好的說「看看，非要走」現在的普世價值就是，無論是侵略還是殖民還是屬國化都不是什麼太光彩的事。所以除了5先令黨外沒人會把這個到處宣揚。但是你非要揪著不放，肯定就變成互相抹黑了，在那個歷史時期大家都干過差不多的事情，很少國家例外。當然也有對殖民完全否定的人，甚至在當年就有，但不主流。英國民眾：「哦」
2012倫敦奧運開幕式：「哎呀呀，看著這些被我們征服過的國家從面前走過感覺真爽」以上摘自沒品笑話集你是沒法打敗優越狗的，無論他是女王陛下的親兒子還是乾兒子，你懂的
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