Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Prompt Sixteen
Ah, the Age of Imperialism—a mad time for Britain and the rest of
Europe. The Industrial Revolution a few
decades earlier originally spurred the demand for new materials, and what
better place to find them than the empty African continent? Many others traveled to Africa for religious
reasons, hoping to bring Christianity to the people there. The concept of the “white man’s burden” was
popularized, and though the missionaries’ intentions may have been good, the
inadvertent mindset of white superiority spread throughout Europe. With the invention of the machine gun, the
English and other Europeans were able to easily overtake the Africans and
exploit their resources, which included salvaging ivory from tusks of animals
(mostly elephants) to craft and sell in their home countries. Without prior knowledge of the time period, a
reader might wonder why a man was so eager to journey to a known savage land to
seek out elephant parts. The truth of
the matter was that everyone was out to make a profit, and that desire
unfortunately superseded the lives of the Africans and the wildlife. Though
there was a social movement to stop the slave trade, it’s obvious where true
priorities laid. The countries’
governments did not stop scenes like what Maslow saw, where the “criminals”
were forced to work for the whites. In
relation to my last post, I don’t believe it’s the fault of the Europeans for
issuing such treatment, but there must be a line drawn somewhere between “Just
Business” and “Needless Cruelty.”
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I think greed played another factor in British imperialism, too. Already, Great Britain possessed a number of colonies across the world, the most notorious one being India. They already had a wealth of natural resources to extract from their extended empire, but why should they pass up the chance to make an additional hefty buck by invading Africa? Not that there was really an invasion, but you get the point. The expansion into Africa could also have been a consequence of a line of thinking, in which Britiain would much rather own something than to let someone else potentially gain control of it. If they’d never taken territory in Africa, maybe the French or Germans wouldn’t taken those lands and those resources. Then where would Britain be? It could lose its place as one of the top nations in the world, if it could no longer financially compete.
ReplyDeleteGreed basically controls almost anything and everything that has to do with expansion, production, or advancement. Britain, along with the USA, Japan, Germany, and many other first world countries have experienced all three. We're greedy, and we are not afraid to show it either.
ReplyDeleteWhich, Brian makes a good point, if Britain didn't expand into Africa, would the use of ivory even be important, let alone the new "necessity?" I'm assuming it would still be seen as important, because, again, everyone's greed (which may be a possible reason for the title) consumes their lifestyles. Heart of Darkness is really a great example of the companies of the time, and how anyone will do anything to have their desires granted.
Instinct drives humans into perpetual journeys where possession (ultimately financial possession) is the goal. Unfortunately, this greed never seems to cease; we always want something else for the grass always appears greener on the other side. I believe it to be nearly impossible to draw and maintain a distinction between "just business" and "needless cruelty." We are adaptive creatures - it is how we have managed to conquer the food chain - and so as we grow accustomed to one standard, we push the limit ever so slightly and steadily that, eventually, the current standards would have been unacceptable prior human's instinctual urge to expand. Television is a perfect example. Sexually suggestive themes and vulgar language were once frowned-upon and even illegal, but now they are acceptable at specific times and those parameters are growing more and more loose.
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