Dany and Colonialism

[Jonathan of House Matheny]

I think Dany could be considered a colonizer in ASOIAF in that she invades other lands and tries to install her values there, but, I dont think that is a positive attribute. It is hard to argue that her stopping slavery is a bad thing, but forcing other cultures to change their values often had severe consequenses, as Dany and other colonizers had to find out. Dany the Conqueror may lead to progress in the "worldos" through her actions, but it will likely be at the expence of ancient cultures and many, many lives, just like Genghis Khan.

[The Titan's Legitimate Son]

Examples of colonising from ASOIAF include the respective First Men and Andal's invasions of Westeros.

I don't think Dany's conquest of Slaver's Bay quite equates to these. Her 'people' haven't taken over these cities, she has instead replaced the old elite with her new elite and freed the slaves - the first part is like William the Conqueror, who replaced the Anglo-Saxon elite with his own knights as a reward.

[David Selig]

I agree Dany is not a colonialist.

On your wider point, I think colonialism has been both good and bad. There have been genocides and atrocities. On the other hand, the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia etc. would never have come have come into existence without it.

Why would that be a bad thing? :cool4:

[Jalabhar's Ho]

smh this is exactly what i meant by todays apologist world.

none of you would be at your computers complaining about colonialism if it didnt happens. all those major countries listed above wouldnt be founded, and yes it sounds awful to say but the white man's burden mentality pretty much ushured us into the world we have today. theres good and bad but on the whole were better off than in tribal society where it was a dog eat dog world. when you take a step back from trying to pander and not be "offensive" to anyone, you realize how much better the world is for nations like Britain and United States.

Dany is the same. She may bring some destructoin to slaver's bay but ultimately she's getting rid of the slavery tehre slowly but surly and making it a better place. what needs to go are the people themselves, but dany had no followers except the dothraki to bring in like the pilgrims did with the protestants.

[TallTyrionLannister]

It's almost as if one can recognize the horrible things that happened in humanity's past as being beneficial to future generations while also recognizing that they were still horrible actions

[The Dragon King]

It's almost as if one can recognize the horrible things that happened in humanity's past as being beneficial to future generations while also recognizing that they were still horrible actions

I'm curious, what's the point? The past is the past, and feeling guilt over it doesn't change a damned thing, one can try to build the best possible future but that can be done regardless of your opinion on a historical event.

[TallTyrionLannister]

I'm curious, what's the point? The past is the past, and feeling guilt over it doesn't change a damned thing, one can try to build the best possible future but that can be done regardless of your opinion on a historical event.

The past is the past, exactly. It can't be changed but that doesn't mean we have to accept everything that happened in the past as a net positive

[OldGimletEye]

So I didnt relly like how negative my other post went. I didn’t know so many peopel hated all the good Dany is doing in slavers bane. Alot of you didn’t like the colonialist take on Dany. The route of this is probably modern’s society’s influence.

In today mega-sensitive liberal apologist world, no one admits that colonialism was agood thing. Think about the Americas. Because of colonialism America was able to propser far beyond the rest of world besides like Britain and they kept up because gues what? They were also imperalists. They managed to civilize major parts of the world, just as American was able to grow out of the stone age that the Indians had.

Its kind of sad that so many of them had to die in the name of progress, but I think you can all agree it was worth it. I mean, if America wasn’t colonized we may have never evolved like we did. Gorge RR martin is from New Jersey which means he may not have even existed if the pilgrims didn’t come. We woudn’t be discussing these books on here. We may not even have internet at all.

So i think we should definitely see Daenerys’ march towards Westeros as a good sign. While they fight and squabble over the throne and degenerate into the savages in Essos, Dany is marching there to put the world back to order. I don’t think Westeros or the whole world of ice and fire can survive if Dany doesn’t colonize it.

This whole argument depends on presuming a counter factual that humanity would have been, on the whole, worse off had colonialism not occurred. I think that is hard to determine. Reconstructing an entire alternative history is pretty much a impossible intellectual exercise.

I think the most that can be said about colonialism is that it did bring some benefits, in hindsight, but it also brought about a lot grief and suffering. My ancestors certainly benefitted from the colonialism, but I certainly would be leery today of pursing a policy of colonialism today on the theory that the people so colonised today would be better off tommorrow.

Its not only "liburals" that have issues with colonialism. Many of the Old American Right had issues with it as well. And many of today's libertarians, who don't agree with liberals on a lot, are not fan boys of colonialism either. But, I guess you wouldn't know that when you get your lessons in political history from Rush Limpdick and Archie Bunker.

[Dornish Vinegar]

Burn this thread. BURN IT DOWN

[Creticus]

I'm curious, what's the point? The past is the past, and feeling guilt over it doesn't change a damned thing, one can try to build the best possible future but that can be done regardless of your opinion on a historical event.

Because the injustices of the past persist into the present.

[The Dragon King]

Because the injustices of the past persist into the present.

That's not what holds people/nations back.

[Creticus]

That's not what holds people/nations back.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. What happened in the past continues to influence the present. People who started out with disadvantages tend to remain disadvantaged, particularly if their societies have been set up to keep the people at the top sitting at the top.

[The Dragon King]

Nothing exists in a vacuum. What happened in the past continues to influence the present. People who started out with disadvantages tend to remain disadvantaged, particularly if their societies have been set up to keep the people at the top sitting at the top.

I've seen 3rd world immigrants go from not speaking English to being doctors/engineers/programmers in a very short amount of time. It's better to have advantages, sure, but the existing system, while far from perfect, allows for very rapid upward mobility. Colonialism isn't determining people's futures.

[OldGimletEye]

I've seen 3rd world immigrants go from not speaking English to being doctors/engineers/programmers in a very short amount of time. It's better to have advantages, sure, but the existing system, while far from perfect, allows for very rapid upward mobility. Colonialism isn't determining people's futures.

Because your "own personal experience" is a better piece of empirical evidence than what happens "on average". The fact some people might do better in some given population isn't necessarily a persuasive piece evidence, given we would expect there to be some randomness in particular populations.

[TheMysteriousOne]

I've seen 3rd world immigrants go from not speaking English to being doctors/engineers/programmers in a very short amount of time. It's better to have advantages, sure, but the existing system, while far from perfect, allows for very rapid upward mobility. Colonialism isn't determining people's futures.

I'm not quite sure I agree. The effects of colonialism are still felt deeply here in the U.S, as well as in other countries.

[IRON BANK]

So I didnt relly like how negative my other post went. I didn’t know so many peopel hated all the good Dany is doing in slavers bane. Alot of you didn’t like the colonialist take on Dany. The route of this is probably modern’s society’s influence.

In today mega-sensitive liberal apologist world, no one admits that colonialism was agood thing. Think about the Americas. Because of colonialism America was able to propser far beyond the rest of world besides like Britain and they kept up because gues what? They were also imperalists. They managed to civilize major parts of the world, just as American was able to grow out of the stone age that the Indians had.

Its kind of sad that so many of them had to die in the name of progress, but I think you can all agree it was worth it. I mean, if America wasn’t colonized we may have never evolved like we did. Gorge RR martin is from New Jersey which means he may not have even existed if the pilgrims didn’t come. We woudn’t be discussing these books on here. We may not even have internet at all.

So i think we should definitely see Daenerys’ march towards Westeros as a good sign. While they fight and squabble over the throne and degenerate into the savages in Essos, Dany is marching there to put the world back to order. I don’t think Westeros or the whole world of ice and fire can survive if Dany doesn’t colonize it.

Key word is fantasy series. I wonder how some people can find enjoyment in reading a series that paints such a vivid imaginative place. I guess for most they would have to try to relate it all to what they feel history should be. So sad.

[The Dragon King]

Because your "own personal experience" is a better piece of empirical evidence than what happens "on average". The fact some people might do better in some given population isn't necessarily a persuasive piece evidence, given we would expect there to be some randomness in particular populations.

Look at Indian immigrants in the US, this isn't just an outlier that I'm taking as the norm, look at how well they do. There are reasons for their success, and there are reasons why, for decades, Indians could succeed anywhere in the world except in India, and why that's been changing recently.

[The Titan's Legitimate Son]

smh this is exactly what i meant by todays apologist world.

none of you would be at your computers complaining about colonialism if it didnt happens. all those major countries listed above wouldnt be founded, and yes it sounds awful to say but the white man's burden mentality pretty much ushured us into the world we have today. theres good and bad but on the whole were better off than in tribal society where it was a dog eat dog world. when you take a step back from trying to pander and not be "offensive" to anyone, you realize how much better the world is for nations like Britain and United States.

Dany is the same. She may bring some destructoin to slaver's bay but ultimately she's getting rid of the slavery tehre slowly but surly and making it a better place. what needs to go are the people themselves, but dany had no followers except the dothraki to bring in like the pilgrims did with the protestants.

I don't think you can say that the internet would or wouldn't have been invented if there was no colonialism. Perhaps geniuses from non-colonial European powers still invent computers. You can neither confirm nor deny that computers may or may not have been invented. Anyway, in a non-computer world, we would not know what we were 'missing' out on.

It's not apologist to admit bad things happened, in fact it is self-righteous and pretty damn insulting to sweep the negatives under the carpet.

Also, you're arguing that colonialism was good because it helped the USA and Britain, so helped create the mass inequality of the world we live in?

[Bloodmane]

Before this thread degrades into a left-right confrontation (OK after it already had) I would like to point out that the White Man's Burden logic implied the colonizators (think in terms of the gentlemen of the Victorian era) being well advanced from cultural, scientific, social as well as military point of view relative to the colonized society. In the case of Slaver's bay you could argue the social superiority. But in the case of Westeros? Westeros has a more or less functioning decentralized feudalistic society, a well organized state-religion, a system for preserving, propagating and using scientific knowledge. So why should Dany be superior relative to the westerosi? She read some children's books and heard a couple of dotraki "is known"-s...

[The Dragon King]

I don't think you can say that the internet would or wouldn't have been invented if there was no colonialism. Perhaps geniuses from non-colonial European powers still invent computers. You can neither confirm nor deny that computers may or may not have been invented. Anyway, in a non-computer world, we would not know what we were 'missing' out on.

It's not apologist to admit bad things happened, in fact it is self-righteous and pretty damn insulting to sweep the negatives under the carpet.

Also, you're arguing that colonialism was good because it helped the USA and Britain, so helped create the mass inequality of the world we live in?

Technology tends to follow a pretty predictable pattern, more advanced technologies develop on top of more basic tech, if you don't have basic sanitation you're not developing computers.

European colonialism was a driving force in eliminating slavery in much of the world, it had pretty much been the norm for all of human history until Western philosophy deemed it abhorrent.

Also, just because it was good for the US and Britain why does that necessitate that it cannot also benefit a colonized people? One of the reasons India is as powerful as it is today is because of colonization, rivals groups can speak in a common and neutral language: English, this leads to far more unity than if they had to chose on of their native languages.

Finally, what does your moral outrage actually do to help anyone? I'm sure it makes you feel better about yourself, but how does anyone in the poverty you condemn benefit?