History

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. It indirectly made me realize something: Throughout modern history, Westerners would fantasize about the premodern culture of non-European countries undergoing modernization at impressive rates (Japan, China), lamenting their lost, rose-colored legacy. Yet meanwhile they would ridicule and belittle the so-called "despotic" societies that were lacking behind on the tracks of modernity (Ottoman Empire, India, Africa, literally most of the globe). I think this contradiction in attitude stems from the material threat which the former category poses, contrary to the latter category of countries whose subjects were enslaved and subjugated by the European colonizer. Granted, both the former and the latter attitude share the same orientalistic sentiment which reduces other nations to mere facades that can be easily malleable according to imperialist interests.