Yeah this all sounds vaguely familiar, I guess when I read it I thought she was representing the European position (i.e. the colonizer sees Africa as outside of history) and why they were able to do such unique evil. Which actually isn't terrible and makes sense, you have to dehistoricize and dehumanize people to do great evil.

I'm going to have to revisit though because the idea Europeans "lowered themselves" to the level of Africans is pretty fuckin disgusting if so.

Thanks! I totally forgot the "they did it to themselves" bullshit, which really is incredibly damning (it's so stupid, you get it w r t American colonization as well, entirely eliding things like biological warfare, etc). It's also pretty much exactly as bad as I feared.

One of the worst western :brainworms:

What's especially annoying is there are good analyses in the book alongside this drek. Her consideration of how modern society and totalitarian states produce loneliness is really relevant. Meanwhile, hurr durr colonialism made modern cities in far off places.

:foucault-madness: at what cost!