by An academic’s meditation on narrative and power
The literature of the 1700s reveals the assumptions of the time in ways that direct political discourse never could. The novels show you what people actually believed rather than what they claimed to believe. You see the certainty. The casual cruelty. The conviction that other people’s lands and lives were there for the taking.
Reading this stuff historically, you understand how colonialism was possible. It wasn’t done by cynical people who knew what they were doing was evil. It was done by people who genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. Who believed that British rule was beneficial. Who thought they were civilizing the world.
I was looking at discussions of colonial legacy in American literature, and it’s clear that the US inherited the same imperial mindset. The same certainty that their way of life was superior. The same conviction that they had the right to impose it on others.
That conviction has cost millions of lives. And it’s still driving policy today. The US still acts like a global imperial power. Still assumes it has the right to interfere in other countries. Still believes its system is superior and should be spread globally.
