Administrative aloofness makes colonial rule more inhuman than corruption does
Evidence
Aloofness became the new attitude of all members of the British services; it was a more dangerous form of governing than despotism and arbitrariness because it did not even tolerate that last link between the despot and his subjects, which is formed by bribery and gifts. The very integrity of the British administration made despotic government more inhuman and inaccessible to its subjects than Asiatic rulers or reckless conquerors had ever been. Integrity and aloofness were symbols for an absolute division of interests to the point where they are not even permitted to conflict. In comparison, exploitation, oppression, or corruption look like safeguards of human dignity, because exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed, corrupter and corrupted still live in the same world, still share the same goals, fight each other for the possession of the same things; and it is this tertium comparationis which aloofness destroyed. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 548
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEFINE: Arendt’s concept of ‘aloofness’ as a distinct mode of imperial governance — the absolute division of interests — is a key toolkit term for the exclusion mechanisms later readings need.
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that corruption preserves human dignity while integrity dehumanizes is a genuinely paradigm-reversing insight about how shared goals (even exploitative ones) constitute human relations.