Banished colonial officials condemned the state’s agents while preserving faith in the system itself

Evidence

And eventually, he wrote of his outrage at a colonial system into which he was born, for which he was groomed, from which he profited and was eventually condemned, banished to the Netherlands he had so sorely missed. … Instead, he quietly wrote, rewrote, and relived what had happened in those fateful months in Sumatra: of his loyalty to a colonial administration that no longer recognized his name. He in turn condemns state agents, people, but not the system in which his faith seems to remain. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1474

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the epistemic posture the reader tracks in colonial commonsense — critique aimed at persons and acts while the structure’s legitimacy goes unquestioned.
• DEEPTHINKING: A sharp paradox worth sitting with: the man condemns those who condemned him yet keeps faith with the governing system that banished him — person-level blame averting structural critique.