Colonial authorities understood that regime viability depended on managing sentiment contagion

Evidence

Colonial scripts prompt us, their distant readers, to imagine that concern with the affective was centered on unbridled passions, irrational outbursts, or at least the unpremeditated affective states their bearers embraced. They make it plausible to imagine that what European authorities feared most was that “hidden force” that Dutch novelist Louis Couperus so powerfully described at the turn of the century as that to which the colonized had access and colonials unknowingly could be subject, a display of sentiments that showed more powerful mystic and mental states. But, as the public assembly of 22 May suggests, this may not have been the case. Rather than extemporaneous passions was the threat of sustained sensibilities, resentments against ongoing unfreedoms, and the political standards they called into question. Outbursts were manageable. It was those durable sentiments, those of parental distress and the wounds of estrangement, that expressed judgment and critique. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 578 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial officials stumbled over sentiments impervious to rational state control.; Colonial sentiment discipline targeted colonizers themselves, not only the colonized; Colonial authorities feared steady sensibilities more than emotional outbursts — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 578 (+4 more)

Related

• Colonial authorities feared steady sensibilities more than emotional outbursts (similarity 0.92)
• Colonial officials stumbled over sentiments impervious to rational state control. (similarity 0.92)
• Colonial authorities understood sentiment’s governance role before scholars did (similarity 0.87)
• Colonial officials believed political agitation threatened to undo civilizing work (similarity 0.86)
• Colonial officials feared settlers’ emotional investment in the Indies more than fiscal costs (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial authorities aimed to manage subjects’ aspirations as a political necessity (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial officials discounted attacks as personal revenge absent political significance (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial governance ran as much on sentiment’s management as on reason’s rule. (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial dispositions are trained, contested, and deliberately interpreted (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial fears centered durable resentments rather than momentary passions (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial states continuously staked political security on governing subjects’ feelings (similarity 0.82)
• Dutch colonial rule was preoccupied with sentiment and affect, not reason alone. (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial regimes deliberately cultivated habits and redirected sentiments, a neglected topic. (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial states engineered morality by harnessing affect in their agents. (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial governors struggled to know their own officials’ sentiments (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Colonial sentiment discipline targeted colonizers themselves, not only the colonized #expands (0.70)
• Colonial authorities feared steady sensibilities more than emotional outbursts #qualifies (0.65) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 578
• Colonial training schemes aimed to shape sentiments and restrict desires #corroborates (0.60)
• Colonial states engineered morality by harnessing affect in their agents. #exemplifies (0.60) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 426
• Colonial authorities aimed to manage subjects’ aspirations as a political necessity #expands (0.55)