Colonial universalism disguised European Christian values as transcendent truths
Evidence
Ironically, as this civilizing project necessarily presupposed the possibility of historical development and cultural, social, and intellectual progress on the part of natives considered racially naive and immature, it presumed the claim to transcendental value at once economic and epistemological;:. legal and moral. Transcendental value was represented in the universal currencies of money and the word, productive labor and sanctified truth, industry and knowledge, rational legality and moral virtue, The assumption is ironically universalist, for these imposed aspirations to universal ideals were always no more than embodiments of European, Christian virtue and practice, morality and truth. — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 49
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that universalist rhetoric was always particularist in content — the civilizing mission’s claim to transcendental value was merely a projection of European Christian virtue — is a dense, paradigm-shifting observation about how colonial universalism worked.
- XREF: Mirrors Fanon’s and later postcolonial critiques of universalism, and parallels the ‘ironic universalism’ critique found in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe. — connects to: Greeks treated mythology as national while Christians ascribed it to universals — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 265; Decoloniality rejects postcolonialism for complicity in Western universalist thinking — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 267; Missionary status helped Europe rank states by civilization and justify unequal treaties — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 134 (+5 more)