Colonization corrupts the colonizer, who becomes inured to atrocity

Evidence

First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 18

Categorization

• XREF: This inversion — that colonization brutalizes the colonizer rather than ‘civilizing’ the colonized — is the counterintuitive core that Fanon builds on in the psychology of the colonized. — connects to: Colonization is fundamentally violence and plunder, not a civilizing mission — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 12; The colonizer is himself a victim of the colonial system he organizes; Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 247 (+3 more)

Related

• Colonizing civilizations are morally corrupted and inevitably breed fascism (similarity 0.88)
• The colonizer is himself a victim of the colonial system he organizes (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial relations dehumanize colonizer and colonized alike (similarity 0.85)
• The colonizer is simultaneously the organizer and victim of the colonial system. (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization (similarity 0.83)
• Colonization is fundamentally violence and plunder, not a civilizing mission (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial domination distorts the colonized’s relationship with their own culture and traditions (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial domination is undone first in the colonized subject’s inner life (similarity 0.83)
• Colonization is internalized into the most intimate private space (similarity 0.82)
• Colonialism occupies the individual’s psyche, not merely the territory (similarity 0.82)
• Colonization fundamentally reshapes the colonized psyche, it does not merely add to it. (similarity 0.82)
• Colonized cultures became conscripts of modernity, not fixed essences. (similarity 0.81)
• Curing the colonial neurosis requires changing both individual and society (similarity 0.81)
• The colonizer’s civilizing narrative turned lethal exploitation into an ethical obligation (similarity 0.80)
• Colonialism functions as a coherent system requiring economic, political, and cultural domination. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• The colonizer is simultaneously the organizer and victim of the colonial system. #corroborates (0.93) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 119
• The colonizer is himself a victim of the colonial system he organizes #expands (0.92)
• Colonial relations dehumanize colonizer and colonized alike #expands (0.90) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 52
• Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization #expands (0.82) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 247