Imperial conquest is redeemed only by an underlying civilizing idea.

Evidence

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 504

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: This is the Marlow passage from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that Said is about to gloss — connects directly to the Orientalism-anchoring framework the reader is building, and to how ‘the idea’ legitimates domination.

Related

• Imperial conquest is redeemed through an idea that justifies taking land from others (similarity 0.90)
• Colonial conquest is redeemed in the conqueror’s mind by ideology (similarity 0.84)
• An unselfish abstract idea is what redeems conquest from being mere theft (similarity 0.83)
• Imperial conquest depends on manufacturing native consent to its own helplessness (similarity 0.80)
• The image of the Orient as empty desert justified imperial conquest. (similarity 0.80)
• Said traces imperial conquest back to centuries-old Western habits of representing the Orient (similarity 0.79)
• Western man’s conquest of nature begins with conquest of his own self (similarity 0.79)
• Material command of the earth reinforced Orientalist knowledge and vice versa (similarity 0.79)
• Imperial consciousness erases the Orient’s concrete particularity by overlaying it with European plans. (similarity 0.78)
• Rebutting Orientalism with reverse essentialism would reproduce the same intellectual failure. (similarity 0.78)