Imperial governance rests on a vital lie about empire’s noble projects

Evidence

Might imperial dispositions indeed have at their core such a “vital lie”? This is not the colossal lie that Arendt describes for Eichmann and the political engineers of Nazi Germany. Rather it is a “lie for life,” not about religious gods but secular ones, about political myths, empire’s “noble” projects, as Valck called them, and the do-good deeds of those who carried them out. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1419

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to reader’s interest in colonial epistemics and to the notion that empire’s self-image is sustained by self-deception. — connects to: Empire produces and maintains strategic ignorance as a ruling technology; Imperial dispositions may be the template for modern political self-deception — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1412; Empire creates its own reality rather than responding to discernible facts. (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: Relates to ‘On Sacrifice’ — both address how noble framing sustains systems others would condemn, though here the mechanism is self-deception rather than ritual.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1419

Broader Connections

• Empire creates its own reality rather than responding to discernible facts. #expands (0.80)
• Colonial administrative overviews signaled assumed mastery rather than real knowledge #exemplifies (0.60) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 143
• Empires justify themselves by claiming superiority over prior empires #expands (0.50)
• Literature can contest imperial narratives by exposing their ongoing compromises #qualifies (0.40)