Mill justified colonization as tutelage ending in eventual self-governance
Evidence
Mill considered progress to consist in being socialized in the values of liberal for modernity, that is, in the sort of social, political, economic, cultural, autonomy and good government. … As a colonized country exemplified such progress, the colonizing country progressively would give way to the colonized’s self-governance. — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 39
Categorization
- QUESTION: Mill’s progress-based justification of colonization is a familiar liberal-rationalization trope — worth probing how it differs from outright racial supremacist justifications and whether later critics have pinned down its internal contradictions.
- XREF: connects to: Civilizational ranking justifies denying Millian civility to colonized peoples — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 228