Modernity’s benefits derive from imperialism, colonialism, and structural genocide.

Evidence

Secular humanism, anthropocentricism, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalism (all of which rest on a mechanistic impulse and sovereign domination of the world) are increasingly viewed as too costly to maintain and as an excessive and unjustifiable—if not immoral—overreach, all this notwithstanding their benefits (undoubted benefits with equally undoubted disastrous side effects). In fact, it is precisely these benefits—supposed and real—that are directly tied to the pervasive destruction of nearly every aspect of modern human, animal, and insentient life (all of which, one can safely say, are experiencing, and living, the modern condition). As I have attempted to show, these benefits are furthermore grounded in, and derive from, less obvious but nonetheless very real projects of imperialism, colonialism, structural genocide, and much else without which these benefits would not have been possible in the first place. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 459

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the contradiction of modern benefits and harms; resonates with decolonial thinkers (Mignolo, Wynter) and the ‘progress as destruction’ theme. — connects to: Ahmad frames the modern world epoch through imperialism, decolonization, and socialist struggle. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 51
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that liberal-secular modernity’s benefits are not merely accompanied by but derived from imperial violence inverts the usual cost-benefit framing of progress.