The 1920s civilizing mission abandoned universal egalitarianism for hierarchy

Evidence

What dis- appeared was a certain commitment to the idea of universal man, everywhere equal in potential and deserving of emancipation. Within the various impulses of the mission civilisatrice between 1895 and 1914, racism and pragmatism had, of course, also been am- ply represented. Yet, compared to the interwar years, there had also been a current of egalitarian sentiment. Although French was still to be taught, barbaric custom to be banished, and medicine distrib- uted, the era of large gestures was receding. Henceforth an impor- tant part of French civilizing efforts would be preoccupied with woo- ing the elite, traditional and modern. In West Africa as in France, an intensifying respect for hierarchy in all its forms-social, sexual, and racial-represented the Third Republic’s true face in the 192o’s. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 741

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• French civilizing efforts shifted from egalitarian emancipation to courting elites (similarity 0.93)
• The early mission civilisatrice carried an egalitarian current that interwar association policy abandoned. (similarity 0.90)
• Failed prewar policies forced France into a conservative civilizing mission. (similarity 0.86)
• France’s republican ideals coexisted with colonial domination through a civilizing ideal (similarity 0.84)
• France’s assimilationist premises overseas mirrored its domestic campaign to transform peasants into citizens. (similarity 0.83)
• French failures in West Africa revived racism and redefined their civilizing mission (similarity 0.83)
• French colonial policy racialized in the 1920s, retreating from assimilation toward racial separation. (similarity 0.83)
• Civilizing-mission ideology deflected contradiction between French democratic values and colonial conquest (similarity 0.83)
• French universalist values paradoxically sustained the colonial empire they contradicted (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial ideology shifted in step with metropolitan political changes. (similarity 0.82)
• Industrial superiority convinced the French that they monopolized civilization (similarity 0.82)
• Adapted colonial education still rested on French cultural superiority premises. (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial policy shifted from emancipation to gradual political initiation (similarity 0.82)
• The civilizing mission ideology constrained what French colonial governors could actually do. (similarity 0.82)
• French republicanism fused with racial evolutionism to justify suppressing African customs. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• France’s civilizing mission lost its universalism and turned conservative by World War I #corroborates (0.80) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 888
• France’s egalitarian influence spread least while it claimed a civilizing mission #corroborates (0.70) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 892
• World War I weakened republican ideology and shifted colonial policy toward conservatism #corroborates (0.60) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 42