Is there anything actually wrong with Imperialism?

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Interesting you should mention that.

I remember in school being taught history from the perspective that Cortez was a Gold-Grubbing bully who destroyed a beutiful and sophisticated city, but when I got out of school and looked deeper into the subject, things changed.

little mention is Made of the Tlaxcalans and the other native tribes that gladly fought alongside Cortez to destroy the Aztec empire (Would've made a MUCH better movie than 300). Even less is made that afterward the Tlaxcalan chieftains maintained much of their power and where treated more or less just like any spanish noble: they were given horses to ride and everything. No. the school textbooks where too busy blaming cortez for smallpox outbreaks that he had know way of knowing where going to happen. I've grown sick of all the whining about how the spanish destroyed the native's culture. They put an end to the terrible Flower wars that were fought for no reason other than to gather sacrifice victims. They put an end to the Drowning of children in grottos, to flaying people alive and wearing their skin for the maize harvest, to cutting out hearts and throwing corpses down temple steps. all the Mayan 2012 BS is bad enough: do we really want to put up with Aztec doomsday prophecies too?

So I often wonder how much Cortez was motivated by good and how much by gold, We can never really know for sure.

That said, what is imperialism? If my sources are accurate (and I'm not claiming they are) the people of the Phillpenes wanted to join the USA, but we turned them down because that would be "imperialistic". Is it really imperialism if they WANT to join? We also could have had Cuba (though I don't believe the natives where as willing) but we felt that would be "imperialistic" and the commies took over. I wonder If Theodore Roosevelt knew what we know now if we would feel differently than he did, or if he would let history repeat itself.

Some people seem to think that influencing another country in any way is imperialism, but we can't in good conscience just let foreign dictators do as they please!

Besides, if we never let any nation grab more land, or by extension, any new nation to form (you can't make a new country without taking land from an old one.) that can lead to political stagnation, and stagnation generally leads to decay.

So I would say Imperialism is neither inherently good or evil. It is how it's used that makes the difference.

There is an historical fiction novel which is about as close as you'd get to a movie on this, but G.A. Henty's By Right Of Conquest: with Cortez in Mexico has some pretty awesome moments in it, such as the use of small cannon-bearing ships, actually built at the lake, when besieging the capital. Or the time when they were surrounded by so many Aztec warriors in their cotton armor that it looked like snow on the mountain sides.

Dunno, don't really know enough about either.

Nobody pays attention to me...

just wiki "Tlaxcalans"

Because the system in place BEFORE the Raj was obviously vastly superior, what with its small warring principalities, and its burning of widows, and the existence of Thuggee, and no transport infrastructure worth toffee. Absolute paradise eh?

People also forget that "The Raj" was actually acquired almost by accident, and not by the Crown, but by a private concern, which eventually had to be taken over by the crown because of hideous mismanagement. It was not taken in conquest or as a deliberate "empire-building" thing for the most part. In fact the very piece-meal distribution of the dominions demonstrates that that was the rule for most of the Empire. There really wasn't a great deal of steamrollering by red-jacketed armies, so much as treaties and coin changing hands in a back room somewhere, who would then go home to Blighty and declare "By the way fellows, just annexed TootiFrooti land for ten beads and a cow. Stick a bit more pink on the map, there's a good chap."

Besides, one way or another India would have lost its "independence", if not to the UK then to the French, or the Germans, or (god forbid) the Belgians.

Here's an advantage to being IN an Empire: when you get attacked, that Empire usually defends you, because it retains an interest.

I paid attention. I found your post interesting, however I don't think I can read enough in one day to form an opinion on 2 entire cultures. Your post reminded me of the situation with the vikings who common history has portrayed as something very different from the truth.

That is the whole point of having an empire.

Gaining control of other people's resources. Not having to pay fair market rates.

Forcing people to operate in a way that suits you rather than them. e.g. produce the crops that you want rather than ones that are beneficial to them. Forbid them from competing with yourselves or other parts of your empire.

Cheap fodder for you armies so that your troops are the last to die.

If you are not going to take advantage of the empire then it will be more trouble than it is worth.

... what the ....

Really, that is the whole point for all Empires ubiquitously and eternally with no exceptions?

Except that plenty of colonial wars were fought by troops native to the coloniser as well as by "askari", and a lot of places that end up colonies are often producing something that the mother country can't. And if you're thinking of WW1 and the UK, you should maybe check out how many local lads from the UK got it in the neck before claiming that the dominion troops were "cheap cannon fodder." If anyone was cannon fodder, it was those not lucky enough to hold the rank of General of any nation.

Consider how most governments operate on a day to day basis, then realise that a colonial government is mostly just another layer on top of that. Empires that make sweeping changes to local custom/law/procedure tend to not do very well.

The point of Empire is not to BE tyrannical etc etc. Mostly its just economics.

I agree with you in part. The Mexica (Aztecs) themselves were warmongers and imperialists. Their use of ritual sacrifice was quite abhorrent; it was a case of Meso-American imperialism backed by the Mexica state religion. In a sense, it was like situation with Spanish who conquered them. My opinion is that Cortez was motivated by what he thought was religious duty and by gold. Much like the Mexica were motivated by what they thought was religious duty and cocoa (plus other luxuries).

The Mexica religion was rather primal (I didn't say primitive) but also highly organised. I'm not one of those people who think the Romans were making it up when they described the ancient Celtic religion in the same way that we see the Aztecs now. I think it's a marker of more primal religions to see human life as on par with pretty much all other life - and not particularly special unless it has something directly to do with divinity - as is the supposed case with Emperors. In that mindset, the sun rising is more important than a bunch of prisoners captured from that neighbouring tribe, and ripping their heart out is no more disgusting than doing the same thing to a bird.

The Mexica were anomalous in that they were a sophisticated society with great architectural skill (but no wheels for carts), with an organised social order, but a religion that was really based in the primal roots of humankind's religious tendencies. The fact that they were so organised allowed them to be particularly bloody in following their religion. I think if the northern European tribes were allowed to develop in isolation for so many hundreds of years without being converted, they might have looked similar. Primal religions have the advantage of being Earth-based, but the disadvantage of not being human-based in their attitudes. I think it's better to value both things in a belief-system, instead of seeing them as antagonistic - but humans have followed antagonistic beliefs for centuries and we still do.

I'm not arguing for cultural relativism, I'm just saying that the Mexica probably had more in common with the Spanish than people realise. I don't blame Cortez for having no respect for the Mexica religion, just as a modern secular person like myself has no respect for Cortez's form of Christianity, just as someone in 500 years time will have no respect for my beliefs.

The Flower wars were actually fought in a way that the Mexica thought was 'civilised', i.e. fight to capture, etc. The resulting executions were bloody, but they served a religious purpose. The Mexica were not only overwhelmed by the technological advantage of the Spanish, but the fact that the Spaniards shot to kill. I do agree with you that far too little is made of the Tlaxcalans and the wider political picture in Meso-America at the time.

I don't know whether to pass a value judgment on whether the Aztec Empire was better or worse than the Spanish conquest. The Spanish did end up exploiting the natural resources and the Mexica as a source of labour, and probably killed as many, if not more, people. In a way, you can blame them for destroying not only the Mexica culture (even though parts of it sucked) because the Mexica lost their traditional arts and education - but you can also say it had a damaging effect on Spanish culture because when the encomenderos went over, they eventually got lazy and decided it was more fun to live off the natives than to develop their own skills. Imperialism also damages the culture of the conquerors.

I'm interested in this period of history, but I don't really take sides. I do think that in general, imperialism sucks, whether it's done by an 'advanced' society or otherwise.

Agreed, but I'd also add assumptions of ideological/religious superiority to economics.

What about in the cases of the Babylonian Empire, the Medio-Persian Empire, or the Roman Empire?

So you expect people to just give you their resources and do whatever you tell them just because you ask nicely?
Good luck with that.

Either or fallacy of a type. You basically assume that having governance over another entails being tyrannical. That is false. Also, in some cases, it's not even about resources but instead is about policing idiots who keep trying to murder each other.

About the Roman empire, I'd argue that was partly the case.

About the other two, I'll get back to you, on that

Generally those running the Empire claim to have ideological/religious superiority, but that is not necessarily WHY they start an empire. The true reasons for having an empire are manifold.
Tyranny and despotism are two of the many tools available to the empire-builder, but they are not always a supremely efficient tool for an empire maintainer. Rather depends on who your chosen subjects are, and war/conquest as a goal in itself fell out of fashion in the middle ages. Security, stability, profit, are all perfectly legitimate reasons to empire-build.

It occurs to me that there are very few empires that I can recall immediately that were created wholly and purposely JUST to tyrannize a given population. Certainly many populations WERE tyrannized, but as a means to subjugation.