2 Ryan's early point regarding imperial Britain and colonial Ireland also rings true for the colonial relation between Britain and Australia (where I am), the consequences of which are still with us. So I want to follow that up, but a quick question here: if anybody has any recommendation on this - I'm trying to find anything on the mentality of colonial elites and how the habits of mind inculcated during a period of colonialism continue even after the old colonies become relatively more independent. I can't find much about this, but I think it is salient to the current moment in Australia (and perhaps per this discussion maybe Ireland?). Just a thought.
If you read When Histories Collide by Raymond Crotty, he explored that to some extent in his chapters on the colonial and post-colonial eras. His take is generally that colonies tend to have a feudal-ish elite that seeks to perpetuate colonial core-periphery system just under better terms for themselves. It is only when that “native elite” is overthrown/reformed by the “native citizenry” does the core-periphery system shift into a competitive national force in international relations rather than a crypto-colony to whatever superpower dominated them.
Direct quote: “A central theme of this work is that independence is sought and obtained in capitalist colonies only when the metropolitan-created, local elite has been sufficiently strengthened and the colonized mass sufficiently debilitated to ensure the perpetuation of a socioeconomic system that created the local elite in the first instance. In this sense, nationalism can be said to be the final phase of national destruction.”
The problem on how to wrestle power away from the rentiers remains whole though, right? That's the challenge: whatever politics you want to implement that isn't in line with the obscenely rich's interests, how do you create the political power to do it?
It was interesting to hear Ryan say the case of Ireland clarifies certain issues because you can see dynamics there without getting mixed up in what he calls "Cold War politics".
I've used Ireland the same way in anthropology classes. There is a discourse -- not an all wrong discourse, but definitely an over STRONG discourse -- about the basic problem with fieldwork being that anthropologists are a bunch of racist colonialist assholes, and the evidence for this is that the people under study have often found what anthropologists said about them objectionable.
The thing is, any thorough study of any human community is not going to be entirely flattering, even if the observer is unmotivated by any suspect malice. Just because... human communities do be imperfect that way.
So the example I like to discuss is Nancy Scheper Hughes's book _Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics_ about family dynamics in rural Ireland. She was a white lady studying white people, and the villagers literally ran her out of town when she returned after the book was published.
I have read she over-attributed to cultural hangups problems that were often the result of the destructive impact of the European Common Market on dairy farmers (her study was in the 1970s). But some of what she documented -- for example the way people in these communities often interpreted Thematic Apperception Test cards as sibling relationships where elsewhere they were understood as involving romantic partners - was revealing, if rather sad, even so.
Great discussion. A couple of unrelated points:
1. On the discussion on the Careys' influence on Lincoln's policies, there is a very good and recent book covering these policies by Roger Lowenstein; I did a Q&A with Lowenstein on his book here: https://publicthings.substack.com/p/q-and-a-with-roger-lowenstein-on
2 Ryan's early point regarding imperial Britain and colonial Ireland also rings true for the colonial relation between Britain and Australia (where I am), the consequences of which are still with us. So I want to follow that up, but a quick question here: if anybody has any recommendation on this - I'm trying to find anything on the mentality of colonial elites and how the habits of mind inculcated during a period of colonialism continue even after the old colonies become relatively more independent. I can't find much about this, but I think it is salient to the current moment in Australia (and perhaps per this discussion maybe Ireland?). Just a thought.
If you read When Histories Collide by Raymond Crotty, he explored that to some extent in his chapters on the colonial and post-colonial eras. His take is generally that colonies tend to have a feudal-ish elite that seeks to perpetuate colonial core-periphery system just under better terms for themselves. It is only when that “native elite” is overthrown/reformed by the “native citizenry” does the core-periphery system shift into a competitive national force in international relations rather than a crypto-colony to whatever superpower dominated them.
Thanks. Will check out the Crotty.
Direct quote: “A central theme of this work is that independence is sought and obtained in capitalist colonies only when the metropolitan-created, local elite has been sufficiently strengthened and the colonized mass sufficiently debilitated to ensure the perpetuation of a socioeconomic system that created the local elite in the first instance. In this sense, nationalism can be said to be the final phase of national destruction.”
The problem on how to wrestle power away from the rentiers remains whole though, right? That's the challenge: whatever politics you want to implement that isn't in line with the obscenely rich's interests, how do you create the political power to do it?
It was interesting to hear Ryan say the case of Ireland clarifies certain issues because you can see dynamics there without getting mixed up in what he calls "Cold War politics".
I've used Ireland the same way in anthropology classes. There is a discourse -- not an all wrong discourse, but definitely an over STRONG discourse -- about the basic problem with fieldwork being that anthropologists are a bunch of racist colonialist assholes, and the evidence for this is that the people under study have often found what anthropologists said about them objectionable.
The thing is, any thorough study of any human community is not going to be entirely flattering, even if the observer is unmotivated by any suspect malice. Just because... human communities do be imperfect that way.
So the example I like to discuss is Nancy Scheper Hughes's book _Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics_ about family dynamics in rural Ireland. She was a white lady studying white people, and the villagers literally ran her out of town when she returned after the book was published.
I have read she over-attributed to cultural hangups problems that were often the result of the destructive impact of the European Common Market on dairy farmers (her study was in the 1970s). But some of what she documented -- for example the way people in these communities often interpreted Thematic Apperception Test cards as sibling relationships where elsewhere they were understood as involving romantic partners - was revealing, if rather sad, even so.