In 1963, Martin Luther King was arrested for participating in anti-apartheid protests and wrote the famous letter in Birmingham City Prison. He wrote that a “white brother from Texas” wrote to tell him, “Every Christian knows that people of color will eventually get equal rights, but you are too rash in your faith. “This view,” Kim wrote, “stems from an unfortunate misunderstanding of the concept of’ time’ and an absurd misunderstanding that time will eventually heal all wounds.
I was reading Priya Satya, a professor of world history at Stanford University’s new book, Monsters of the Times, when I suddenly remembered this passage by Martin Luther King. Because Satya also expressed his opposition to the “absurd idea” that “time will eventually cure everything” in his own works.
Time monster is a book about history and empire. It is not a straightforward history book, but explores the role of history in promoting the process of colonization, “making excuses for this behavior at the ethical level.”
Satya’s story begins with enlightenment. In the traditional concept, time goes round and round, but people at that time had a new understanding and began to have a linear view of history, thinking that it would “move forward inexorably forever.” At that time, human beings created history, and history also created human beings. The interaction between the two makes “history has the power to judge morality”, and “morality” is defined according to the development process of history, and history reveals those people and systems that have been eliminated. Amitav ghosh, an Indian novelist, believes that the significance of being eliminated by history is “equivalent to modern extinction and being buried in the fire of hell”. Gao Xi wrote, “The most powerful curse in the world today is to curse a person who has stood on the wrong side in history”.
Satya wrote that during the Enlightenment, people’s obsession with progress and their desire for moral universalism (a universal ethical code that is universally applicable to all people, regardless of their culture, race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or other characteristics) created “the cruelty of the empire in conquering other countries.” In people’s eyes, colonialism has stood on the moral high ground, because it has brought progress to people outside Europe, so that they don’t have to live a primitive and backward life.
Time monster
Liberal imperialism itself is contradictory. It demands freedom and at the same time refuses freedom. So the philosopher john stewart Mill wrote in his classic book On Freedom: “It is completely reasonable and legal to rule uncivilized nations, as long as it can help them make progress in the end.” “Those who have not made progress in the historical process should not be regarded as’ enlightened’ people. Satya wrote that “the masterpiece of historians” played a vital role in eliminating these contradictions, and they whitewashed the cruelty of the British Empire as “collateral damage” in the only way of development.
Time monster is an excellent book, which reorganizes the relationship among history, historians and empires. But it is also a depressing work. The main thread of Time monster is to make people understand that if lofty ethical propositions are rooted in a specific historical narrative, it will bring disastrous consequences. Satya severely condemned some historians-Thomas Macaulay, james mill and John Robert Healy, because they acted like slaves of imperial monarchs. However, in the last chapter of this book, she expresses her concern: in the past century, historians have been marginalized by political leaders, and hot experts in emerging disciplines (economists and political scientists) have taken their place, because these people seem more willing to serve those in power.
Satya insists that historians who criticize imperialism must “stick to their professional opinions on policy issues and oppose the monopoly of so-called social scientists” to help shape contemporary foreign policy. According to her observation, many historians opposed the Iraq war, but they were too far away from the center of power to stir up any waves. She even called on historians to “re-examine” the idea of “judging value through history” during the Enlightenment. In other words, today’s historians should continue to use history as a tool to derive moral norms, but today’s norms are different-today’s moral norms should support the weak, not the strong. This requirement may be obvious, but it runs counter to most previous views condemning the use of historical lessons to establish moral norms.
Satya also hopes to abandon the linear view of history and “re-examine history with circular (but by no means aimless) eyes.” She said that the fatal flaw of the historical view of the Enlightenment is that it is human beings who are placed at the center, not “biology, geology and astronomy.” In fact, it is believed that human beings have created history, not just by history, which is a big leap in the Enlightenment. The problem is that in people’s eyes, history will always progress and develop automatically. Just like Martin Luther King’s critical view that time will eventually heal all wounds, some people and countries are accused of “reversing the wheel of history” or “being eliminated by history”, which also provides a moral excuse for colonialism. The “circular historical view” does not recognize the possibility of “radical change”. This view of history is defined more by “biology, geology and astronomy” than by human activities, but in my opinion, it will not be beneficial to look at all of the above from the perspective of “circular view of history”
Time monster’s book reveals the truth of “imperial collusion” in history. In addition, it also reveals the contents that still have some merits in the historical view