international studies

This week we read about the structural transformations that marked the decline of ancient empires and medieval worldviews, and violently ushered in the Early Modern period of European conquest and expansion. From the extraction industries that made the colonial projects in the New World possible, to the changing worldview reflected in the intellectual and cultural movements back in European society.

For your discussion post this week, please consider this role of global parasitic leeches played by European powers and respond to the following:

1. Discuss the way the ideals of the Enlightenment were used to justify colonial ventures, be sure to include any specific actors or ideals by name. Such as philosophers or missionaries that were proponents of these ideals, countries that dominated a particular venture, and the countries/people that were subjugated to it. You can use locales in the Americas, Africa, or Asia .

2. How do you see the trace of the ideals and enterprise of this Early Modern period in our contemporary global system? Such as the political rhetoric of a current social movement, or the economic status of the countries involved.

please answer both parts completely

ANSWER

The Ideals of Enlightenment

The enlightenment was an intellectual movement that focused on science and reason. Ideally, the enlightenment was an age of reason which emphasized reason over science and superstition. The enlightenment ideals of equality, liberty and justice helped in creating conditions for revolution. Considerably, the American colonies prompted for a call for new type of government with constitution and the idea of self-government where democracy takes place. Most people consider the enlightenment as a major turning point in western civilization, an age where light replaced the age of darkness. As the nations in Western Europe began colonizing the Americas, they developed a discourse that justified the activity through discussions of equality and liberty.

Colonialism was considered as the practice of domination which included subjugation of one person over the other. Colonialism entailed the transfer of people to a new territory where the individuals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to the state of origin. The ideas of the enlightenment sought global happiness among all groups and individuals. The enlightenment of ideals entails a range of ideas that have been centered on sovereignty of knowledge, reason, and ideas such as toleration, progress, liberty, and constitutional government.

Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes in his book, Leviathan argued that people cannot rule themselves since they are naturally self-centered. These ideas led to questioning absolute monarchs as compared to the self-government. However, other enlightenment thinkers such as Smith, John Locke, Diderot, and Kant challenged the notion that Europeans had the mandate of civilizing the rest of the world. The structure of colonial domination which entailed some slavery was the basic enlightenment principle that each person is capable of self-government and reason. Locke stated that people are born equal and free with the natural human rights-liberty, life, and property. Diderot offered one of the most forceful critics of the European colonization. He challenged the notion that the indigenous people benefited from the activities of European civilization. With regards to Diderot, the colonial empires were the places for brutality since the colonists are far away from the legal institutions. The age of enlightenment was characterized by an emphasis on empiricism and reason.