I tend to rankle when people compare the colonialism of the last few centuries with the pre-capitalist expansion and settlement of ancient societies. It seems like there's a lot of daylight between the English founding Jamestown and ancient Ionians founding Massalia or w/e.

But what do Hexbear's historians think? Is it fundamentally the same social phenomenon across time or is capitalist settler-colonialism its own unique thing?

  • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The thing that is disturbing is when people try to justify ongoing colonialism with far past colonialism, as if the Romans settling Gaul and wiping out the native Celts somehow justifies the ongoing colonial projects in the Americas.

    I probably should have clarified, this is what rankles me.