Re:The story of the Tank Man photo by its photographer
by BobbyJo on Friday June 04, 2021 @06:11PM
(#27399657)
It's not just 'now'. I think there is a reasonable time window to apply: the one that most informs how we can anticipate one to act in the future. While France/Germany/Europe has done wrong in the past, I don't think anyone is reasonably concerned about them committing genocide or starting a war.
Secondly, I have to disagree that present day Europe benefits from past imperialism. Pre-imperialist UK and France were doing just fine. In fact, they were doing so well, they decided they could be doing even better by going out and taking over more of the world. It doesn't make sense to me to attribute their modern day successes to their imperialist past. Imperialism isn't on the table unless you're already doing great relative to the rest of the world. I think the US is a perfect example of that actually. We were arguably at our peak globally well before we began military interventions elsewhere in the world.
For me it is not separable from their pasts because those nations would not have stability or the flexibility to make moral choices if they didnt successfully do immoral things to people they didnt like until they were either eradicated or everyone else finally got the memo to leave.
Although it is uncomfortable to be aware of and powerless, there just isn’t a history of intervention to think there will be one with China, or more accurately there isnt a history to suggest that this particular problem wont solve itself.