19th century European Imperialism was predominantly negative.

In this round I will defend my opening arguments from my opponent"s rebuttals. Pro starts by claiming that my third source does not relate to increased literacy rates in 19th century European colonies. I used that source [1] to demonstrate the benefits of increased literacy rates. These benefits exist whether or not a region was under European control during the 19th century or not, as those factors don"t affect whether literacy rates decrease mortality, or other effects. Pro next tries to argue that British imperialism hurt literacy rates in India by citing that India"s literacy rate was only 12% before they split from Britain. Yet, this doesn"t actually prove that Britain was a cause of low literacy rates, it"s only correlation. And regardless, as long as Britain's imperialism improved the literacy from an even lower number the impact of my argument still remains. And we see that this is true, as Pro"s own source that he cite"s gives evidence for it [2], as literacy rates rose from 3.2% to 12% during British imperialism. And as I cited in R2, Britain's imperialism caused this due to Mountstuart Elphinstone"s improvements. This same logic applies to the second source that Pro brings up regarding literacy rates in European controlled countries: this first of all proves nothing as its only correlation not causation, and secondly European imperialism raised the education level from an extremely bad position to a less bad position, which is obviously good. Pro"s second contention follows around the same logic as the first, he argues that the study showing that education decreases mortality rates isn"t valid since European colonies lacked education and it was done after WW2. But as I said earlier, European imperialism led to increased education, as I gave evidence for in R2 and Pro had no qualms with. So although the education level still was low in the colonies, it was higher than it would have been without imperialism, so the impact of the increased education still stands. And Pro"s point about being after WW2 has no bearing since Pro does not explain how or why the fact that the study was done post-WW2 study would make the conclusion invalid. Pro must give reasoning for this, but none was given, thus the argument is a bare assertion and can be thrown out. Pro"s third contention focuses on the effects of increased sanitation. Pro argues that the sanitation methods mentioned in the study wouldn"t have existed in the 19th century, and thus the study isn"t relative. But this misses the point, the method of sanitation isn"t what is being measured, it's the effects of increased sanitation that is being measured. It is objectively true, and Pro proposed no qualms with the fact that the sanitation methods described in the study increased sanitation. The study looked at what the effect of an increased sanitation in a country does. So although the imperialists did not increase sanitation in the same methods as in the study, they still increased sanitation. Thus the results from the study can be applied to the colonies. Pro"s fourth contention claims that my source only supports the sub-Saharan region of Africa was producing high quality goods, but the sub-Saharan part of Africa was specializing in steel if you read the source, the entire continent of Africa had many different regions that specialized in different goods, Pro misinterprets the source. Now turning to the contentions under Pro"s section of "Theoretical Flaws and Contradictions", Pro"s first argument here is conceding that the literacy rates rose, but that it wasn"t a *legitimate* desire of the European nations. But their *desires* are not what the debate should be judged by, it's the effect. And if the effect of their *desire* ended up improving education for thousands of people and thus saving thousands of lives, then that is a positive impact. The impact of my argument isn"t diminished at all by what the European imperialists meant to do. Pro"s second argument here is that it is ironic that the Spanish helped save lives from smallpox because they are the one"s that brought disease America"s in the 16th century. But since this was a result of 16th century imperialism, not 19th century imperialism, it isn"t relative to the debate. So this argument has no impact on the debate. Pro"s third argument is a defensive argument against me bringing up for examples of European"s helping out colonies for education, but since I didn"t bring up any other examples this argument doesn"t really do anything. It has no impact on the debate since its a defensive argument. Pro"s last argument is that there was already trade going on in Africa with Arabs, before the Europeans arrived. But this doesn"t have much bearing on the debate, as increased trade (the Europeans entering the market with the Africans and Arabs) would result in increased profit for the Africans, as they have more consumers that want their goods. So I don"t see how this is a negative for my side, as it's only a positive. Peace and love [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com...