Talk:Colonialism/Proposed Merges

message: :So yes, back on point. "What is colonialism, above and beyond the act or policy of establishing and maintaining colonies?" Colonialism is an attitude of mind and a set of assumptions conquerors impose on the conquered (reinforced by but not limited to direct power). Further! "Colonialism" is an academic discourse that has arisen since the inter-war period to analyze that attitude of mind and its effects. You don't want to muddy the waters with post-colonialism?... Well, you can't not. We can't sit here and talk about colonialism while ignoring post-colonialism, which has hijacked a large part of the arts academy. In that vein...you started this thread with a merge idea but you also "sectionized" and expanded the article. I like the latter idea! The page should be expanded and clarified further, not merged. A simple way to think of it: "colony" is a concrete noun while "colonialism" is an abstract one and they denote related but distinct topics. Merging the two is a disservice to Wiki readers. Marskell 23:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are confusing the study of the subject and the subject itself.  The suffix -ism comes from the Greek noun suffix -ismos and means “the act, state, or theory of” the word it is appended to (in this case, colonial, or "Of, relating to, possessing, or inhabiting a colony or colonies").  This maps neatly onto my definition of colonial-ism as the "act or policy of establishing and maintaining colonies".  That's what colonialism is.  It's strange because you began by arbitrarily restricting the definition of "colonialism" to the establishment of settler colonies, and here you are now suggesting it is also a "state of mind" (what state of mind exactly - triumphant or guilty colonizers, or welcoming or repressed colonized?), a "set of assumptions conquerors impose on the conquered" (I'm not sure how one "imposes" assumptions on others, incidentally), and an "academic discourse that has arisen since the inter-war period to analyse...." (people were analysing this long before then - try reading Bartolome de las Casas'  - "the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World" - A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, written in 1542).  Tell me, if you are a colonialist, what does that mean in your book?  What does the "history of colonialism" refer to - a history of the act or policy of establishing and maintaining colonies, or a history of an academic discourse that has arisen since the inter-war period to analyze an attitude of mind and its effects"?  Gsd2000 00:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Fair arguments, although I do think that you are again blurring the study of the subject and the subject itself.  The "theory" of colonialism does not equate to the study of colonialism any more than the communist theories equate to the study of communist theories.  If you are a colonialist you are someone that ascribes to colonialism, not part of an academic movement.  FYI - the Encarta encyclopaedia lumps the two together, whilst Britannica keeps them separate.  You have to agree that if Encarta sees fit to merge the two, then it is at least a notion that we in Wikipedia can entertain, so I would be interested to hear others' opinions (as well as yours).  Gsd2000 12:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I was hammering away at your claim that "conventionally", for "nine out of ten people", and for your interpretation of the dictionary definitions you quoted, colonies equals settler colonies. Gsd2000 12:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I think (I hope!), we're close to seeing that we're not really in disagreement about definitions. In "(my) interpretation of the dictionary definitions (I) quoted, colonies equals settler colonies." Once more (in bold italics no less!): I do not believe that colony exclusively equals settlers. I have not said that. I am concerned that Wiki-readers may "conventionally" assume that idea, and that we should clarify it. If I made a mistake here, it was assuming initially that you were glossing in favour of colony because you wanted to emphasize colony = settlers, when indeed we are both commenting against that idea. Marskell 21:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge-3

message: *Without making a close and thourough reading all the forgoing tonight, let me add here that the Colony==Settlers arguement is empty and has been settled long ago by a whole shit load of several centuries of texts by qualified experts in history and the social sciences.  i.e. it is a matter of idioms, in particular technical idioms in some very exacting scholarly fields and not of dictionary definitions, which are a collection of local language conventions always years behind the practice (usages) of the specific people it is written to serve and reflect. See some of the articles on language, but that whole line of arguement is specious and flys in the face of technical usage. For Pete's sake, people haven't been able to agree on proper spellings, all for numerous attempts at establishing a uniform widely accepted spelling standard, and you expect an exact dictionary definition, in the face of what experts decide sitting in their respective commissions on what terms to apply to their fields to settle a technical matter over the experts and their accepted usages?  
The idea of combining these two articles has got to take those several techical distinctions into account for it is not our place here on wikipedia to tell the scholars how to do their jobs, but to collate, organize and report on what they publish; and thus, equating the two terms would in my experience be violating WP:NOR— as would requiring a some arbitrarily size of settlement for a country practising mercantilism and colonialism to have a valid colony by some cooked up (original research) formula— Both would be an untenable fringe theory, or linguistic stretch by misapplying terms too literally, cause that ain't the way it's discussed and defined. The proper idiomatic terms are Colony, and colonialism, but the one is a place usually obtained under the push from the other (the other way is by warfare), a belief system part of the economic theory of merchantilism.
 
*The French built a colonial empire both superior too and larger than the British (late starters) without much settler involvement whatever. India was the called the Jewel of the Orient, and it was a diadem in the French crown under Richelieu and Mazarin; only to later become the Crown Jewel of the British Empire because of conquest. Like the Dutch and Portugese, neither nation sent shoals of settlers half-way around the world, but only token populations, and those entities were refered to then and still are, as colonies. As in most things, Money was the key, and the spice trade and silk trade were the reward of holding that divided land. But French India was far larger and stronger than the British holdings, until the colonies became a prize of war.
It wasn't fashionable to leave France, the largest, richest, most powerful, most prestigious, and most populous nation in Europe to settle anywhere; same for the prosperous Netherlands, though it can be argued they were themselves a colony of Spain. The unusually large numbers of setters to North America generally had ulterior motives— religious persecution and lack of religious freedoms, or the promise of lands, not tied into ancient fuedal estates where one had to be beholdened to a landlord class of nobles and wealthy merchants. The Spanish did not export large bodies of people, and neither did the Porteguese. Nonetheless, they were all of them staunch believers in Merchantilism and did everything they could from the mid-1400's—early-1500's to expand and establish colonies, however thinly populated, excepting the British, who eventually had to play a lot of catch up ball; in the early days of the colonialism, they weren't even fielding a team. 
Thus the establishment of New France and French India were both two of the largest terratorial land grabs under colonialism and quite successfully lucreative until the French, hampered by an absolutist officer class gradually lost their naval supremacy, then their parity  to the Dutch and British, before, and then, especially during the Seven Years War to the British, who started the era as a third rate power and ended up as a de facto superpower. But that took decades to happen, nearly a century, and four wars with the Dutch and several major one's with the French and Spanish, and it happened because the British believed in colonialism daughter of mercantilism as the necessary route to national strength, so they continued investing in fleet units, while the other countries counted their coin. The French suffered a further military debacle in the Battle of the Nile, loosing most of their ready fleet, and causing Napoleon Boneparte to abandon plans to force a land route and survey a canal through the Suez in 1798 for even the egalitarian French Revolutionaries running that sorry excuse for a government believed in merchantilism and therefore colonialism. The French goal was to re-conquer the lost Jewel of the Orient-- India.
I hope that helps you all get 'off the dime' and settle on the real question— is a 'place class discriptor' equatable to a 'sociopolitical philosophy'. My vote is below. 
Best wishes to all. <B>Fra</B>nkB 03:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thankyou for your thoughts, but it is a bit cheeky, writing an essay yourself and expecting others to read it but "without making a close and thourough reading all the forgoing"!  :-) If you are going to contribute to the debate, you should at least (pretend to) understand it thus far, before offering your own opinions.  We did actually resolve that discussion, colony == settlers.  Back on topic: As I said above, Encarta has a combined article for the two, so at least one other encyclopaedia considers it acceptable.  The main reason I suggested a merge is because there is duplication in the articles.  Colony absolutely does not equal colonialism, but one can quite easily fold discussion of the former into the latter, and it would not be misleading to do so.  The only reason for opposing it that I can see is if you are a semantic purist, but then - encyclopaedias ain't dictionaries.  Gsd2000 11:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: *Sorry if it came off cheeky—time was pressing, but with an electronic format and without the overhead of setup and printing costs, when it comes to matters factual, topical, or such I tend to be inclusionist and counter-mergist. This is directly in line with WP:Btw and also in-line with the Foundation guideline goal of having an article title for each article title in all other encyclopedias, so that I essentially view such hair splitting as counter-productive. Duplication is a good thing—repetition and redundancy is the foundation and cornerstone of education. So what if the two have overlap. We are trying for a comprehensive recap of most all human knowledge, not to avoid titles that a given reader might search for. In a nutshell, when we merge too often, we cut down the utility of the encyclopedia as a whole as we have no way to predict what thought process, and hence word sequence drives a 'user-non-editor' (i.e. customer) to define whatever search string he/she picks. I try to keep in mind that the article hopping  reader is most likely to be aged 9-17, or perhaps the even larger population of people sans university education who are trying to establish a base level of crystalized knowledge—as opposed to ones that have had at least some training in researching in a set of college prep High School courses or higher education experiences. In sum, I'd rather their (perhaps) less optimally technical search string be rewarded with knowledge, even if it is overlapped by a better article, than have a total miss which may damp their momentary enthusiasm to pursue what might have been a near-whimsical exploration. Nuff said. <B>Fra</B>nkB 14:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: *BTW-Thanks for calling that little dash of text an essay... It was much more spontaneous and far less time consuming than THAT! <B>Fra</B>nkB 14:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh heh - well, you labelled it a "lecture" yourself! :-)  Fair points.  If you remove the merge suggestion I would not offer any objection to that.  (I was the one that put it in). Gsd2000 23:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge-4 A small lecture

message: Although I don't endorse the merge with colonies, because I think this could make another article and design another reality, I do think colonisation should be merged here (one is a verb, while the other is a noun, but they refer to the same reality). Is there any support for that move? Lapaz 16:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely disagree.  Colonialism is absolutely not equal to colonisation.  Welsh folks colonised Patagonia, but that was not Welsh colonialism.  ps both colonialism and colonisation are nouns.  Gsd2000 18:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: pps dicdefs: COLONIALISM - A policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign dependencies/exploitation by a stronger country of weaker one; the use of the weaker country's resources to strengthen and enrich the stronger country; COLONISATION - the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies; "the British colonization of America".  Gsd2000 20:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. So maybe the actual merge should be between colonies and colonisation? Lapaz 01:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, reading again, seem you think it's wasn't "Welsh colonialism", that is, colonialism supported by the Welsh state. But then, shouldn't this example be put in Colonies? Furthermore, does colonialism always, in all cases, refers only to state? I mean, sure colonialism is related to state and imperialism and so on, but state are made of people... And I'm sure that if enough Welsh people had gone out there in the cold this would have interested their state, wouldn't it? In other words, your only saying that the Welsh had a settler colonie down there. So why wouldn't that be a form of colonialism? Before being imperialism (and "imperialism" is a specific concept), colonialism is also a movement of emigration from Europe. In other words, you are defining a priori what is and what is not colonialism. But why would we all agree with your definition? Better than a dictionnary, I think in this case what we need is definitions from historians... Lapaz 02:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: More info here Welsh settlement in Argentina.  FYI Wales isn't (and wasn't at the time) a state - it's a principality of a kingdom.  The Welsh settlers colonized an area, but this was in the existing state of Argentina.  I'm also reminded of a colony of Germans in Venezuela that was featured on BBC News recently and that one in Chile set up by fleeing Nazis.  These colonies were not answerable to a metropole that had dispatched the settlers - they were/are answerable to the nation in which the "colonists" reside.  I guess another analogy is Chinese emigration - there are large communities of Chinese around the world - this pattern of emigration has been occurring for hundreds of years but it was never sanctioned by the Chinese authorities - indeed, it was banned at one point.  We shouldn't confuse the act of colonisation with the policy of colonialism.  Gsd2000 04:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll read carefully this, but anyway, they are a lot of various colonies in South America, most notably German, but also French, Welsh as you point out, etc. That one in Chile is called Colonia Dignidad. However, since I've seen on your user page that you have a rather extensive bibliography on colonialism, would you report yourself to the first chapter of the part on imperialism in Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism? Arendt explains the opposition between nation-states and imperialism, which was an opposition between politics & economics. I'm pointing out to that, because Arendt thus explains that colonialism was an economic movement (what someone kind of strangely called corporate colonialism, although I'd also propose to merge that here, because it's not at all separate from ordinary colonialism), before even being state imperialism. Of course there is various colonies in the world, but before we enter historic debates, I think we really should ask ourselves on the legitimity of having ten articles describing the same stuff. Again, this is not a dictionnary. This article about Welsh settlement in Argentina would be perfect, I think, in the "See also" (or in maintext) of the Colonies article, rather than on colonisation. Again, I don't know you, but I'm sure most people understand the same historic phenomenon when talking about "colonisation" and "colonialism". Arguing on historical grounds, then I'll argue that this Welsh settlement in Argentina was part of the global colonisation historical movement, but that for various reasons, it didn't lead to a state under the dependency of the UK. It could have though, if things had happened differently. I more or less agree with your distinction between the very common act of colonisation and the policy of colonialism (although it surely could be discussed), but I think that what you mean by this type of "colonisation" would be better treated in the "colonies" article. After all, the point is not in arguing endlessly, because I'm sure we can argue endlessly on definitions, but just to improve the navigability of Wikipedia. Then we can always put a disclaimer on top of the page (this article doesn't refer to ...) Lapaz 19:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Last point. If there really is so "huge a difference" (sic) between colonisation and "colonialism", how come we all agree to call decolonization the movement that tried to put an end to colonialism? I don't think that I need a dictionnary to show you that "decolonization" should be the reverse of "colonisation", do I ? Lapaz 02:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Last last! Would you also kindly have a nice look at colonisation. Doesn't it seem to you that contents on this page and on that page interfere together? Of course, we haven't yet put here a section about "space colonialism", but since we're discussing "19th century colonialism", and that we will inevitably discuss the European colonization of America, surely someone will add here Roman colonies, and so... To not merge that will just duplicate contents, because contents over there are perfectly appropriate here. Lapaz 02:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hello! Is it possible to have THIRD PARTY OPINION? I really think the merge is justified and necessary in order to avoid content forking, but Gsd2000 seems really opposed to it. Lapaz 12:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you open a request for comment? Gsd2000 23:55, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with [[colonisation]] (comments?) 

message: I propose to merge corporate colonialism here, it won't be much work & I think it is a POV fork: we can't legitimately distinguish "state" & "corporate colonialism", all colonial studies show that the two are intrinsecally (?) mixed together, and that indeed "corporate colonialism" is one of the main reason behind the New Imperialism period, and of course one of the main factor of modern neocolonialism. Any comments? Lapaz 12:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Lapaz 11:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[corporate colonialism]] here