The British, being a very proud and vibrant culture with a long and respected history saw it as their right and duty to conquer the world and build it in their image. If they are such a morally superior culture and so far advanced, how did they justify their expansion and treatment of others? In order to justify their expansion, the British created the image of their racial and cultural superiority and duty to spread their civilization to the rest of the world.
In Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden (1899)”, Kipling describes via poem that it is a burden for white people to conquer others. They should “serve their captive’s needs” and describes those captives as “half devil and half child”. (Kipling, 273) The natives of foreign lands are described as incompetent and child like. While it describes the British as superior and better than the natives, it shows them in the light of servant leadership by highlighting the sacrifice of the British through military expansion through “savage wars of peace.” And “marking [roads] them with your dead”. (Kipling, 273) This description highlights sacrifice, making the conquering more of a “burden” than a symbol of prestige.
This nationalistic and dutiful view common in the British Empire was not something that was simply told to the people by the government, but it was something engrained into British people by society since birth. In Ames An ABC, for Baby Patriots (1899), the children’s book demonstrates the culture that children in Britain were raised in. They are taught that “A is for the army” and that the army “dies for the queen”. (Ames, 4) The idea that people spill their blood for Britain’s glory is taught at a very young age, that they can take up a burden for Britain and sacrifice themselves for this cause. Ames also discusses conquered kings who were “naughty” and then “subdued”. (Ames, 22) Ames also states that Britain has both an unquestionable right to rule the oceans, which are all over the world, but also that the word of the British is always right and true. (Ames, 27, 39) However for the picture of “true word”, it depicts a British man giving a treaty to a disrespectfully and stereotypically drawn African king. The “word” of British is more of a gift to lower peoples rather than just one simple agreement between equals. The idea that the British are always true to their word as well as right and just is a shining example of British exceptionalism. The idea that the fact that they are British holds British people at a higher quality and standard than other peoples. This idea is stressed in Ame’s book.
This view of superiority is not just taught with patriotism, but full on nationalism. In Macaulay’s “Minute on Education, discredits both languages or Arabic and Sanskrit simply because he does not know them. (Macaulay, 10) Even though he has no knowledge of them, he automatically assumes they do not have any value compared to the English language. By his logic, the English culture is superior simply because it is what he knows. He states that while there is respect for other cultures, their institutions such as language, science, history, and medicine and false simply because they are not true unlike his British values. (Macaulay, 31) The British are claiming superiority simply because they claim their culture is the only true religion and way compared to others. Again, this is a key example of British professionalism. The fact that the British culture is superior to others simply because it is theirs is the very definition of exceptionalism. Macaulay does not make an argument why other cultures are false except for on the grounds that the British culture is true.
Lastly, in the enlightenment, many Europeans tried to scientifically prove that non whites were racially and scientifically inferior to whites. Immanuel Kant, in “On the Different Races of Man” ranked the races in order. With white at the top, he then ranked why other races were below. He describes the lower races as of “meager talent” as well as cognitive abilities differing in level by his ranking as well. (Kant, 40-41) Indians are ranked as the lowest of peoples and this idea of low talent goes with the idea earlier stated about other races being like fickle children.
Through this reasoning, the British were able to justify the actions they took and feel morally compelled to do so. It wasn’t that they were lying to themselves, but this culture taught them to actually believe it was just and their duty to rule others. Through ideas like nationalism and British exceptionalism they were able to see their cause as just and that it was necessary to build the world in their image.
Works Cited
Ames, Ernest. “An ABC for Baaby Patriots; 1898.” De Grummond Books,
http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/dgbooks/id/2738
Kant, Immanuel. “Class Handout”
Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden (1899)(The Unite States and Philippine
Islands). Empire Writing, Oxford World Classics, 1998, p. 273.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington. “Minute on Indian Education.” Archives of Empire, Oct. 2003,
- 227-238.