Imperialism, The World War and Social Democracy

In David Livingstone’s 1857 written work titled “Cambridge Speech of 1857”, it really promotes the colonization and Christianization of Angola, where the people have no maritime communication. The author said “My desire is to open a path to this district, that civilization, commerce, and Christianity might find their way there”, “pioneers in this instance should be the ablest and best qualified of men”. He also claims that his calling to be a missionary is a privilege rather than a sacrifice.

In Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem entitled the “White Man’s Burden” at first glance it would seem the author is saying racist things about the race of colonized peoples especially since he’s English and England was an imperial power at the time. But he talks about the enslavement or the captivity of the natives of the colonized territory and it really sounds like a pro imperialism and enslavement poem, but if you look closer the author is a warning to the united states about the undertaking of colonization, it’s Kipling’s sharp warning about the dangers of colonialism from the perspective of the colonizer, especially since the united states was getting involved with the colonization of the Philippines with their involvement in the Spanish American war. It really is the warning from him the US on what to expect from imperializing a country, so not a pro or anti-imperialism poem but more or less a middle of the road warning of it.

In Karl Pearson’s 1900 written work entitled “Social Darwinism”, is used to justify imperialism, and argues that educating and nurturing people in the tribes of Africa will not “modify the stock”. It also uses the example of how the white man drove out the inferior “red Indians in North America and has now created a great nation. Here he argues that suffering is necessary to bring about progress, civilization and social sympathy. “These dead people are the stepping stones on which mankind has risen to higher intellectual life today”. The title of the article and the synopsis really explains it all, “British and American imperialists employed the language of Social Darwinism to promote and justify Anglo-Saxon expansion and domination of other peoples”.

In Ernst Junger’s 1920 written work entitled “The Storm of Steel”, the author provides a description of the German soldier’s experience during the First Battle of the Somme, “I heard a monotonous tale of, “the front line” crouching all day in shell holes with no one on either flank and no trenches communication with the rear, of unceasing attacks, of dead bodies everyone, of maddening thirst”. And even though Junger had embraced the conflict throughout as a glorious test of manhood and of his own, but it’s a dispassionate description of life and death on the Western Front. It was a cold indictment of the Great War and recalls the horrifically graphic accounts of the Western Front during World War I. So anti WWI due to personal issues of the massacre and all the death and ruin it caused.

In Roland Doregele’s written work entitled, “That Fabulous Day”, is a recollection of the monumental patriotism of the soldiers in the war in 1914 in France, “No more poor or rich, proletariats or bourgeoisie, right wingers or left, there were only Frenchmen”, It describes how the war will make it so that there are essentially no classes no matter what background they come from. So pro WWI from the point of patriotism.

In the Heinrich Treitschke article titled, “The Greatness of War”, he addresses that there was a rapid increase in militarism and armaments before 1914, “The individual must forget his own ego and remember that of the whole”. The people of their nations must make a sacrifice for their own land and he also goes on to say it is foolish to try to abolish the heroism that comes out of wars, because the Aryan race is a brave one that brings good effects, even though it’s a terrible antidote it’s a good way for humanity to progress, because of its remedy for afflicted people when there is a crisis a person must forget about his or her problems, and just be concerned with the state by recognizing the good of the whole. This summarization of war in general shows the audience how he feels about the issue of and his attitudes toward WW1.