Culture and Imperialism

The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism

my basic point being that stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history.

the notions about bringing civilization to primitive or barbaric peoples, the disturbingly familiar ideas about flogging or death or extended punishment being required when “they” misbehaved or became rebellious, because “they” mainly understood force or violence best; “they” were not like “us,” and for that reason deserved to be ruled.