http://www.danvk.org/wp/2008-01-01/favorite-books-of-2007/ Keepin' static like wool fabric since 2006 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:54:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.danvk.org/wp/2008-01-01/favorite-books-of-2007/comment-page-1/#comment-6796 Ryan Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:00:19 +0000 http://www.danvk.org/wp/?p=259#comment-6796 What Hochschild condemns Leopold for the most I think is his duplicity. When slave owners thought of their relationship to their slaves as paternalistic they sometimes believed their own fiction, and I think that's the key difference. Leopold did not and could not himself have believed that the genocide he brought about in the Congo was a humanitarian enterprise as he portrayed it to the rest of the world. He was cognizant that what he was doing was reprehensible even by the popular standards at the time. The extent of the destruction, the extra-legal status of the colony, and his political maneuverings to hide it from the public eye are what make him really exceptional among colonial rulers. I think Hochschild is pretty even-handed about that, considering. What Hochschild condemns Leopold for the most I think is his duplicity. When slave owners thought of their relationship to their slaves as paternalistic they sometimes believed their own fiction, and I think that’s the key difference. Leopold did not and could not himself have believed that the genocide he brought about in the Congo was a humanitarian enterprise as he portrayed it to the rest of the world. He was cognizant that what he was doing was reprehensible even by the popular standards at the time. The extent of the destruction, the extra-legal status of the colony, and his political maneuverings to hide it from the public eye are what make him really exceptional among colonial rulers. I think Hochschild is pretty even-handed about that, considering.

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