Publications
Publications
- Spring 2018
- Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
The ‘Moral Effect’ of Legalized Lawlessness:: Violence in Britain’s Twentieth Century Empire
Abstract
From 1930s Palestine to Kenya in the years following World War II, systematized violence shaped and defined much of Britain’s twentieth-century empire. Liberal authoritarianism, and with it the “moral effect” that coercion had upon colonial subjects, gave rise to the systematic use of violence against colonial subjects. The ideological roots of these tactics can be located in the twinned birth of liberalism and imperialism, together with metropolitan responses to imperial events in the mid-nineteenth century. Despite copious amounts of empirical evidence documenting the evolution of liberal authoritarianism, and the creation and deployment of legalized lawlessness throughout the British Empire, Steven Pinker either ignores this evidence, or implicitly denies its validity. In reframing Britain’s civilizing mission, and challenging liberalism’s obfuscating abilities, this article critiques not only the British government’s repeated denials of systematized violence in its empire, but also Pinker’s reinforcement of the myths of British imperial benevolence.
Keywords
Citation
Elkins, Caroline M. "The ‘Moral Effect’ of Legalized Lawlessness: Violence in Britain’s Twentieth Century Empire." Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 44, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 78–90.