Isn’t the “idea” a very eurocentric understanding of progress and how colonialism is actually good because it civilized the colonized? But I’m sure there is more to the book than that
That’s not what I picked up from it. The biggest idea that it presents very early in the book is that of a shared subjective truth: most of the things that make up our society, like countries, laws, corporations, etc. do not exist objectively; they only exist because we all believe in them. Objectively, these things don’t exist, but our society is built upon everybody agreeing that these imaginary orders exist, and we’re constantly inventing new imaginary structures on top of that.
Isn’t the “idea” a very eurocentric understanding of progress and how colonialism is actually good because it civilized the colonized? But I’m sure there is more to the book than that
That’s not what I picked up from it. The biggest idea that it presents very early in the book is that of a shared subjective truth: most of the things that make up our society, like countries, laws, corporations, etc. do not exist objectively; they only exist because we all believe in them. Objectively, these things don’t exist, but our society is built upon everybody agreeing that these imaginary orders exist, and we’re constantly inventing new imaginary structures on top of that.