As I never tire of repeating, just because it is so important, the attitude to the colonialism that started in the 19C is what DEFINES the Western character. All of his or her neuroses and fundamental fear of the self are stored here. If Westerners (those who fear this colonial aspect of themselves more than anything else) were able to process this component part of their psyches that they fear so much, they would become healthier in leaps and bounds. They would internalize the meaning of history and develop an understanding that individual humans are neither good or evil, but are enmeshed in history in necessary and interesting ways. Instead, they are so deeply troubled by who they fear they are that they live in a fantasy, swallowing gollops of Fox News and raving incoherently about the evils of the past and the supposed dividing line between the past and the present (the past was evil, 100 per cent, but the present is 100 per cent pure and beyond all that).
The reactions to the books I have written about war and colonialism always reveal people’s deep-seated neuroses and inability to grapple with historical issues.
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