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The Causes Of Colonialism : The Nature Of Imperialism

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Meat eaters know that killing an innocent animal is immoral, but they have someone do it for them. It is also a fact that consuming plant based foods will not harm any animals and will also slow down global warming. This is cognitive dissonance; the state in a human mind of having two opposing ideals, but choosing to flavor one over the other because one is more pleasing and easier to think about. In this example, it is a person deciding to choose between consuming animal products and not eating them because they do not want the animal’s death on their conscience. However, more severe cases of people using cognitive dissonance are seen throughout history. One of them is imperialism. The nature of imperialism is a power with high technology taking over another society because their technology is not as efficient. An example of this can be seen when Britain took over China because their technology was outdated, and forced China to sign Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. For Europeans that believe in Western Political thought, imperialism was a hard subject because it caused so many immoral actions. Unfortunately, these actions were easily rationalized. The nature of imperialism ultimately changed both the colonizer by benefiting them, and the colonized for mostly the worse. The nature of imperialism is all about economics, but is rationalized by White Man's burden and Social Darwinism. Of course, economics was not the only reason for imperialism; other factors that contributed were

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