The Birth of Prudence

By Ryan Andrews

What if you had to choose between the person you loved, and the world that made your love possible? VDare’s first work of fiction wrestles with the conflict between the head and the heart, the choice between what feels good – and what is right. Author Ryan Andrews presents the wrenching tragedy of a man who learns what’s most important in life from a woman named Prudence – but comes to see his relationship as threatening everything he’s come to treasure. It’s a story about love, loyalty, and the meaning of identity -- and once you experience it, you’ll never be able to forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304978837

Ryan Andrews

Ryan Andrews lives in the Japanese countryside, with his wife, two kids, and their dog. A friendly Kodama or two have been known to take up residence in the giant acorn tree that shades the house. Ryan works at his drawing desk in the early morning hours, to the sound of rummaging wild boar and badgers, who come from the surrounding forest seeking out shiitake mushrooms and fallen chestnuts. This Was Our Pact is his first book with First Second.

Book preview

The Birth of Prudence

THE BIRTH OF PRUDENCE

By Ryan Andrews

Copyright © 2013 by Ryan Andrews

All rights reserved.

Published by VDARE.com

ISBN

Table of Contents

Part One

Universalism vs Nationalism

Part Two

The Birth of Prudence

Part One

Ethan Aleksiejczyk

History 250

Taylor

9/2/1997

Week One Paper

At its best, post-colonial studies is a scholarly debate over the definition and purpose of colonialism and/or imperialism; what constitutes rule or imposed rule, and when can we say that ruling is occurring? To understand what is to begin to understand why, and so this seemingly pedantic exercise inevitably flows into that more interesting question: why empire? Is it idealism or pragmatism? Or is it a combination of the two? Indeed, it seems to me that colonialism, particularly the late nineteenth-century European colonialism of Asia and Africa that is our focus, existed for three main reasons: culture, economics, and security, all of which are related and cannot be separated from one another. However, I ultimately believe that culture—i.e. the civilizing mission—is supreme. Economics and security are ultimately reliant on culture, rather than the other way around. Showing why is one of the objectives of this paper.

Strictly speaking, the definition of colonialism is straightforward; it is the loss of sovereignty by one or more nations (the colonized) to another (the colonizer). The colonizing nation always sends settlers to oversee/facilitate the exercise of control; obviously, it could not really be colonialism otherwise. Our readings tease out many fine distinctions between colonies, but in the main, all agreed that the European’s colonial world can be seen as two: settler and non-settler. In Asia and Africa, the European settlers were always a minority, and most of them have since evacuated those lands. In other temperate and more sparsely populated lands it was different. In these vast lands, the European settlers overwhelmed the natives, recreating modified versions of the mother country with or without native conversion e.g. British North America, Quebec, Australia. Nevertheless, colonialism is one in that all colonial societies must impose some sort of internal colonial regime on the indigenous people to be worthy of the name. (I know the term usually denotes something more particular, but the distinction does not make sense to me.) The natives may be quarantined/pushed aside, enslaved, absorbed, et cetera, but whatever the case, they lose control of their own destiny. That is the true mark of any kind of colonialism.

In essence, even if not always conscious or explicit, Western colonialism has been nation-building. The end result is either an enlargement of the nation or a failure. The formation of England can now be called nation-building, that of the United Kingdom was, and is, internal colonialism, and the British Empire is now a giant failed nation-state. It is a qualified failure of course; their way has survived in varying degrees, enduring most strongly in the settler colonies. And of course, when the costs of outright conquest are deemed to be too high, the great powers can/could and do/did control the affairs of other states to such an extent that a formal forfeiture of sovereignty would be almost superfluous, a vain quest for exactitude. For most of this century, the United States has been the de facto overlord of Latin America, and China circa 1900 was effectively controlled by Japan and the great powers of the West.

But what qualifies as ‘effective control’? And does the West continue to exercise de facto imperialism over the rest? If imperialism allows for the worldwide protection of interests and for capitalist penetration of large economic areas, as Jurgen Osterhammel posits, then certainly imperialism lives. I believe though, that a country or nation is imperialist if it simply influences other peoples and/or another people more than it is influenced, be it regional (think of the Russia/Belarus relationship) or worldwide. So I think that imperialism is not intrinsically capitalistic (though they certainly re-enforce one another strongly) or worldwide. The belief that it is only testifies to the ideology and scope of our own empire.

. . . . .

The purpose of nineteenth-century colonialism was cultural. Culture was viewed as the key to promoting the economic and security interests of the empire, interests which were seen as the same as those of the indigenous, if only they were enlightened enough to recognize it. Woodrow Wilson’s desire to make the world safe for democracy, the French civilizing mission, the Anglo-American advocacy for free trade, and other like-minded initiatives have dominated the last one hundred and fifty years of international relations, even formed it as a concept. They wanted their institutions, their system, and by extension their culture to be the international standard. They envisioned a world made more peaceful and secure for them because the world would be more like them, crude as that may sound. But after all, are we not generally less hostile toward our own? And in such a happy world, markets multiply and trade flourishes. In the midst of a tirade against past American support of Latin American dictatorships, a previous teacher of mine once declared, If you truly believe in the American Bill of Rights, then you believe in its universal application. While I am quite sure that my former teacher does not identify as an imperialist, few things are as essential to our culture as The Bill of Rights. It is no great stretch to say that a people who deeply believe in their own culture might think that the rest of the world would be best served by adopting it—especially if those people inherited their culture from Renaissance humanists and Enlightenment thinkers.

Though the conquered were denied critical elements of the Western experience, this universalist mindset was clearly at work in colonialism. This is obvious because the colonizers said as much again and again and is illustrated by the way they ruled—imposing their institutions and mores on the colonies and cultivating a local elite to be loyal to the West and to gradually shape the rest. Many scoff at the notion of denying the natives democracy until they have learned democracy, and there is no doubt that a teacher appointed to a pupil for an indefinite duration may look for reasons to prolong the apprenticeship. British headmaster is, after all, a hereditary position. Nonetheless, the empires built schools and infrastructure, established some local democratic institutions, converted tens of millions to their God, and outlawed those native ways that they considered most abominable. What was beyond the pale (crude I know, but has any triple entendre ever been more apropos?) was permitted or not based purely on what the authorities calculated would eliminate the greatest part of it.

Here, it is worth noting that the cultural rivalries within Europe provided much of the immediate impetus for the late-nineteenth-century surge of colonial conquest. In the time of Louis XIV, French was the lingua franca of the European elite. However, Britain slowly overtook France as the premier world power and by the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, she had achieved world hegemony. And her nearest rival was no longer France, but Russia. France was left bereft of colonies, allies, and glory. Decades of French efforts to wrangle out of the constraints set at Vienna came to disaster when the German empire was proclaimed inside the Palace of Versailles. This reflected poorly enough on a proud people, but perhaps worse still, all of this was accompanied by the precipitous spread of the English language and the rising prominence of German. The French were not overjoyed to gain control of jungles, they knew that Bismarck encouraged it to distract them, but the fact remained that these lands and peoples were there for the taking, just waiting to be made French. Rather than starve, they took the low-hanging fruit. Britain felt compelled to expand to maintain her strategic advantage; the newly-formed Italian state also jumped-in, desperate that outsiders should accept her as a great power and that her own population should be persuaded to see themselves as one people; and before long, even Bismarck’s Germany also decided that the status accorded by empire was too great to resist. And so the frenzied partition of Africa and Southeast Asia ensued. Many were skeptical of the potential economic gain, but it was the latest field of battle in the war for cultural supremacy, so in they all went.

And imperialism of this sort (including economic and security initiatives) continues in our post-colonial world. Still we push our ways onto the rest of the world, and in fact, we now rarely call them our ways, which gives some indication of how far we are from giving up on the universality of our values. Democracy, human rights, and free trade are pushed onto the former colonies through war and economic incentives. The United States has now replaced the United Kingdom as the premier imperial power; France remains relegated to Africa.

Yet there has been a paradigm shift to our approach. Whereas during the colonial period the West shamelessly forced its system on the rest, all the while openly ridiculing and exploiting the others, now we claim to respect them and their cultures. Exploitation has unquestionably lessened, aid has risen, and we recognize their sovereignty too. Now, treading a new path toward the universality of our values, we hail cultural diversity, and even invite them to settle in our lands. Yet of course, the real idea is for us in the West to embrace superficial aspects of other cultures, but to still maintain our intrinsic values, while for the rest it is meant to work the other way around. Though ostensibly respected, native cultures are still viewed as the sideshows they were during the colonial era. Our methods have changed, we have even changed, but our ideology is the same.

In the decades before the dismantling of the empires, the universality of our values was questioned and the idea was wounded, but it was too strong and adaptable to just die. The origin of the empires was of the same cultural impetus that now compels us to denounce those same empires and celebrate multiculturalism. The universalistic urge turned us against racism and birthed multiculturalism to fight it. Belief in the universality of western values was once implicitly contradicted by racism. Now, in our anti-racist and post-colonial era, universal and cultural imperialism is no longer burdened by such an obvious cognitive dissonance, and so it moves forward at an ever greater pace.

Now if only we had some mongooses to kill the snakes that we used to kill the rats…

June 6, 1998

The man looked at his love in his arms. It was she who had first moved him, and it was she who provided his only moments of rest. His instinct told him that their love was special, somehow greater than the times in which they lived. ‘Our relationship is not a shallow pleasure orgy, sustained by mere common hobbies, by enjoying the same stupid distractions;’ it was not ‘entered into lazily,’ owing to social-group proximity. ‘I sought and now have found true beauty.’ Though he could not define true beauty, and had not the ability to contemplate it systematically, he had always pursued it, or at least held out for it, uncompromisingly. He had always believed that he would know it when he found it.

She too thought that she had found the one to love, the one with whom to love. She identified him as an especially loving and caring man. Her joy was quite clearly his joy. More importantly, most importantly, he was a man of deep feeling. This singular quality of his drew her to him, convinced her that he could be her inspiration, and the best canvas for her talents. ‘We live for and from each other, bound in such a perfectly calibrated mutual dependence.’

Still marveling at the smooth face of ‘smiling Prudence,’ he shifted himself off of her and situated himself beside her on the couch. Then he wondered, Prudence, we will get married one day, right?

Oh God Mark, this again?

A strained smirk on his face, he looked down and began to twirl the hair on his temple. Well… you know, you know I just like to forecast these things.

She sighed