First read as "IEDs". Seemed a bit excessive, no recommendations but "don't".
That is absolutely beautiful, and something that would be disturbingly possible to recreate now. So tempting.
It's quite possible to separate artist and art. Lots of people like Wagner's music even if he was awful. So ppl might *want* to experience someone's art without compensating them. You might think doing so is unethical, but given the prevalence of piracy, it's well within many ppl's norms!
That's got me thinking. I don't find it wholly convincing, since I think there are groups that do that kind of authoritarianism without a history of colonialism, but I don't think it's wrong, either. I'll think more about it!
I think that's very possible, but I'm not sure how best to distinguish incredible delusions of self-importance(/nationalism) from imperialist attitudes without the ability to act on them (well, we still invade places, but only if the US tells us to). Maybe this is more obvious from the outside?
That same mindset ignores that the European projects were post-war efforts that we were involved in & helped drive. So, while I think the need for backwards-looking British exceptionalism probably does derive from empire, its expression through ahistorical WW2 takes has really screwed us.
The empire mindset might still be present, but it's less in the vocab. Those looking back to an imaginary past prefer pretending we won WW2 single-handedly & that they fought in it personally. The fact that it was an Allied effort and we were left in debt and rationing for years passes them by.
"They wrote 'less' instead of 'fewer'. 😱😱😱" :)
"Trump's just doing the billionaire version of the fraud we all do" is right up there with "Trump just says out loud the things we're all thinking" in not sending the message they think it does.