Talk:Civilizing mission

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This article contains a translation of Mission civilisatrice from fr.wikipedia.

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scope

The article topic is valid indeed, but the focus on French and Portuguese colonialism is arbitrary to the point of ridicule. This notion played a central role in all of colonialism, and beyond. Search for "civilizing mission", "civilisatory mission" and "mission civilisatrice" on google books and you find references covering all of colonialism, from the 17th to the 20t century, as well as references to Zionism, Marxism, and post-WWII Umerziehung as well as American imperialism. --dab (𒁳) 10:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree to the above. see here for example. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article needs to be made balanced Bilal.scientist (talk) 22:50, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The French section could be improved if more information on how the idea of civilizing mission was used to justify the imperialism of France under the early Third Republic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ire310 (talk • contribs) 15:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The focus on mainly French and Portuguese colonization is not that ridiculous, but the Portuguese part is too long and a little out of topic. The French one should be more documented. It is relevant especially for France because they designed their colonial system around this very notion of "civilizing" where as the English, even though they may have used this concept occasionally, designed their colonial system around trade and profit. It is important to show how different were the colonial systems in their intentions and implementations. So the British and the Dutch should not have a big presence here anyway.Jheronimus (talk) 08:45, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is still too unbalanced. Although the British did not invent the term "Civilizin mission", the notion was just as important to justify British colonialism as it was in France. British colonialism may have aimed at making profit, but the idea that the English were bringing civilization to the "uncivilized" areas of the world was used to explain their presence, even if they didn't. See, e.g., Timothy Mitchell (1991), Colonizing Egypt. And not only the British: Similar ideas were referred to by the Germans and the Dutch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pumslau (talk • contribs) 12:18, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Criticism" section

to discuss the fact that Civilizing mission is a euphemism for committing genocide against indigenous peoples, and more and more literature is being written to rewrite the Euro-centric (or otherwise colonizer-centric) history to reflect a more modern position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mapmaker345 (talk • contribs) 21:47, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Western"

This ideology was also extensively employed by Japan, as can be seen in this article March 1st Movement. Limiting the scope of practice to just the West perhaps misses out on Japan's usage of the ideology as well. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 07:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I may reword the scope of the lead to reflect this btw 211.43.120.242 (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

and also PRC per Sinicization of Tibet. --MiskoGe (talk) 20:12, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Civilizing mission within Europe

... of Western cultures is a HUGE topic, totally left out of the article. The French and German cultures had a huge role in lifting Eastern Europe out of the backwardness caused by Ottoman occupation, tsarist Russian Mongolian-inherited despotism etc. Screw wokeism, facts and results are there to see. Arminden (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]