Since I have been studying the British empire, I have subsequently spent time considering and comparing it to American foreign policy. Since the invasion of Iraq earlier this decade, it has become widely accepted that America is an imperial power (though it arguably has been an empire since its break from Britain). Many Americans have adopted an anti-imperial attitude which is similar to pre-World War II Britain.
In George Orwell's 1937 book The Road to Wigan Pier, one passage addresses these pre-war, anti-imperial sentiments:
Take the question of imperialism, for instance. Every left-wing “intellectual” is, as a matter of course, anti-imperialist. He claims to be outside the empire-racket as automatically and self- righteously as he claims to be outside the class-racket. Even the right-wing “intellectual,” who is not definitely in revolt against British imperialism, pretends to regard it with a sort of amused detachment. It is so easy to be witty about the British Empire. The White Man's Burden and “Rule Britannia” and Kipling's novels and Anglo-Indian bores – who could even mention such things without a snigger?... For in the last resort, the only important question is, Do you want the British Empire to hold together or do you want it to disintegrate? And at the bottom of his heart, no Englishman, least of all the kind of person who is witty about Anglo-Indian colonels, does want it to disintegrate.... Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation – an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time you step into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream.... Yet the left-winger continues to feel that he has no moral responsibility for imperialism. He is perfectly ready to accept the products of Empire and to save his soul by sneering at the people who hold the Empire together.
While “left-wingers” disapproved of Britain's colonial ventures, they contributed to the imperial mission by simply being consumers. British daily life was directly and indirectly dependent on empire. How would the American lifestyle change if we vacated our international holdings?
Excerpt extracted from:
Orwell, George, The Road to Wigan Pier, (Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company), 1958, 159-160.
