Talk:Civilizing mission

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 02:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

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)
 * 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)

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)

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)

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.

Russian answer?
What was the Tsarist version of mission civilisatrice, called?...what started from Catherine the Great into Soviet times... Le Anh-Huy (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Paragraphs... Won't somebody please think of the paragraphs?!
Seriously. Two of the sections need cleaning up. Faijer (talk) 18:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Portuguese ... waht ???
Unheard of in Portugal ... it's a pure FRENCH problem.

Why does this article cover 1/2 the portuguese history instead of the subject in the title... viewed in the francophone idolatry point of view ??? The Portuguese Colonial War began in Portuguese Angola on 4 February 1961, in an area called the Zona Sublevada do Norte No it didn't ... it started in european Portugal with a failed coup de etat atempt ... in fact it was a large scale (french intelectual influenced ?) atempt to reclaim ALL portuguese possessions in early 1961. About the rest ... why not just quote the entire western civilization ??? since in portugal we were "civilized" by the Greek, phoenician , celtic , romans and such. Sotavento (talk) 12:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

French Civilizing Mission
I believe French civilizing mission and its origins should be discussed more throughly. It can be discussed under the headlines as:

- The roots of the civilizing mission - Purposes the mission served - The applications of the civilizing mission - Controversies about the civilizing mission - The civilizing mission and the Third Republic

The notion that France has a "civilizing mission" for the non- Western world had a very big influence throughout the French colonial era. There were so many different propagandas to promote this idea for the public. For example the Expositions, comics, articles and newspaper that were published, advertisements, paintings.. etc.

Britain
No mention of Britain, although there is a paragraph dedicated to France, Spain, Portugal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.127.223.233 (talk) 06:59, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The term "civilizing mission" isn't really associated with Britain. I guess a short paragraph might make sense though. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Christianity
"The intellectual origins of the mission civilisatrice can be traced back the Christian tradition dating from the Middle Ages." This statement is unexplained and unsupported by evidence (as well as ungrammatical). Deipnosophista (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

American Indians and American Indian Boarding Schools
There is a lack of information about Native Americans and the ways they were subject to the civilizing mission. There can be a connection made between the civilizing mission and the American Indian boarding schools established (beginning in 1887) throughout the United States that were meant to assimilate American Indian children according to US cultural standards and values. These schools were often funded by the federal government and worked to, in a more direct sense, strip away Native Americans' tribal culture in order to be able to "civilize" them. I think this approach to "civilize" the Native American people through education is significant enough to be included on the page and should be further researched. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danilo 22 (talk • contribs) 04:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

"colonial rule" wording and historical era question
Note from Eric: Moved this anonymous post from my talkpage to here, changed the original section heading ("What's wrong in stating that the Civilizing mission took place in the fifteenth century or affirm that there are contemporary affirmations related to the civilizing mission?") to the above. What's wrong in stating that the Missão civilizadora took place in the fifteenth century or affirm that there are contemporary affirmations related to the civilizing mission?

189.100.80.196 (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC).
 * The changes were sloppy and not explained. The place for this discussion is the article's talkpage. I'm moving it there, and changing the section name. Eric talk 18:39, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

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"Fairy tales" OR
This is barely relevant to the subject of the article, the opening paragraph is WP:OR, the rest is improper WP:SYNTHESIS, and the length of the section in relation to the rest of the article is clearly WP:UNDUE. Moved per WP:PRESERVE. 193.60.83.75 (talk) 15:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Civilizing missions, while viewed in a historical context, are also capable of being viewed as values reflected and emphasized by large-scale corporations and highly popularized outlets. Looking at the civilizing mission within a historical context, it's essentially a concept in which a person or a group of people are forcing their personal beliefs and values onto another group of people, with the mindset that their belief is the ultimate belief. Within this context, civilizing missions would consist of highly perpetuated ideals and beliefs that are reflected onto a large audience, with the unintentional or intentional objective being to mold their characteristics and mindsets in favor of the outlet projecting their ideals.

Common examples of these outlets include fairy tales, with a primary player being Walt Disney. As mentioned in Jack Zipes book, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, he analyzes the unwarranted and unrealized effect that fairy tales and Walt Disney's films have on our society, in regards to shaping our society, and perpetuating both gender archetypes and societal norms.

Lori Baker-Sperry and Liz Grauerholz also discuss this concept in their journal, The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales. This journal discusses and analyzes the values that are most prevalent within a large array of fairy tales, as well as the extent in which they mold the mindsets of the society they're released in. Linda T. Parson's also released a journal similar to Baker-Sperry's and Grauerholz's journal, titled Ella Evolving: Cinderella Stories and the Construction of Gender- Appropriate Behavior. This journal specifically pinpoints the construction of gender roles within fairy tales, and the prevalence of female passivity.

Gender roles and societal archetypes were common examples of civilizing missions due to how they're usually unique and often personal to individuals, and have the large possibility of differing quite dramatically. Due to this, it's reasonable that individuals would want others to uphold the same beliefs that they do, and would unknowingly or knowingly attempt to reflect their views onto someone else. With this, fairy tales serve as an easy outlet to manipulate in order to perpetuate ideas due to: 1) their enjoyment among people, and 2) how unnoticed emphasized ideals and values are within fairy tales.

"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)

"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)


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