[demosthanos]

This is the corollary of the fallacy of appeal to authority: the rejection of an argument on the grounds that the speaker was horribly wrong on an unrelated or very loosely related topic.

If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist, you can use the exact same logic to reject the arguments of essentially every person who ever lived. Very few humans who ever wrote anything important will perfectly align with your morality, and most will be horribly misaligned in at least one way.

[kshri24]

> If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist

On the contrary I would argue that this is precisely why you SHOULD NOT take his opinion on copyright. One of the main outcomes of imperialism/colonization is denigrating/destroying/appropriating works of art, literature with the primary goal of subjugation, subversion and thereupon replacement of native culture/traditions/institutions. I did not quote the other half of his nauseating take but I'll post it nevertheless:

"[...] And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same."

[demosthanos]

> One of the main outcomes of imperialism/colonization is denigrating/destroying/appropriating works of art, literature with the primary goal of subjugation, subversion and thereupon replacement of native culture/traditions/institutions.

Which is irrelevant to the question of whether copyright law within the country of England and within English culture is beneficial or not.

It is the nature of racism that it bypasses rational thought—it does not follow that because someone is racist they therefore don't have anything valuable to say on loosely related topics. Someone can see clearly about copyright when thinking about English authors while treating non-English authors as strictly inferior.

These kinds of contradictions are to be expected when racism is involved, because racism inherently lives in the lizard brain (occasionally justified by post hoc rationalizations). Someone's arguments about an issue touching only their own tribe will tend to be more rational than those that touch on other tribes, and you'll miss out if you assume the rationality is going to be correlated and dismiss all arguments accordingly.

[kshri24]

> Which is irrelevant to the question of whether copyright law within the country of England and within English culture is beneficial or not

It is irrelevant from your POV because you don't see anything wrong in IP violations when it comes to Knowledge being taken out of India, credit removed and then reproduced in European Languages, including English, as if it was some novel discovery. So those who indulged in this specifically (I am not talking about current British folk but people like Macaulay) should not be giving sermons on Copyright Law.

To give you an analogy:

Using the same logic, you would have to give CCP a pass and say they did not "steal IP from the US" because Copyright Law in China specifically applies only within the Country of China and within Chinese culture. Surely you wouldn't learn about specifics of Copyright Law from the CCP I presume (yes they do have a Copyright Law that applies internally in China). If that is the case, then the same argument applies to the British Empire as well.

> it does not follow that because someone is racist they therefore don't have anything valuable to say on loosely related topics

It is not irrelevant considering many of the same Sanskrit scriptures were translated by Arabs, which were then translated by Europeans, whose concepts then went on to become foundations of Modern Science. So when it comes to Copyright, the least one can do is not wipe out credits. And least one can do is not take advice on Copyright from such people.

[demosthanos]

> It is irrelevant from your POV because you don't see anything wrong in IP violations when it comes to Knowledge being taken out of India, credit removed and then reproduced in European Languages, including English, as if it was some novel discovery.

Uh, no, I didn't say that.

There's no point in writing to you if no matter what I say you're going to just make up stuff you think I believe and respond to that instead of to my actual words.

[beepbooptheory]

Feels a little pat though doesn't it? If racism itself is necessarily defined by irrationality then you'd think the entire course of Western civilization would have gone a little differently. Not to mention, we have some pretty dark lessons from history already that are precisely the result of excessive rationality. One could easily demonstrate the "rationality" of a given colonial project, for example.

I'm not saying we need to choose between a broader humanism or rationality necessarily, but I just think it feels a little archaic Enlightenment-era thinking to reduce it down this particular way. Or just you know, its all Spock and no Kirk!

[esafak]

Touche.

[gosub100]

if Indians are so free from colonialism, why are their parents forcing them to choose between medicine or tech, simply so they can get a job on the antipode of where they are born??

[kshri24]

Because the wealth was transferred from India to the "antipode" through Colonization. GDP reduced from 25% Pre-Colonization (and 30% if you take Pre-Islamic Colonization) to merely 4% Post-India's Independence. At least Indians are not reverse-colonizing the West.

[gosub100]

They are throwing away their own culture chasing the "wealth" though. Seems to be the same lust for money that drove the colonists.

[kshri24]

What are you even talking about? Indians carry their culture/traditions everywhere they go. No one is "throwing it away". You are talking as if Indians have started to emigrate in just the past few decades. Indians have been navigating the World for the past 6000+ years at the very least (recorded history). The word "Navigation" is itself a Sanskrit word "Nava gatih". We are an Ancient Civilization and the oldest surviving Civilization. Everyone else either converted and destroyed their own civilization or were destroyed by invaders.

[sigbottle]

I do think that context is still important in general, but probably only if you're doing deep research into Macaulay (or the specific target in mind). Treating everything in a vacuum isn't great either. Plenty of philosophical works for example, you really have to read in the time period and in the context of the author's life.

I find an acceptable tradeoff for now is, if I want to do deep research for myself, opening myself up to this sort of mushy subjective stuff is actually really important for making deep, objectively correct observations. Especially if the goal is to steelman, not strawman, the opponent's argument.

Otherwise, this kind of worst-case analysis thinking is fine. It's a logically sound conclusion, it's just kind of unsatisfying because we can't make stronger claims.

How do we decide when to make this tradeoff and for what things? Uhh.... idk. For me though, there has been value in using both kinds of thinking before though.

On a public forum, worst-case analysis is probably fine because the discussion ain't that deep. Also probably 90% of comments are made within the intention of a "gotcha" and not actually for discussion.

Basically, I totally agree with this, it's just that I've seen one too many online forums devolve into thought-terminating cliches using "rationality" as the basis. Here, I think it's totally justified to take this line... I instinctively had the same reaction upon reading GP's post (but then you could argue it's tone policing... and ahh we're off to the good ol' internet debate race spiral)