Rationalization against Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism

The use of historical counterfactuals, geopolitical realism, or cultural relativism to explain away imperial violence as a product of its time, an unavoidable human tendency, or a practice no worse than “what local empires did.” It seeks to normalize and de-exceptionalize the violence.

Rationalization against Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism Example: “Every great civilization has expanded. The Europeans were just better at it. It’s naive to judge them by today’s standards.” This rationalization removes specific moral responsibility by appealing to historical fatalism and a myth of neutral civilizational competition.

by Abzugal February 8, 2026

Logicalization against the Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism

The construction of logical arguments that “prove” colonial subjects were, on balance, better off, or that their present-day struggles are illogical holdovers from the past. It uses selective data and formal logic to argue that the ledger of history shows a net gain for the colonized.

Logicalization against the Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism Example: “If colonialism was so bad, why do all those people now want to immigrate to Europe? Logically, they are voting with their feet for the benefits of the system we built.” This logicalization ignores the systemic underdevelopment and border controls created by colonialism, using a false deduction to blame the victims for their own displacement.

by Abzugal February 8, 2026

Trivialization against the Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism

The treatment of colonialism’s legacy as a niche academic grievance, a political correctness fad, or a matter of simple statues and vocabulary. It reduces centuries of structural violence to a debate about “offense” or “changing names,” mocking demands for reparations or accountability as oversensitive.

Trivialization against the Victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism Example: Calling for a museum to return looted artifacts and being told, “Get over it, it’s ancient history. Should we give back the Roman roads too?” This trivialization equates millennia-old infrastructure with recent, culturally sacred plunder, reducing a moral claim to a silly reductio ad absurdum.

by Abzugal February 8, 2026

Post-Western Rationality

The recognition that the Western model of rationality—with its emphasis on universal logic, formal proof, and objective truth—is not the only model, and that alternative rationalities exist and are valid. Post-Western Rationality doesn't reject reason; it pluralizes it. It argues that different cultures, different traditions, different contexts have developed different ways of reasoning, different standards of validity, different conceptions of truth. These are not failed attempts at Western rationality; they are different rationalities altogether. Post-Western Rationality is the philosophy of cognitive diversity, of the recognition that reason is not one thing but many.

Example: "He'd been taught that Western logic was just logic—the only way to reason properly. Post-Western Rationality showed him otherwise: other cultures had other logics, other ways of knowing, other standards of validity. These weren't primitive; they were different. He stopped judging other rationalities by Western standards and started learning to think in new ways."

by Abzugal February 21, 2026

Theory of Post-Western Rationality

The systematic elaboration of post-Western rationality as a framework for understanding cognitive diversity. The Theory of Post-Western Rationality argues that the dominance of Western rationality is a historical accident, not a logical necessity—a product of colonialism, not cognitive superiority. It traces the development of alternative rationalities in different cultures, shows how they work on their own terms, and argues for their legitimacy. It doesn't claim that all rationalities are equally good for all purposes; it claims that they are different tools for different tasks, and that we need all of them. The Theory of Post-Western Rationality is the foundation of cognitive decolonization, of the recognition that reason has many homes.

Example: "He'd assumed that Western science was simply the best way to know things. The Theory of Post-Western Rationality showed him otherwise: Indigenous knowledge systems, Eastern philosophies, African epistemologies—all were rationalities, all were valid, all had things to teach. He stopped treating other ways of knowing as inferior and started learning from them."

by Abzugal February 21, 2026