Superiority as a Fraudulent Category: An Ideological Rationalization for Asymmetrical Power. Period !!!

 

Abstract

This article argues that “civilizational superiority” is not an empirical descriptor but an ideological category constructed to legitimize asymmetrical power relations. Drawing on historical evidence from Africa’s colonial underdevelopment, the COVID‑19 pandemic’s exposure of Western institutional fragility, and contemporary political stress tests in the United States, the paper demonstrates that superiority functions as a post‑hoc rationalization rather than a measurable civilizational attribute. The analysis situates superiority within broader patterns of imperial justification, psychological boundary‑making, and global governance structures that reproduce hierarchy. The conclusion contends that the category is collapsing under empirical scrutiny, revealing its function as a mechanism of legitimation rather than a reflection of inherent value.

1. Introduction

Claims of civilizational superiority have long shaped global hierarchies, from colonial expansion to contemporary development discourse. Yet these claims rarely withstand empirical examination. Rather than describing inherent differences in capacity or value, superiority operates as an ideological instrument that rationalizes domination after the fact. This article interrogates superiority as a fraudulent category — a conceptual technology that converts historical violence into narratives of progress, inevitability, or cultural hierarchy.

2. Superiority as a Post‑Hoc Rationalization

Political theorists and historians have documented how empires construct justificatory narratives to legitimize expansion, extraction, and governance. Superiority is one such narrative. It emerges not prior to domination but because of it. The category functions retroactively: once asymmetrical power is established, superiority is invoked to explain and naturalize the resulting inequalities.

This logic is evident across imperial histories. The British Empire framed its expansion as a “civilizing mission.” French colonialism invoked the mission civilisatrice. Similar narratives appear in Ottoman, Arab, and American imperial contexts. In each case, superiority is not a measurable civilizational attribute but a discursive strategy that masks coercion.

3. Africa and the Engineered Production of “Underdevelopment”

Africa provides one of the clearest empirical refutations of superiority claims. Extensive scholarship — including work by Walter Rodney, Mahmood Mamdani, and numerous economic historians — demonstrates that the continent’s contemporary economic challenges are rooted in centuries of external intervention.

Key mechanisms include:

• The transatlantic slave trade, which removed millions of people, disrupted demographic structures, and destabilized political systems.

• Colonial extraction economies, designed to export raw materials while suppressing local industry and infrastructure.

• Artificial borders, which fractured pre‑existing political and cultural systems.

• Cold War interventions, including support for coups and proxy conflicts.

• Structural adjustment programs, which imposed austerity, reduced public services, and constrained state capacity.

These processes were not incidental. They were structural. Africa’s “underdevelopment” is not evidence of civilizational inferiority but the predictable outcome of sustained extraction and geopolitical manipulation.

To describe Africa as “behind” after centuries of resource removal is analytically incoherent. It is akin to destroying an archive and then citing the absence of documents as proof of cultural deficiency.

4. COVID‑19 and the Exposure of Western Fragility

The COVID‑19 pandemic provided a global stress test for state capacity. Contrary to narratives of Western institutional superiority, many high‑income countries experienced severe failures in public health coordination, communication, and crisis management.

Empirical data from the World Health Organization and national health agencies documented:

• High mortality rates in several European and North American states.

• Widespread misinformation and politicization of basic health measures.

• Vaccine hoarding that exacerbated global inequities.

• Structural weaknesses in healthcare systems despite high GDP levels.

These outcomes challenge the assumption that wealth or technological advancement equates to superior governance. The pandemic revealed that institutional resilience is not guaranteed by economic power, and that the ideological claim of Western exceptionalism obscures significant vulnerabilities.

5. Political Stress Tests and the Myth of Democratic Superiority

The rise of populist movements in the United States — particularly the rapid institutional strain associated with MAGA politics — further undermines superiority narratives. Comparative political science literature describes such movements as stress tests that reveal latent weaknesses in democratic systems.

Within a short period, the United States experienced:

• Challenges to long‑standing democratic norms.

• The erosion of institutional independence.

• The mainstreaming of political disinformation.

• Increased tolerance for political violence.

These developments did not emerge spontaneously; they exposed structural contradictions that had accumulated over decades. A system that can be destabilized so quickly by internal pressures cannot plausibly claim inherent civilizational superiority.

6. Power, Not Value, Explains Hierarchy

Historical patterns demonstrate that empires rise and fall irrespective of claims to cultural or moral superiority. Rome, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and other hegemonic systems collapsed due to internal contradictions, economic overreach, or geopolitical shifts — not because they were surpassed by “superior” civilizations.

Power is contingent. It is not evidence of worth. Superiority narratives conflate the two, transforming temporary dominance into claims of inherent value.

7. The Psychological and Ideological Functions of Superiority

Sociological and psychological research indicates that superiority narratives serve several functions:

• They provide identity and meaning for dominant groups.

• They justify unequal distributions of resources and opportunity.

• They convert historical violence into narratives of progress.

• They obscure the role of coercion in producing global hierarchies.

Superiority persists not because it is empirically defensible but because it stabilizes existing power structures.

8. Conclusion: The Collapse of a Category

The category of civilizational superiority is increasingly untenable. Empirical evidence from global health, political stability, and historical development contradicts its foundational assumptions. As the ideological scaffolding weakens, the category reveals itself as a rationalization for asymmetrical power rather than a descriptor of inherent civilizational attributes.

The exposure of this fraud is not an act of moral condemnation but an analytical necessity. Understanding superiority as an ideological construct allows for a more accurate account of global inequality — one grounded in history, structure, and power rather than myth.