Empires, final thoughts

Empires. Are. Awesome. Plainly put, I think Empires are the culmination of human possibility. As a group of people working towards common goals of technological social and military advancement, Empires represent the positive potential of mankind. Sure plenty of negative things have come from empires, but such is the problem of man. No one thing can be purely good or bad, every aspect of life and every human existence comes with bad and good affects. Parsons had a negative view of empires. He believes they always end badly and cause more harm than good. I think this view is a bit limiting and possibly neglectful. By choosing to focus on the wrongs and potential wrongs of an empire, wrongs like slavery in the British Empire, Piracy in the French, Exclusivity in the Japanese and religious persecution in the early Roman Empire, Parsons is ignoring the mass accumulation of positive ways Empires have affected the world. The British Empire spawned the industrial revolution and helped end the African slave trade in Europe. The Mongolian empire modeled an inclusive society where people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds could live in relative peace. The American Empire though at first more of an overgrown colony grew into one of the most powerful nations in the world and today continues to be at the forefront of technological and military discovery. Empires have their faults, as do the people that run them. Should we really blame a political group of people, for acting as people do, and sometimes making mistakes? The Parsons is correct, bad things have happened as a result of empires, but seeing as there is a positive for every negative, I think perhaps we can see another side and appreciate empires, both past and present, for the good they did, not just the bad.