Sickness
Colonization is situated from the commencement of the text as a symbolic symptom of a sick body politic. Simply the conviction of a society that it must turn to colonization to cure its woes is indicative of a system that it sick to its core.
The Barbaric Negro
The author argues that the so-called Barbaric Negro—otherwise known by such terms as the uncivilized savage and the white man’s burden, among other even more offensive names—exists only within the sphere of symbol. The true nature of these societies before the arrival of white imperialists has been lost to history as the idea of which has been handed down to posterity is based only on subjective histories of colonizers.
The Anemic, Ferocious Beast
Capitalism is symbolically incarnated by the author in the form of a beast that has lost its physical luster. But in the process of losing its hair, blood and sheen, it has increased its cruelty to the point of sadism. This symbolic portrait speaks to the idea of capitalism becoming fulfilling for fewer and fewer of those who live under it but becoming stronger by virtue of the few wielding such vicious power of the many.
Globalization
The essay was published in 1950, back before globalization was even really a thing - certainly before it had become the well-worn term it would become. Nevertheless, it is precisely globalization led by U.S. conglomerates that it being described symbolically in the passage on “American domination” by the phrase: “the machine for crushing, for grinding, for degrading people.”
