Conrad drew on numerous examples of Europeans setting out to “civilize the savages” as a high-minded excuse for asserting a right to their lands, wealth, and bodies. Inevitably, that civilizing urge tipped into a blinding drive to wipe out the natives—a conclusion foretold as soon as one group of people set themselves up as biologically superior to all others.

QUESTION: How does belief in biological superiority inevitably lead toward extermination? Worth probing the psychological or ideological mechanism here.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 877