The most important information in this book is spread out over a variety of topics. Lindqvists uses the ideas of several scientists throughout the novel to try and show people what the scientists actually thought. For instance, he uses the scientist Edward von Hartmann section from his book, where he writes, "so little is their humanity in artificially prolonging the death struggles of savages who are on the verge of extinction." Therefore, he is trying to say that by killing them, you are doing them a favor. Many other scientists, as it turns out, think very much along the same lines. They include scientists such as Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Robert Knox, and many others. Some other things that Lindqvist uses as evidence in his book are things such as the Battle of Omdurman, the expedition that led to Benin's demise, the story of the Central African Expedition, and the German Holocaust. He also used some of the books by H.G. Wells, R.B. Cunningham Graham, and even Joseph Conrad along with information about his travels into the "heart of darkness."
One of the main inferences in the book that Lindqvist came to were that people do not lack knowledge, but rather the courage to understand and draw conclusions. He also draws parallels between people in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Lindqvist compares Stanley and Emin Pasha, and Klobb and Voulet, to Marlow and Kurtz. Furthermore, he comes to the conclusion that culture shock can and will kill civilizations if pushed upon them. Because they could not adapt immediately, they were exterminated. Lindqvist also tells us that science is subject to manipulation by people with background beliefs. He then goes on to say that the herd instinct caused people, specifically whites, the treat the black people as inferior beings. He says that they treated them like this because they were black they were not fit to survive, therefore they should be exterminated. Lindqvist also brings up the point that our society is based on competition. Whites try to be the superior race. They strive to be the best because they don't want to feel inferior. The problem here is that they also believe that the inferior races should be exterminated. In addition, Lindqvist believes that what makes them superior is their ability to kill something. In addition, he believes that Hitler's only crime was that he killed white men that were "equal," instead of the lower and more inferior beings. In the end, Lindqvist comes to the conclusion that colonization is doomed to failure and that the suppressed peoples always win.
The key idea that people need to understand when reading this book is that all of these events mentioned throughout the book really did happen. People actual did go into to Africa and attempt to colonize it, while in the process destroying lives and uprooting values that have meant so much to those people. They also have to realize that Sven Lindqvist went to some of these places. He is writing this book while he is in, for instance, Zinder. Another person that went into the "heart of darkness" to find and experience new things was the writer Joseph Conrad. So people reading this book have to be able to recognize the reality in it.
The main assumption underlying the author's thinking that is somewhat understated is Lindqvist's idea that genocide cannot be justified by any means. People like Darwin attempted to justify genocide through science. This is because science is subject to manipulation by people with background beliefs. For that reason, science cannot be trusted as long as it is being manipulated to justify genocide.
If people take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are that individuals will have a better understanding of the world and everything going on in it, and will be able to comprehend the truth about genocide and how it is a part of the way humans work. As stated in the title, all humans do is exterminate the inferior races, the different people, the brutes.
If people fail to take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are that the same sort of things could keep on happening, and will continue to happen until people come to their senses and realize the horrific atrocities they had perpetrated. However, until then these people will be blinded by the light, or in this case, the darkness. They will be unable to see past their own ethnocentric ideology. They would rather bury the truth in an unostentatious hole, rather than look at it.
The main point of view presented in "Exterminate All the Brutes" is that colonization and genocide are in general are horrendous acts of cruelty. To Lindqvist, the colonization of countries by foreign powers never works. Why start something when you know that it is doomed to failure. As long as the suppressed peoples keep fighting and never give up, they will always win. Furthermore, why does a sense of inferiority give people the right to exterminate other individuals? All people are equal no matter their skin color, religion, country, or education. Therefore, Lindqvist says that no one should be eradicated because they look different from someone else or are more or less civilized, whatever that means to be. He ends the book by saying that people must continue to strive to gain the information that is being suppressed, and then use this information to formulate questions, which will then help people come to conclusions based on that information.
