The American liberal colonial tradition

Abstract

The American liberal myths of the self-made man, of the liberal individual, and of American exceptionalism all rely upon a disavowed relationship to the constitutive role of settler colonization in the foundation, development, and structure of the USA. I place political scientist Louis Hartz's 1955 work, The Liberal Tradition in America, at the center of this essay because his argument re-animates while posing as a critique of the narrative of American exceptionalism. We see in Hartz someone struggling, and not quite succeeding, to challenge the constraints of American political discourse. In this effort, Hartz implicitly suggests the presence of an American liberal colonial tradition, one that upsets the story of America's exceptionalist founding by seeing liberalism and settler colonialism as mutually constitutive logics. In the end, Hartz sees but cannot fully grasp the explanatory power that comes with placing settler colonial logic at the center of a critique of the foundational myths of America. IntroductionIn the late seventeenth century, John Locke wrote, "in the beginning, all the world was America". 1 In the early nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of Americans being "born equal". 2 In the mid-twentieth century, American political scientist Louis Hartz asked, "can a people 'born equal' ever understand peoples elsewhere that have to become so? Can it ever understand itself?". 3 In different ways, these theorists reproduce and reflect the myth of America's seemingly exceptional founding and posture toward the world. They also, implicitly, tell a story of an American liberal tradition that sees and disavows Indigenous people, Indigenous territorial presence, and settler colonialism. The American liberal myths of the self-made man, of the liberal individual, and of American exceptionalism all rely upon a disavowed relationship to the constitutive role of settler colonization in the foundation, development and structure of the USA. On closer reading, I find in Hartz's ultimately failed critique of American liberalism an awareness, if not quite an avowal, of the role of settler colonialism in the production of America's central myths. I place Hartz's work at the center of this essay because his argument re-animates while posing as a critique of the narrative of American exceptionalism. We see in Hartz someone struggling, and not quite succeeding, to challenge the constraints of American political discourse. In this effort, Hartz implicitly suggests the presence of an American liberal colonial tradition, one that upsets the story of America's exceptionalist founding by seeing liberalism and settler colonialism as mutually constitutive logics. In the end, Hartz sees but cannot fully grasp the explanatory power that comes with placing settler colonial logic at the center of a critique of the foundational myths of America. Through my reading of Hartz, I hope that readers can find a

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