On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice

by Adam Kirsch

For the Puritans, it was urgently necessary to bring people to an understanding of their fallenness, since it is only after embracing guilt that the workings of grace can begin. The ideology of settler colonialism thrives on a similar paradox. By insisting that settler colonial societies are guilty of an irredeemable crime, it validates the most extreme criticism and denunciation of those societies, as long as it can be cast in the language of decolonization. The goal is not to change this or that public policy but to engender a permanent disaffection, a sense that the social order ought not to exist. One of the most potent ways to do this is to teach Americans a new way of thinking about the history of their country.