maybe this makes the structure of the argument playing out in my head that I am putting down here clear.
Honestly, this did make it clearer for me what might be going through your head. I was confused, and it makes a bit more sense now.
But if you were facing the choice between abandoning the American project entirely, and letting it happen, I think letting it happen was the right choice.
I do not think there were very many people, if any, whose individual abandonment of the American project would have stopped colonialism. So the actual choice is “let it happen without your involvement” and “let it happen while trying to make it less bad”, rather than “stop it from happening by throwing your body into the gears” (not an actual option for very many people, if any).
I think if the founders had decided the horrors were too much and they weren’t going to do this whole declaration of independence founding of a country thing but instead would go knit some socks, some country or countries would have been founded on some principles less good, and colonialism would have continued.
I’d been thinking over the weekend about what the “colonialism didn’t happen” counterfactual would have to look like, and it seems like it would require the substantial replacement of the values and cultures of multiple European countries, the effects of which would be very unpredictable. There was a lot of momentum behind colonialism, and “America doesn’t get founded because the founders turn away in horror” wouldn’t have stopped it, I don’t think. Maybe “no colonialism” would have prevented the founding of the US as we know it (quite possible) or the spread of democratic values in the world (seems less likely to me), but “no US” wouldn’t have stopped colonialism even in the area covered by the US, I’m pretty sure.
If the founders who spent their efforts building support for founding a nation around the ideals of the declaration of independence had instead put their efforts, collectively, towards blocking colonialism… I don’t know what would have happened, but I expect we’d still have had colonialism. Maybe a less bad version, but smallpox and racism would still have been present, and colonists would still have expanded into the New World.
Honestly, this did make it clearer for me what might be going through your head. I was confused, and it makes a bit more sense now.
I do not think there were very many people, if any, whose individual abandonment of the American project would have stopped colonialism. So the actual choice is “let it happen without your involvement” and “let it happen while trying to make it less bad”, rather than “stop it from happening by throwing your body into the gears” (not an actual option for very many people, if any).
I think if the founders had decided the horrors were too much and they weren’t going to do this whole declaration of independence founding of a country thing but instead would go knit some socks, some country or countries would have been founded on some principles less good, and colonialism would have continued.
I’d been thinking over the weekend about what the “colonialism didn’t happen” counterfactual would have to look like, and it seems like it would require the substantial replacement of the values and cultures of multiple European countries, the effects of which would be very unpredictable. There was a lot of momentum behind colonialism, and “America doesn’t get founded because the founders turn away in horror” wouldn’t have stopped it, I don’t think. Maybe “no colonialism” would have prevented the founding of the US as we know it (quite possible) or the spread of democratic values in the world (seems less likely to me), but “no US” wouldn’t have stopped colonialism even in the area covered by the US, I’m pretty sure.
If the founders who spent their efforts building support for founding a nation around the ideals of the declaration of independence had instead put their efforts, collectively, towards blocking colonialism… I don’t know what would have happened, but I expect we’d still have had colonialism. Maybe a less bad version, but smallpox and racism would still have been present, and colonists would still have expanded into the New World.