I don’t believe in American exceptionalism.
I don’t believe the US is better than anyone else. I don’t believe we’re smarter, faster, stronger. I don’t believe our economy or our government is unique or even [gasp] the best one in the world.
I do believe that our democratic and economic systems are uniquely set up to encourage excellence. But I don’t think this is something amazing we’ve discovered, or that it can’t, or doesn’t, happen among other peoples or even in other systems.
During election season, we hear a lot of rhetoric about how great America is. I don’t disagree — we wouldn’t have people from around the world wanting to come here if this wasn’t a wonderful place to live. But I don’t believe we’re an exception to the world. It’s a fine line — to agree that the concept of America is great, but to say that it is not unique.
Of course, we don’t always live up to our self-concept. Now actually, that’s a question. Does every nation, or people, have a self-concept, an ideal to which it subscribes? Or is that something exceptional about America?
If I had gone to grad school in history, like I considered for about a day, I might be able to answer all these questions as well as ask them.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll join you on that bench…
Laura,
I think you have gotten your words a little mixed up in this posting. I do think we are unique and have the free market capitalism system that makes us the greatest.
Our free enterprise system and our constitution promises and provides equal opportunity but does not guarantee equal results. Does everyone get the equal opportunity–probably not but they can–if they really want it.
Two of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes address this subject better than I can.
1–The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings, the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery;
2–The price of greatness is responsibility
If we are loosing our greatness, it is because too many do not accept responsibility or accountability for their actions.
Dad
I agree with Dad. America is a concept in a geographical area. Europeans cannot understand us because they have spent more than 1,500 years paying obesience to their kings, queens, princes, and ministers. While the French Revolution was about murdering the ruling class, the American Revolution was about expelling the ruling class. New England Tories were not killed, as was often the case in England during the continual wars of the 12th to 17th centuries.
America is exceptional because it allows anyone to become a citizen. My father-in-law arrived at 17 to escape Nazism and worked in the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. My barber and her family left Bosnia in 2002; they’re American as apple pie.
Read Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” Written in 1831, it points out our triumphs and contradictions; it is current 175 years later.