That could be said for ANY country, Australia is unlike any nation in the world, so is Iraq, Uzbekistan, Samoa etc etc.
Yes the US does have some major impact on the world but I would go as far to say that it China, Greece, Germany and the Middle East are having a larger impact on the world financially.
So is America exceptional? Yes, but it is not better.
But, the doctrine of “American Exceptionalism” assumes the U.S. had an exceptional character at inception/independence, before it became a mighty empire.
Explaining that as the will of sky-buddy resolves the question quite neatly without the need for tiresome historical facts.
Well it did in many ways that shaped the world forever. The U.S. isn’t perfect but we have operated under the same Constitution for 225 years with only a few hiccups compared to other countries. Did you have any interest in U.S. or world history? You should be able to see it for yourself.
The U.S. is EXCEPTIONAL in world history terms and statistical terms. That isn’t a value judgement. Lots of other countries like Canada are great to live in as well but Canada would not exist in its current form without the U.S. and the same goes to a lesser extent for other countries including France.
This type of argument gets old because people see flaws in something and think there must be a much better one out there so the obvious answer couldn’t be the correct one even if it is. Exceptional to me means long-term government, stability, individual freedoms, economic strength, world influence, and flexibility to changing circumstances.
You only get one choice on who stands above the crowd. What country is it? That is a serious question.
I will end this now with one of my favorite songs. Please bow your heads, hold hands, and sing along.
Is it fair to say that there are variants of the doctrine? That might be the “strong form” of the principle, but isn’t there room for a “weak form” in competition? (Just as with the Gaia hypothesis or the Anthropic principle, or the AI principle, etc.)
“Moderate” American exceptionalism might suggest that, yes, America is exceptional, but, after all, one nation or other pretty much has to be. Fifty years from now, it might be China, just as a century ago it was Great Britain. It’s just a contingency of history. If the American Civil War had succeeded, Germany might be the world’s exceptional power today.
The U.S. had a huge advantage in the 18th century: a gigantic hinterland, chock-full of natural resources, and inhabited by people who had no means of defending their sovereignty. Spain was Europe’s exceptional nation for a period, based largely on plundered Aztec and Incan gold; the U.S. is exceptional, at least in part, based on plundered land.
If the Spanish, or the Russians, or the British, or even the Chinese, had been more aggressive, the western U.S. might be part of another hegemony entirely.
No, there isn’t. “American Exceptionalism” is more ontological than that. Everybody knows we’re an empire now, and that there have been many other empires in history, and many know some of the FFs had some bad things to say about empires; you don’t base exceptionalism on that. Nor on wealth.
Except we aren’t. We just have an exceptionally large amount of influence due to having the largest economy and military in the history of mankind.
What makes the USA “exceptional”, or at the very least sort of interesting from a historical point of view is our history. It is basically a nation created from scratch a few hundred years ago from the refuse of all the respectable nations. And in that time, it has managed to become the most powerful nation on Earth and has, for the most part (but not always), been a positive influence.
And actually, when you look at some of these other countries that are far older and less diverse and still can’t get their shit to gether, I find it amusing that people take it for granted.
There’s rational discourse exceptionalism and political attack exceptionalism. It’s useless to talk about the latter; it’s a tawdry version of the concept–either you’re on my team and I believe any of your pronouncements and understand what you’re saying or you’re the (political) enemy and there is no way you have the ‘proper’ values. Basically, fuck off.
Rational exceptionalism means (to me) that no matter what positives you have to say about your country, it’s okay to acknowledge its weaknesses and faults–that doesn’t detract from the good. Plus, being exceptional doesn’t mean everyone else sucks. To put it another way, Mrs. Devil loves me very much. To her, I am an exceptional person, her True Blave and all that. But that doesn’t prevent her from honestly acknowledging that I can be a complete asshole from time to time, or that her friend’s husbands have good qualities as well. It means (not just means) that she recognizes that there are a host of qualities and aspects that make me exceptional. Same for America.
The sad thing is, though that’s the basic approach I’ll take with the Dudeling as he grows, either the current political climate of focused malignance or my growing cynicism (likely both) have come to believe that the institutions that make for the greatness of our political system are tainted and no longer reflective of the myth. Given history (I didn’t live through either McCarthyism or the Trail of Tears or …), I’m not sure it ever did.
I need a cookie.
“Doctrine” seems a bit grandioise for what is basically a biker gang mentality.
Exceptionalism used to have a more precise meaning. It didn’t just mean that your country was special or better than the rest.
Exceptionalism used to mean that your country was immune to some phenomenon that affected every other country - that your country was the proverbial exception to the rule.
The phrase American exceptionalism was coined by Joseph Stalin of all people. Some American Marxists had claimed that while every other country would eventually succumb to class warfare and emerge into an inevitable communist society, the United States would not. They said that there were unique factors in the United States that would prevent a Marxist triumph here. Stalin said Marxism would triumph everywhere and denounced the idea of “American exceptionalism”. That said, obviously the American Communists didn’t regard this American exceptionalism as a good thing - they’d have preferred to see the United States become Communist.
While Stalin coined the phrase the idea had already long existed. There were people who argued that the United States wouldn’t experience the same economic decline that other countries experienced because the United States had an open frontier. Or they argued that the United States wouldn’t suffer political unrest like other nations had because the United States didn’t have an inherited class structure. Or they argued that America’s colonial empire wouldn’t suffer the problems that other colonial powers suffered because the United States had a democratic character. In every case, it was an argument that came down to “sure, that happens to everyone else but it won’t happen to us - because we’re different.”
Yes, but it’s the harmless *ceremonial *sort of lying you’ll find in any flagwaving patriotic speech by any American pol.
Substitute “superpower” for “empire” if you like, then. The fact remains, whatever you call what America is now, Red Tom Jefferson wouldn’t like it. (Might even have second thoughts about the Louisiana Purchase.) Not that that should matter to us now, Jefferson was wrong about a lot of things (Hamilton was more often right); but, one thing Pat Buchanan is right about is that most of the FFs wanted “A Republic, Not an Empire.” And it is the Republic – in its pre-superpower characteristics – that is supposed to be/have been “exceptional.”
It’s kind of a silly concept, the notion that your nation is somehow uniquely blessed and special. If you genuinely feel that the US can do no wrong because it is the US, then you’re taking it too far. If you’re concerned about candidates for office wearing flag pins on their lapels, perhaps you need to rethink your priorities. Is the US better than Laos? Sure. Is it better than Sweden? Not so sure. If we had universal health care and didn’t raise a stink about minority religions building houses of worship in our towns, then maybe we’d be special. Unti then, let’s get over ourselves.
Of course America is exceptional. Not as exceptional as we have been in the past and our exceptionalism may be slipping these days to the point that we may only be of average exceptionalism. Still, that is American Exceptionalism which is better than other country’s Exceptionalism for reasons that are obvious to any true American.
The important thing is that America not allow an exceptionalism gap to form.
In other words, it’s bullshit, as H.G. Frankfurt defined it.
Frankfurt distinguished between lying and bullshit thus; lying is when you are attempting to deceive or cheat someone by saying things that you know are untrue. Bullshit is when you say things without regard for the truth (bullshit can contain some truth; it doesn’t matter) for the sake of pandering, appearance, or political correctness, and you might not actually be deceiving anyone or even trying to.
So, Obama was not lying. He was bullshitting.
Call it what you like; just don’t single him out for doing what anyone in his profession in this country is required to do routinely.
Now: Do you still think it’s bullshitting if the audience knows, and is expected to know, and even likes, that they’re being bullshat? The listeners have a ceremonial role to play too.
The thing with being top dog, and the US has clearly been top dog for a good few decades, is knowing when to gracefully bow out before you over-extend. See Empires passim.
I dunno, these days exceptionalism seems more likely to be used as an excuse to protect America’s moneyed class:
“Who cares if government-funded health care leads to longer lifespans and lower costs in Canada and Europe? That doesn’t prove it’ll work here! We’re exceptional!”
You are probably right about that. Not a US-exceptional thing unfortunately, there are analogues used by the corresponding entities across the capitalist world. In the UK we seem to have a protected class of “wealth creators” who can basically shit on everybody else.
Edit: different thread I guess