In addition to the pledge of allegiance, in grade school, we sang various patriotic songs
America the Beautiful
My Country Tis of Thee
Battle Hymn of the Republic
God Bless America
Americans are certainly indoctrinated into thinking the USA is the greatest country in the world from a young age. I remember reading a Little Golden Book with a very abbreviated history of the U.S. around the time of the Bicentennial (when I was 8 years old) and that was the overwhelming message. I remember thinking how lucky I was to be an American.
For me personally, that sense has turned completely upside down. This started in the ‘90s, and has only accelerated since then. Today, I feel like I am living in a Bizarro version of the U.S.
Indeed we are. The MAGA folks are doing their best to ruin everything that made this country great in the first place. It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.
Among the many things they hate, they hate most immigrants. Which with declining birth rates, is something we need more of instead of less. But they are nevertheless determined to kill the lifeblood of this country by their actions against immigrants, because more than anything else, they are also a bunch of racists.
It might be closer to a nightmare at times, recently- but that too, shall pass.
Yes, America might be the most powerful- but is that the best? It is also around 20th in Happiness- which is decent, but not the “best” and it is 15th in Freedom- which is pretty good- but again not the "best. " America- “pretty damn good”.
Good point.
For two years my group had “the best” record as it didnt lose anything due to a statute expiring, I even got a cheap clock as an award. Nice, but in the Big Picture, not really meaningful.
And nearly three times as many Nobel prizes (425) as the second ranked nation (which was the UK, (144) and for a nation with a relatively small population, that is a major achievement in itself).
Compared to around 80 other nations- you were. Mind you if you were born in Finland or Switzerland (for example) you could say the same thing.
The British, the French and others are doing the exact same thing. Right Wing Populism is pretty popular now- trump, Netanyahu, Milei, Modi and others.
Some of those data seem a bit out of date. Although the page overall says 2026, some of the indices it’s drawing from are from 2023. More recent indices, eg from freedom house, (correctly) see America falling down the rankings in the trump era.
But anyway if we’re just saying the US is a decent place to live for most people, maybe even a great place if you’re rich…sure.
I’m well placed on this because I’ve lived in multiple countries including the US. It was pretty good and there definitely some nice and unique things about the American way of life. But the america #1 thing is based on ignorance (or denial) of the nice aspects of other countries that America does not have.
Incidentally on the power thing…
Russia currently has more nukes than the US. So in terms of power to blow shiz up, Russia would be #1.
Now, if it seems absurd to suggest Russia is the world’s best country due to having the most nukes, well that’s how the world perceives the claim of having the biggest military making a country the best.
“We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true!”
The U.S. = the Bandar-log (the Jungle Books)
But every one of your points is so simplified as to be meaningless. The pilgrims wanted freedom for their religion and to oppress other religions. The founding fathers dreamt of freedom only if you don’t consider the slaves they raped to be human beings deserving of liberty. The cowboys dream of freedom was the native Americans nightmare of genocide.
That “history” you describe is pure propaganda and demonstrates how deeply indoctrinated Americans are.
That was exactly my point.
In the last sentence of my post I said “It ain’t true. But myths aren’t about truth”
The OP asked where US citizens learn the myth of American greatness.
This mythic history which I described is what the schools teach* in official textbooks, and what Hollywood movies teach in popular culture..
And far too many Americans believe it.
. .
(*Well, it’s what I was taught, from grade school through high school in the 1970’s. In the past decade or two, there’s been a huge backlash among university students.).
Other than the daily, classroom by classroom pledge (which is not universal in US schools anyway), that by itself is not peculiar to the US.
One other myth factor especially for the US demographic more to the right wing is that their Evangelical churches will make a huge deal of preaching how this is the “only” place you’re “really free” to (a) be this brand of Christian … and moreover to (b) demand and expect that everyone else accommodate you.
Fair enough, I thought you were interpreting the myth to be close to the truth, when it is no more true than the myths that the Soviets told themselves that they were liberating the world’s workers from oppression.
I’ve read a few articles recently that argue that we now all live in the America as Black people have always known it and I think that’s apt. The myth of America was always for and by white people.
This Is the America Black People Have Always Known - Word In Black
Maybe not inherently wrong, but it can so readily lead to horrid tribalism and paralytic/pathological confirmation bias. It’s probably The Most Effective Way to tamp down critical thinking.
I’ve said it before and will add it here:
“I think in many ways religion and nationalism are the two scourges of humanity.”"
–Deepak Chopra
When you’re that ‘proud of’ something that’s totally immutable – something over which you have absolutely no control (eg, your place of birth or your skin color) – then there’s a tendency to defend that tribe at any cost, and/or to adopt positions akin to:
My country: love it or leave it!
[Tell me you’re an idiot without telling me that you’re an idiot]
On what issues that are commonly kicked around here on the Dope do we generally tolerate such blind allegiance and cognitive rigidity?
And why should/would we? What’s the upside?
Tribalism is a painfully outmoded construct. Be proud or ashamed of what you do, not of who you (immutably) are.
When I see “NATIVE COLORADOAN” bumper stickers, I consistently remark, out loud, that “we’re all so very proud of you for such an epic accomplishment.”
Followed by an athletic eyeroll.
Besides, I’m also known to repeat that the only way in which, IMHO, the US is “exceptional” is the degree to which we profit from misery (ie, Perverse Incentives) – unparalled, AFAICT, among the other industrialized nations.
Obligatory clip from “The Newsroom”
It’s not absurd due to using the military as a measuring stick of greatness. It’s absurd because anything beyond a few hundred nukes is overkill if there were an actual nuclear exchange. Beyond that, of course, Russia can’t even manage to occupy more than a few dozen miles deep into Ukraine, a country that it’s always craved to dominate.
Of course American military successes after WW2 are nothing to brag about either, but that’s more about the fact that although elected officials may choose unwise military adventures from time to time, a democracy generally won’t throw a million of its citizens into an endless meat-grinder of a war without a damned good reason. And for all its failures, it most definitely did manage to deter such a country (Russia) from a full-scale invasion of Europe again.
That last bit deserves a lot more credit than it gets. The fact that Russia is a menace to the world, and was once quite formidable, and the US chose to keep it in check, and was able to do so without WW2 levels of bloodshed. It doesn’t make America superior in all aspects of course, but this is a singularly important achievement.
Yeah. And this is why, although I can’t articulate the case very well, I feel that a lot of the “America is best” rhetoric is self-serving PR to cover up the background story of exactly how it came to control such vast amounts of land and labor. It ain’t pretty, and you need a divinely inspired origin story to paper over all the genocide, slavery, and continuation of colonialism.
Really the only defense for that is the rest of the world either was doing equally bad things, or intended to do so, and America is the first one to say let’s wake up from history and find other ways. Of course it’s not a great look to do do that after extracting the resources of one continent and the labor of another, with scarcely a hint of making any real reparations. But still.
The/a problem is that in the rest of the world, this often manifests itself as an extreme ignorant arrogance, of which we have seen a huge excess over the last few years. Statements that the US is unique in its freedom, to the rest of us, simply sound spectacularly (and I don’t think that that’s an exaggeration) ignorant.
I would love to know, by what objective measure, the US is freer than Canada or many/most western European countries.
FWIW, here in South Texas the local chain that most people think of when they think of fish and chips was started by an immigrant from South Korea. And no, I have no idea how a South Korean immigrant decided on fish and chips when he decided to go into the food business.
Firstly it does seem like making the rules to fit the country; having the most nukes would matter (would at least be in the list) if it was America.
But secondly you’re missing the main point that military might is not the “greatness” most people are thinking of when they are talking about the best country.
If anything it might have a negative effect if that military is used offensively.
I think this has changed quite a bit since the internet became widespread. now that we Americans can talk to people from other nations we can see all the flaws.
I don’t know ‘who’ teaches us these things, but they’re just built into the culture. Even with our failed health care system, people still say ‘we have the best health care system in the world if you can afford it’ which also isn’t based on anything. There are medical treatments you can get in places like Germany or Singapore that you can’t get in the US for example. It is not uncommon for people with money to travel overseas for health care treatments that aren’t available in the US yet.
Also health care was reasonably affordable until 30 years ago or so, thats my understanding. So health care being totally unaffordable is somewhat new to the US and only started in the last few decades. I could be wrong though. But there is going to be some cultural lag. A lot of baby boomers had good health insurance through work, then when they hit 65 they went on medicare. So they have no idea what the US health care system is actually like because they’ve been sheltered from it.
Nobody in the US teaches us that the USSR won WW2 since 80% of the fighting was on the eastern front. The western front was more of a distraction.
It’s a hypothetical, so all we can really do to that is shrug, right? It’s kind of a given that whatever a country is good at, they’ll hype it up as a measure of greatness. Not sure there are any big insights there.
If I had argued that having the best military means being the greatest or best country, then you could say that I missed your counterpoint, but you seem to be refuting something that nobody has said (at least in this thread). Of course that’s an argument that people do make, but I’m not seeing it here.
This is just exceptionalism in the opposite direction, though. Without US support in opening the western front, and sending endless streams of material, it’s not at all clear that the USSR would have prevailed on the Eastern front. Of the allied forces, it’s safe to say the USSR sacrificed the most in terms of men and destruction of industry and property, but it’s incorrect to say that anyone “won” the European theater.
And don’t forget that WW2 also had a Pacific theater as well, and it’s fairly uncontroversial to say the US definitely deserves that victory. The Soviets, Australia, and New Zealand certainly had a toe in the water, but the former was preoccupied by the aforementioned European priorities, and the latter’s contribution was relatively minor (though not negligible, to be certain).