# The insidious lie of American Exceptionalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487 "2011-12-17T01:35:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/81 "2011-12-21T09:20:27Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So move to Mexico. Mexico only has gay marriage in some places, AFAIK, so pretty much the same as the US, although it does seem to have a local version of the FF&C Clause in effect for areas that don’t have it, so it’s superior there. Not that I need to move, as I already live in a country superior to the US. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/82 "2011-12-21T11:37:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Mexico only has gay marriage in some places, AFAIK, so pretty much the same as the US, although it does seem to have a local version of the FF&C Clause in effect for areas that don’t have it, so it’s superior there. > > Not that I need to move, as I already live in a country superior to the US. Yes, and congrats on freeing your Negros a few decades ago Mr Glass House. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/83 "2011-12-21T11:46:21Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Yes, and congrats on freeing your Negros a few decades ago Mr Glass House. :rolleyes: Speaking as one of those Negroes… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/84 "2011-12-21T11:46:52Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > People break laws when they are motivated to. Wanting to live is a desire written into me by billions of years of adaptation. Mammals who try to live longer, tend to live longer. > > Is there a natural right to food, since I want that too? Is there a natural right to sex, because I crave that? The very notion is nonsense. > > No, the desire to defend oneself is incorporated into humanity by virtue of that fact that we want to live longer. I think you’re missing the point. The concept of Natural Rights is a philosophical construct that there are inherent “rights” that are above written laws. When the law is in violation of those rights, people are justified in rising up to change them. For example, you aren’t really justified in violently rising up against the government just because you don’t feel like following the law. You ARE however justified if that government provides no representation, arbitrarily murders it’s citizens, confiscates their property and threatens their livlihood. There aren’t any stone tablets laid down by Zues or anything if that’s what you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/85 "2011-12-21T11:59:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > :rolleyes: Speaking as one of those Negroes… You’re B-b-b-black!!:eek: Look, I’m sure post-apartheid South Africa is great. But taken as a whole, I’d hardly call the country the most “exceptional”. It’s like Austrialia (also a nice place I hear) with a more awkward history. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/86 "2011-12-21T13:47:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > And porn! Foreign porn… eurgh. We also have a disproportionate number of The World’s Dumbest Criminals, Wildest Police Chases, and Girls Gone Wild. Handguns, drugs and teenage nookie–that’s what makes America great! ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/87 "2011-12-21T13:59:32Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > And yet we execute people for their crimes left and right. So it seems those inherent rights can be decided by man after all. No right is absolute and unlimited, not even the right to life. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/88 "2011-12-21T14:20:29Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Do India and China get to kill off their aboriginal populations too? Only if they do so by inadvertantly introducing diseases into aboriginal populations that have no immunity to them. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/89 "2011-12-21T14:42:19Z")
That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s not like the ones who were… advertantly slaughtered were killed to save them from disease. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/90 "2011-12-21T17:32:24Z")
To shift gears a bit on the topic of American Exceptionalism, what do conservatives who believe in it maintain are the actual implications for the US’s role in the international community? What do we get to do that all other countries don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/91 "2011-12-21T17:37:17Z")
Whatever we like? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/92 "2011-12-21T17:50:54Z")
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark] A lot of nations are divided by class, race, religion, political belief, etc but still function. I don’t see how that makes us exceptional. We had a civil war over our differences, plus our racial and class differences play a core role in our divisions in national politics. [/QUOTE] But not on the scales we are talking about in the US (even assuming that there are ‘a lot’ of such nations, which I’m not seeing). And not with as diverse and large a population as the US has. And not over the time scales that the US has successfully managed to keep it going. > [@](#): > > Canada and Australia have continential sized nations too. They do fine. They are…but they have a much smaller and more concentrated population than the US does. It’s the combination of factors that makes the US ‘exceptional’. When Canada and Australia have comparable populations in size, diversity and density to the US then they will have removed those factors of what makes the US exceptional…and when they last as long as we have (so far) they can have that too. You can’t stay exceptional forever after all…eventually someone is going to do the same things and surpass you. > [@](#): > > But the fact that we are bigger means our talent pool is bigger. We have more cities and companies that talented people can work for. This also creates incentives for foreigners to come here (because there are more options in a nation of 300 million with dozens of tech saavy metro areas and hundreds of good universities than in a smaller nation with a couple of tech saavy metro areas and a few dozen good universities). A nation of 300 million has more jobs, more universities, more cities and more opportunities. That attracts the best in the world, which makes the nation even better. But I don’t think that makes a nation exceptional. Uhuh. We have a bigger pool of talent. How did we get that? Why doesn’t everyone just increase their talent pool and grow their populations to our size? Etc etc etc. Yeah, I get that you don’t believe this makes us exceptional. Of course, it’s the word and the baggage with it that you and others are most balking at, I’m fairly certain. ‘American Exceptional-ism’ has strong and negative connotations in a lot of circles…especially circles on this board. Denying that the US is DIFFERENT, and that it has UNIQUE aspects to it that have made us successful would be silly. But denying that the US is exceptional in this snapshot time period in history is going to get folks back hairs all riled up, regardless of how true it might be. -XT ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/93 "2011-12-21T18:08:44Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme;14589492Of course, it’s the word and the baggage with it that you and others are most balking at, I’m fairly certain.[/QUOTE] Why yes, because it seems to imply that the US doesn’t have to obey international law. Does it? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/94 "2011-12-21T18:41:21Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Why yes, because it seems to imply that the US doesn’t have to obey international law. Does it? It has to meet its treaty obligations, if that’s what you mean. Isolationism would kill it these days. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/95 "2011-12-21T19:23:31Z")
I don’t get it - does the effort to define the US as unique and exceptional while bending backwards to exclude categories in which it’s obviously deficient entitle it to anything at all? I’m all for taking quiet pride in unique or characteristic national attributes and I certainly recognize the US’ many major accomplishments as a society at this time - but some people here seems to suggest this makes the US something indefinably _more_ than other countries? Is this a religious thing? Some convolution of American christianity that I’ve so far been ignorant of? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/96 "2011-12-21T19:32:38Z")
Mostly it’s propaganda. Plenty of countries do it (though we in the UK seem actively averse to it for some reason, and never boast about our accomplishments). The US culture encourages boasting. Cities declare themselves “the capital X of the world” and so forth. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s just not what many of us outside that particular country find normal. We find boasting gauche, whereas the US lauds it. I think many of us could use some of that attitude. There’s nothing wrong with boasting your accomplishments far and wide. Why the hell not? Of course, there are countries which do that internally (just look at some if the propaganda Kim Jong Il’s regime fed to its people). Much of that particular example was/is false, of course, but it shows that it’s not only the US which does this. Patriotism seems to have turned into a dirty word in some places. That’s a shame. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/97 "2011-12-21T19:42:20Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Denying that the US is DIFFERENT, and that it has UNIQUE aspects to it that have made us successful would be silly. Every country is DIFFERENT. Every country is UNIQUE. Obviously they’re not all “exceptional”, though it’s generally not hard to find someone who will say it is. As others have pointed out, the US may be successful in some areas, it’s not in others, so claims of “exceptionalism” sound like typical jingoism. And that is not unique or different to the US in any way. Example: North Korea. They really do believe that their society and system of government is superior to all others, that they are the envy of the world and blessed above all other nations. Remove the cult of personality aspects and it doesn’t sound very different from what the American Exceptionalists are saying. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/98 "2011-12-21T20:04:28Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > I’m all for taking quiet pride in unique or characteristic national attributes and I certainly recognize the US’ many major accomplishments as a society at this time - but some people here seems to suggest this makes the US something indefinably _more_ than other countries? We’re Americans. We don’t do _anything_ quietly, and certainly not pride. 😃 > [@](#): > > Is this a religious thing? Some convolution of American christianity that I’ve so far been ignorant of? Well, the US _is_ unique in many respects. I think it largely stems from a couple of places: (1) the philosophy of Manifest Destiny - the idea that the US was somehow fated to spread across the entire North American continent, which was largely propagated by missionaries and land speculators; (2) we _are_ the mightiest military and economic\* power the world has ever seen, in absolute terms; (3) American children are inculcated with the belief that America is awesome from an early age, at least with regard to how important America is as a bastion of freedom and decency and so on. As to the second and third factors, I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with them. Superpowers are always going on about how great they are; Rome was the shining city on the hill, and the British talked a great deal about what a favor they were doing everyone by bringing civilization to the heathens. I’m generally against the practice of drumming opinions into kids, but it’s certainly true that the US was the first real participatory democracy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/99 "2011-12-21T20:15:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > You’re B-b-b-black!! Only by American standards, not South African ones. > [@](#): > > Look, I’m sure post-apartheid South Africa is great. But taken as a whole, I’d hardly call the country the most “exceptional”. Good thing I never said that, then. I just said it’s superior to the US - and for a very specific set of criteria, too. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487/100 "2011-12-21T20:21:00Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Patriotism seems to have turned into a dirty word in some places. That’s a shame. No, it isn’t. It’s great. We need that idea to spread. [sings]_Debout, les damnés de la terre Debout, les forçats de la faim_… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insidious-lie-of-american-exceptionalism/606487.md?page=6)