# We need to jettison "American exceptionalism" once and for all! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 1, 2004, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886 "2004-08-01T23:33:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/21 "2004-08-02T02:24:59Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Let me be clear about something. The idea the America is different in some way from other countries is not the same as “Manifest Destiny” or “The White Man’s Burden”. These were notions that were popular in their time, but were discarded as fundementally un American. I think you could make your point more persuasively if you would drop the hyperbolic. Suggesting that America should not “rule the world” or whatever you are trying to say is a valid point. Saying that America is not better in any fundemental way than many other countries is also a good point. Saying that no different than other countries does, try to deny our uniqueness. I say again, **pervert,** I am not denying that we are unique, I am denying that we are **uniquely** unique – that we are somehow different in kind from all other nations. We’re not. But “American exceptionalism” asserts that we are. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/22 "2004-08-02T02:27:59Z")
Hit “submit” by mistake . . . As I was saying: The doctrine of “American exceptionalism” asserts that America is different in kind from all other nations. Ideas like “manifest destiny” and the neocons’ vision of our role in the world depend, to some extent, on American exceptionalism; but, as you say, the idea precedes them and does not necessarily imply them. I agree. The point I am making is that the original idea, American exceptionalism **as such,** is fundamentally wrong. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/23 "2004-08-02T03:58:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I wasn’t talking about changing the past. (Though I do enjoy alternate-history SF.) I meant that, if we came under some other political system at some time in the future, we would still be the same nation. Yes, I know that one of your motivations is to make socialism more paletable in America. I can agree that scraping the entire constitution and replacing it with almost anything else would not change the desires of most Americans. I’m not sure how this ties into the idea of Pax Americana though. > [@](#): > > The U.S. and Britain of today are not racist societies the way they were in 1899 – but the same way of thinking still seems to predominate; just substitute “Westerners” for “White Men.” Please stop. If you want to suggest that any American policy is particularly racist please bring more substantive argument than “they sound the same, same bullshit different actors.” > [@](#): > > I say again, pervert, I am not denying that we are unique, I am denying that we are uniquely unique – that we are somehow different in kind from all other nations. We’re not. But “American exceptionalism” asserts that we are. Perhaps then, you need to provide a definition of American exceptionalism by someone who believes in it. I have no idea whatsoever what uniquely unique is or how it is different from unique. As I understand the idea, American Exceptionalism is simply the notion that America is different combined with an appreciation or preference for that difference. What would be different about someone from France prefering to live in France. > [@](#): > > As I was saying: The doctrine of “American exceptionalism” asserts that America is different in kind from all other nations. Ideas like “manifest destiny” and the neocons’ vision of our role in the world depend, to some extent, on American exceptionalism; but, as you say, the idea precedes them and does not necessarily imply them. I agree. The point I am making is that the original idea, American exceptionalism as such, is fundamentally wrong. I would agree that manifest destiny might have been closely tied to ideas of American Exceptionalism. However, I am not at all sure that this concept is included in the neocons ideas. I may have missed a briefing (I’m not really a neocon, I just play on on the internet) but I have not seen good evidence that neocons are promoting anything but freedom, prosperity and safety for the world as a whole. And I should add, that I have not seen good evidence that their methods are particularly nefarious. And again, you are wrong that American Exceptionalism is fundamentally wrong. One would have to postulate that our form of government were totally unrealted to our culture rather than an expression of it. I think you may have a long way to go to show that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/24 "2004-08-02T04:46:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No matter how we define it, it’s all bullshit, So it is the _term_ that’s the problem, not any actual idea? If it is an idea you have a problem with, I should think defining it would be very important. If by exceptionalism you mean the idea the God just loves us more because we’re American, I don’t think anyone here will disagree. If you’re talking about the neo-cons, they are by and large not driven by our national mythos. Given that most neo-con thinkers are \*not \*seriously religious, they’re not driven by any belief in destiny or divine purpose or any such thing. Their attitudes are grounded much more in the obvious reality that the US is the economic, militarily and culturally dominant force on the planet, which they believe gives us unique opportunities and responsibilities. They may co-opt the rhetoric of the Mayflower to sell themselves, but their intellectual roots are secular. As to whether or not America is different in kind: Do you allow that there are _any_ differences in kind among nations? Consider: **Thailand:** Has existed as a unified nation in the same location for centuries Has a dominant language which is distinct and widely spoken nowhere else Has distinct, indigenous art and cultural forms which are widely practiced nowhere else Has distinct religion that is widely practiced only in their region (Therevada Buddhism) Has never been conquered or colonized for a long period of time **India:** As above, except … was profoundly affected by prolonged period of colonization by another culture, effects of which remain to this day. **Burma:** As above, except has completely rejected colonizer’s culture, language and religion. **Papua New Guinea:** History as an independant nation-state very short Culture, language and religion are linked to tribes, of which there are many, some of which spill across arbitrary borders drawn by colonizer. **Australia:** History as independant nation-state short Descendants of colonizer brought culture, language and religion with them and dominate to this day. Native cultures, languages and religions marginalized if not destroyed. ISTM those are very different kinds of nations. Do you agree? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/25 "2004-08-02T06:23:21Z")
There seem to be two distinct ideas here that are not mutually exclusive. Yes, America is unique. Aside from the history, how many sole superpowers are there around these days? American is quite distinct from other countries in that way. The largest economy, the strongest military. Can’t we embrace, even celebrate, our uniqueness without wanting to force our way of life on other countries? Maybe I’m reading too much into your OP, but it seems that you want to kill both ideas, when it’s only the 2nd one (ie, using military force to spread our ideology abroad) that really is a problem. ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/26 "2004-08-02T07:37:36Z")
**BrainGlutton** , Check out [American Exceptionalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Exceptionalism) on Wikpedia - gives both pros and cons to this concept. I just have a few things I’d like to point out. > [@](#): > > In this thread (“Ask the Neo-Con” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268701](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268701)) – **Captain Amazing** and some others have been arguing for the neoconservative position: That the United States should be spreading our liberal republican form of government around the world by force of arms. > > Sound familiar? The Soviet Communists thought it was their duty to spread and/or support Marxist proletarian revolution throughout the world, even in countries like Ethiopia and Angola where the USSR had no obvious material or strategic interests. We all know how that worked out. Not surprising, since it can be argued that the neoconservative movement has been influenced by former Trotskyites and all that entails (note: I am not equating the neoconservative movement with Trotskyism - just that there are some rather striking parallels to each. One of which is the use of force in establishing legitimate forms of government that abide by a particularly ideology (Trotskyites - communist societies/govt’s; neocons - liberal democracies). > [@](#): > > What really disturbs me about the neocon way of thinking is that it is bound up with the fundamentally misconceived tradition of “American exceptionalism,” the idea that the U.S. is not like other countries, that we are a “City on a Hill,” that we have some special messianic role to play in the world, in spreading the “American creed,” whether that creed or role is chiefly defined by republican government or free-market capitalism or Protestant Christianity. First, I personally think that it’s more an appropriation of the term by the neocons as a justification for portions of their ideology (If that, indeed, is how they view the term). An argument can be made that American exceptionalism refers to the historical uniqueness of how America came to become America. In other words, America, more than other countries, is more an embodiment of an **idea** (or ideal). Granted, much of that idea (or ideal) was a product of the times - greatly influenced by the humanistic philosophies of the British enlightenment (Locke, Mill, Hume, Smith, etc.). But it was those living in the American colonies that had the vision to actually put into practice the lofty ideals of the British enlightenment (Jefferson, Madison, etc.). In many respects, if one agrees with this definition of American exceptionalism, then it raises it to the status of mythos. In other words, America is defined by it’s ideas/ideals more so than any other nation. If you take away the mythos, then what do we (as Americans) have to fall back on? Our language? Our religion? What? > [@](#): > > No matter how we define it, it’s all bullshit, and we need to throw it over the side, once and for all. We need to accept that the United States has a lot more in common with France or Britain than with the USSR. We are an ordinary **nation-state,** not an idea-state defined by a political creed. I wouldn’t categorically state that the term “American Exceptionalism” is entirely bullshit. Maybe the way in which those that appropriate the term to justify their ideology, I would agree that the term is bullshit. But it all depends on ones view of what American Exceptionalism really means. While in one sense, I would agree that the USA is an ordinary nation-state, similar to other nation-states. However, I remember someone stating in an old thread that the US is more a **state-nation** rather than a **nation-state**. In other words, more than other countries, what defines us as a people is more based on our form of government, our political institutions, and the ideas behind them. > [@](#): > > Since 1789, France has been through five distinct periods of monarchy and five different republics and a period when it was divided between Nazi occupation and a native fascist puppet regime. Yet through all that time, France has remained France – the same country, the same national culture. China has been through many imperial dynasties, periods of division, periods of foreign rule, republican rule, Communist rule – but it is still the same nation it was in the time of Confucius. The USSR, on the other hand, existed only as a revolutionary-ideological political system and does not exist, any more, in any sense. As somone earlier stated, I think the USA and the USSR had a lot more in common than with other nation-states. That is, what defined the USSR not a shared cultural heritage, but one based more on ideology. A failed one, and I think one which was a shell of its former sense. In other words, the USSR morphed into something completely different from what the founders had initially envisioned. Whether this was a result of a flawed ideology or people who corrupted the ideology, I leave for another debate. With the US, the idea of America - it’s mythos - lives on because America will never be a “finished product”. What I mean is while the ideals that embody America have been problematic in practice (slavery, etc.), we, as Americans, have demanded of ourselves to live up to the ideals we espouse. And I think, if America is to remain as America, that we **always** demand ourselves to live up to our ideals. I don’t think we, as Americans, will always be able to live up to our ideals. But we should never resign oursleves to not trying. The day we do, the day we can no longer call ourselves Americans. > [@](#): > > An America ruled by a king or a fascist dictatorship or a communist dictatorship or an established church or any other system **would still be America.** And an America divided into 50 independent republics would still be a single nation, just as Classical Greece was a nation although it was never politically unified until the Romans conquered it. Nations are not immortal, but they do last much longer than, **and have an identity apart from,** their constitutions and regimes and political systems. Here’s where I strongly disagree with you. The day that the USA is ruled by a fascist dictator or a king is the day America ceases to exist. Oh, sure, it may live on as a nation-state. But the USA, more than any other country is defined by the ideals that helped bring it into existence and sustain it today. > [@](#): > > We stick with liberal republican government because it is, in fact, the best of all political systems humanity has yet tried, and it works for us; but that doesn’t mean it’s what defines us as a nation, nor that it can’t be improved upon. Disagree - it can be argued that it **does** define who we are as a nation. I’ll agree that it’s possible our system can be improved upon. But here’s the kicker - if it is improved, it will be improved through the political/instrutional frameworks initially established by the founding fathers and built upon by those that have come after (this includes us). A Communist revolution on the order of establihsing a USSR taking place in the US, for example, will destroy any semblence of America as a nation. The name may live on, but the mythos will be destroyed (to be replaced by another mythos). > [@](#): > > And it **certainly** doesn’t mean we have some kind of obligation to spread liberal republican government to the whole world. I agree that we don’t necessarily have an obligation to spread liberal republican government to the rest of the world. Again, I think this aspect of the neoconservative movement is misguided (trying to spread democracy by force). Instead, we should set an example to other countries around the world the benefits of a liberal republican government. > [@](#): > > We are, indeed, the greatest, richest, and most powerful country on earth – at the moment. **But we ain’t so damned special!** In one sense you are right; however, I think the US **is** special in a lot of ways. Historians will look back in a thousand years and pick apart the good and the bad. But I think what will resonate with the people of the future will be the ideals that Americans put into practice (imperfect though they have been). ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/27 "2004-08-02T09:57:53Z")
We are and always have been an isolationist country with a drive towards manifest destiny. We have and always will represent the lowest common denominator, the primary example of which is the Commander in Thief. We may have more resources currently, but our legacy for the past fifty years is being the biggest blowhard of a country, always trying to intimidate everyone else into doing things our way. Rah, rah, rah. Go team. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/28 "2004-08-02T12:34:47Z")
Thank you professor Chomsky. Here’s your thorazine milkshake. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/29 "2004-08-02T14:43:57Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > I can agree that scraping the entire constitution and replacing it with almost anything else would not change the desires of most Americans. I did, not long ago, start a thread on replacing the Constitution ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262577](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262577)), but I never suggested that would change anybody’s **desires.** When we replaced the Articles of Confederation with the 1789 Constitution, that did not change anyone’s desires, did it? It merely created different mechanisms by which the people’s desires could be translated into public policy (or not). > [@pervert](#): > > If you want to suggest that any American policy is particularly racist please bring more substantive argument than “they sound the same, same bullshit different actors.” You miss the point. A multiracial American government sent a multiracial army to invade Iraq. We have abandoned the idea of **racial** imperialism but we are still infected with **cultural** imperialism – the idea that we are the **real** people and everybody else should be given a chance to be like us. > [@pervert](#): > > Perhaps then, you need to provide a definition of American exceptionalism by someone who believes in it. I have no idea whatsoever what uniquely unique is or how it is different from unique. As I understand the idea, American Exceptionalism is simply the notion that America is different combined with an appreciation or preference for that difference. What would be different about someone from France prefering to live in France. It’s something different from ordinary nationalism or patriotism, **pervert.** It is not just a sense of national uniqueness, but of national superiority. From the Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American\_exceptionalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism)): > [@](#): > > **American exceptionalism** is a term given to the belief that the United States of America and the American people hold a special place in the world, by offering opportunity and hope for humanity, derived from its unique balance of public and private interests governed by constitutional ideals that are focused on personal and economic freedom. > > The phrase is thought to have originated by Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book _Democracy in America._ Some interpret the term to indicate a moral superiority of Americans, while others use it to refer to the American concept as itself an exceptional ideal which may or may not always be upheld by the actual people and government of the nation. Dissenters to the above view claim “American exceptionalism” is little more than crude propaganda, that in essence is a justification for a chauvinistic America-centered view of the world. > > \ > > **Arguments for American exceptionalism** > > Those who believe in American exceptionalism argue that there are many ways that the United States clearly differs from the European world that it emerged from. > > **Political ethos and ideas about nationhood** > > Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the U.S. is unique in that it was founded on a set of ideals, rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruler. In the words of President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, America is a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. In this view, being American is inextricably connected with loving and defending freedom and equal opportunity. As such, America has often acted to promote these ideals abroad, most notably in the First and Second World Wars and in the Cold War. Critics argue that the U.S. Government’s policy in these conflicts was more motivated by economic or military self-interest; most observers admit both the idealistic and the self-interested motivations, to varying degrees. > > \ > > **Opportunity and meritocracy** > > The U.S. is nicknamed the “Land of Opportunity”. It has traditionally had less rigid social classes than other nations, and has no system of nobility. Americans have tended to believe that a strong work ethic and personal fortitude is the key to success, rather than being born to the right family or making the right friends. Critics argue that while America may have no formal aristocracy, one does exist in practice, and while it may have as part of its national character a myth of meritocracy, privilege and social stratification are just as strong there as anywhere else. > > \ > > **Arguments against American exceptionalism** > > Opponents of the notion of American exceptionalism argue that, while all societies differ in their history and social structures, the notion that the United States is uniquely virtuous overstates the importance of differences between American and other present-day First World countries. It ignores aspects of American history and society that contradict ideals of freedom and equality, such as slavery, segregation of schools in the South, the annexation by force of the Hawaiian islands, McCarthyism, the poverty and sometimes ghettoisation of millions of citizens, the unequal quality of health care and education, and the genocide and displacement of the Native American population. Proponents of American exceptionalism counter that these examples indeed show the failure of America to live up to its putative ideals, but that on the strength of those ideals, later generations of Americans have admitted these errors and have made attempts to redress them, through programs such as affirmative action. > > A typical argument against the American exceptionalist position is to identify positive qualities in specific other countries that correspond to allegedly unique qualities of the United States. These arguments are seldom convincing to proponents, who reply that the historical uniqueness of the United States is the result of a combination of many factors and not captured by particular aspects of the national character. > [@pervert](#): > > I may have missed a briefing (I’m not really a neocon, I just play on on the internet) but I have not seen good evidence that neocons are promoting anything but freedom, prosperity and safety for the world as a whole. And I should add, that I have not seen good evidence that their methods are particularly nefarious :eek: **pervert,** what country have you been living in – what planet have you been living on – for the past three years? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/30 "2004-08-02T15:20:40Z")
> [@eponymous](#): > > The day that the USA is ruled by a fascist dictator or a king is the day America ceases to exist. Oh, sure, it may live on as a nation-state. But the USA, more than any other country is defined by the ideals that helped bring it into existence and sustain it today. > > \ > > Disagree - it can be argued that it **does** define who we are as a nation. I’ll agree that it’s possible our system can be improved upon. But here’s the kicker - if it is improved, it will be improved through the political/instrutional frameworks initially established by the founding fathers and built upon by those that have come after (this includes us). A Communist revolution on the order of establihsing a USSR taking place in the US, for example, will destroy any semblence of America as a nation. The name may live on, but the mythos will be destroyed (to be replaced by another mythos). Please do not confuse the **American nation** with the **United States of America.** The first is a people and culture, the second is a government. The nation of Russia existed before the Communist revolution. It continued to exist under Communist rule, within the larger USSR. And now that the USSR is no more, Russia continues to exist. The nation of Poland was partitioned by foreign powers in the late 18th Century and did not re-emerge as an independent state until after WWI. Nevertheless, Poland continued to exist, as a nation, for all that time – otherwise it could not have been resurrected as a state. The American nation existed, under monarchical rule (usually rather indifferent rule), for at least a century before we won independence from Britain. It existed under the Articles of Confederation and under the 1789 Constitution. It has continued to exist through all the social and political changes – emancipation of women and blacks, extension of voting rights to the propertyless of both genders and all races, legalization of homosexuality, creation of the New Deal welfare state, centralization of more and more government functions in Washington, acceptance and assimilation of tens of millions of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants and even nonwhite immigrants – which frankly would have horrified our Founding Fathers to no end. And it will continue to exist, no matter how we evolve (or devolve, or just plain mutate) politically or socially in the future. Nations are not immortal but they live a long time, usually much longer than their governments and even longer than their political cultures. The British nation is in party defined by its political culture – but how much does that culture have in common, really, with British political culture as it was at the time of the first Parliament or the signing of the Magna Carta? As George Orwell wrote in _The Lion and the Unicorn,_ “What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.” And, in predicting a postwar socialist transformation of Britain (which didn’t happen, but to many intelligent Brits it seemed a reasonble expectation at the time): > [@](#): > > This war, unless we are defeated, will wipe out most of the existing class privileges. There are every day fewer people who wish them to continue. Nor need we fear that as the pattern changes life in England will lose its peculiar flavour. The new red cities of Greater London are crude enough, but these things are only the rash that accompanies a change. In whatever shape England emerges from the war, it will be deeply tinged with the characteristics I have spoken of earlier. The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianised or Germanised will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred for uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies. It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be turned into children’s holiday camps, the Eton and Harrow match will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same. And he was right! That is, if the socialist revolution he expected had come to pass, England would have remained England. And if some such revolution (whether violent or electoral) happened here in America, America would remain America. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/31 "2004-08-02T15:32:08Z")
I am probably wrong, but i have always understood the term “American Exceptionalism” to mean the somewhat narrow concept that the U.S. is unique in that, unlike other advanced countries, it has never really had a viable Socialist party. ---
**Author:** ![TheRight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@TheRight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheRight)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/32 "2004-08-02T15:57:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > This poem kept running through my mind when U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq. “Now this is the road that the White Men tread / When they go to clean a land . . .” Yeah, it’s really clean now, isn’t it? :mad: 1. I don’t mean to pick on this post in particular, it’s merely typical of a mindset that I find disturbing. Pick a misguided quote from a conservative about a century ago, and insinuate that this is the sort of thinking guiding decisions today. The “Right” in American politics has drifted considerably to the left since Kipling’s days, and it’s a good thing. I would argue that the current “hard right” would at best be moderately left of traditional Gladstonian “liberalism” of Kipling’s day… 2. As far as American uniqueness, there IS a fundamental difference between us and any other nation out there. At its root the relationship of Americans to their government is a proprietary one - the government exists at our whim, and it exists to serve us. When it fails to do so, or it tramples on our “natural” rights, it loses any claim to legitimacy. This is an attitude deeply ingrained in Americans, and it forms a core of our cultural beliefs. The same is not true in Europe where, despite pretty words and theories to the contrary, the baseline relationship of the government to the citizen is much more paternalistic and authoritarian. Put briefly, Euros on the whole will put up with a great deal more intevention from their governments than would ever be tolerated in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Boy\_Scout11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f08c70/32.png) [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/33 "2004-08-02T16:06:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hit “submit” by mistake . . . > > As I was saying: The doctrine of “American exceptionalism” asserts that America is different in kind from all other nations. Ideas like “manifest destiny” and the neocons’ vision of our role in the world depend, to some extent, on American exceptionalism; but, as you say, the idea precedes them and does not necessarily imply them. I agree. The point I am making is that the original idea, American exceptionalism **as such,** is fundamentally wrong. * * * Don’t many in this nation claim, that we must be exceptional. because so many wish to come to this nation and does that not contribute to that thinking, even if the dichotomies set up within the system create that false illusion, depending? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/34 "2004-08-02T16:11:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You miss the point. A multiracial American government sent a multiracial army to invade Iraq. We have abandoned the idea of **racial** imperialism but we are still infected with **cultural** imperialism – the idea that we are the **real** people and everybody else should be given a chance to be like us. But this is a fundamentally flawed interpretation of events. No one has said that Iraq must emerge some sort of middle east America. Not in any reasonable sense of that word anyway. No one has claimed that Iraq must establish all or even many of the exact same institutions that we have here. What has been said is that Saddam had to go, and the Iraqi people must determine for themselves how to form thier own government after that. Your contention that we are forming some sort of little America by force is just silly. > [@](#): > > It’s something different from ordinary nationalism or patriotism, **pervert.** It is not just a sense of national uniqueness, but of national superiority. Quite. I said, a celebration or preference for the identified uniqueness. I’m sure many cultures have similar notions. > [@](#): > > :eek: **pervert,** what country have you been living in – what planet have you been living on – for the past three years? Well, go back into the ask the neocon thread, look at the documents prepared by the neocons linked to there, and show me where your nefarious motives can be discovered. I’ll admit that I am not an expert on this subject, but it seems to me you have to believe neocon detractors to ascribe nefarious motives to them. You have to swallow the detractors version of American Exceptionalism whole and take it several steps farther to get to your position. I’m sorry, I realize it is fashionable to claim that America is establishing an empire in the same way that Rome, England, or Alexander did. But this seems, to me, to miss fundemental differences. I agree entirely that were America to spread by force the market for Madona or Coke this would be reprehensible. But the only thing we’ve done in the last 3 years is remove some very nasty people from power and allow those subjugated the opportunity to determine for themselves how they will run their own lives. History may tell a different story. When the full tale of Afghanistan and Iraq are viewed from history, there may indeed be imperialistic overtones. But it is just silly to equate American actions there with Soviet actions in Hungary, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/35 "2004-08-02T16:37:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > In this thread (“Ask the Neo-Con” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268701](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268701)) – **Captain Amazing** and some others have been arguing for the neoconservative position: That the United States should be spreading our liberal republican form of government around the world by force of arms. > > Sound familiar? The Soviet Communists thought it was their duty to spread and/or support Marxist proletarian revolution throughout the world, even in countries like Ethiopia and Angola where the USSR had no obvious material or strategic interests. We all know how that worked out. > > What really disturbs me about the neocon way of thinking is that it is bound up with the fundamentally misconceived tradition of “American exceptionalism,” the idea that the U.S. is not like other countries, that we are a “City on a Hill,” that we have some special messianic role to play in the world, in spreading the “American creed,” whether that creed or role is chiefly defined by republican government or free-market capitalism or Protestant Christianity. > > No matter how we define it, it’s all bullshit, and we need to throw it over the side, once and for all. > _\_ > > And it **certainly** doesn’t mean we have some kind of obligation to spread liberal republican government to the whole world. We are, indeed, the greatest, richest, and most powerful country on earth – at the moment. **But we ain’t so damned special!** > > Does anyone care to argue the contrary? I don’t understand. Above you are arguing that America should **not** do much of anything about the affairs of other countries. But in the thread to which you linked: > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@Lemur866](#): > > > > So do you support sending troops to Sudan, or not? Why? > > Yes, because: > > 1. Thousands are being murdered. (Same reason we should have intervened in Rwanda.) > > 2. We could intervene effectively with a definite exit strategy: Secure the independence of the southern half of the country, and make it clear any attempt by the North to retake it will not be tolerated. We could then maintain that status quo with only a temporary token troop presence. > > 3. Intervention in Sudan would not detract from our international credibility because there is no obvious way such an intervention would benefit any U.S. business interests. You seem to be contradicting yourself. We shouldn’t feel obligated to clean up anyone else’s government, unless it is the Sudan or Rwanda. If there is nothing special about America, why are you arguing that the US should intervene in the Sudan and Rwanda, instead of, say, the French? If no one else is going to do anything, why should the US lift a finger? If, in fact, there is nothing special about the US that would compel us to do so. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/36 "2004-08-02T17:28:17Z")
I tend to agree with **eponymous** that the US is an idea-state as much as it is a nation-state. While the US might remain recognizably _American_ under a totalitarian government or as an theocratic empire, to a great many Americans (and others, I suppose) there would be an incredible loss of what made us us - a rejection of certain ideals which, though there interpretation and application have evolved substantially over the years, have remained constant at least in the abstract. Greece in Homeric, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern times may be recognizable as “Greek” from an external or modern point of view but what do they have in common other than a nominally common language, geography, and ethnicity? Would a region of seven independent nations over the area currently occupied by China still be China? How long before the parts become their own nations? (Will Taiwan ever be its own nation?) Is Austria a nation (or just a truncated German statelet)? Were Prussia, Bavaria, and the Rhineland all inevitably part of the German nation-state? Is Switzerland a nation? Belgium? Belarus? Are the US, Australia, NZ, Canada, and South Africa (and any other ex British settler states I may have omitted) all doomed to rejoin the UK as part of the same nation? When did France become a nation? Are the Basque regions part of the Spanish nation? Was a Burgundian nation ever a possibility? Historians may agree that the 13 colonies had a separate culture from GB well before the revolution - but would the colonists have agreed? Was there a single culture on this side of the Atlantic? Which side of the Atlantic diverged from the common starting point? ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/37 "2004-08-02T18:54:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Please do not confuse the **American nation** with the **United States of America.** The first is a people and culture, the second is a government. I am well aware of the distinction between a nation and a government. But I think it’s you who are somewhat confused. What I mean is that, unlike many other countries, what distinguishes America as a **nation** is based on how it came into existence (revolution), how its government and political institutions were formed (democratic respresentative republic, seperation of powers, constitution & bill of rights), and how well (or badly) we have lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (Civil War, Civil Rights, etc.) > [@](#): > > The American nation existed, under monarchical rule (usually rather indifferent rule), for at least a century before we won independence from Britain. Sorry - disagree. There was no singular “American” nation that existed prior to independence. A strong argument could be made that it was British - an extension of a nation already in existence. Another argument could be made of 13 seperate nations prior to the American revolution - after all, many of our forefathers more strongly identified themselves with the states from which they came. > [@](#): > > It existed under the Articles of Confederation and under the 1789 Constitution. Two key elements that helped bring out the idea of America as America (or America as a NATION) was the American Revolution (a historical event unlike any other in history at the time) and the ratification of the Constitution (the political framework for our country). If the Articles of Confederation were still the abiding framework for our government and political institutions, we would most definetely NOT be American (as a nation) but a collection of “nations” (Virginians, Californians, Texans, Ohioans, etc.) bound by a governmental/political framework. We, as a nation-state (The United States of America) fought a civil war that firmly solidifed the notion that we were one people (an American NATION) based on the principles laid out by our founding fathers and codified in our Constitution. > [@](#): > > It has continued to exist through all the social and political changes – emancipation of women and blacks, extension of voting rights to the propertyless of both genders and all races, legalization of homosexuality, creation of the New Deal welfare state, centralization of more and more government functions in Washington, acceptance and assimilation of tens of millions of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants and even nonwhite immigrants – which frankly would have horrified our Founding Fathers to no end. And here you help make my argument! In other words, what makes a Jew from Eastern Europe, A WASP with forebears from the Mayflower, a Hispanic living in Texas who speaks no English, a lesbian athiest from Berkeley, California, a “skinny kid with a funny name” whose parents were from Africa - what makes all of these people American? By virtue of the fact that they all happen to live in the nation-state called the United States of America? Or is it rather the “ideas” from which this nation-state was formed and live on in the beliefs of people today? Again, I think it more useful to use the term state-nation rather than nation-state to reflect how we, as Americans, have become a nation (country came first, identity came later; much different from others - identity came first, country came later). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/38 "2004-08-02T19:03:47Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > I am probably wrong, but i have always understood the term “American Exceptionalism” to mean the somewhat narrow concept that the U.S. is unique in that, unlike other advanced countries, it has never really had a viable Socialist party. That is what **Marxists** mean by “American exceptionalism,” but the term is used by other commentators in other ways (see above). Again, from the Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > In Marxist theory, American exceptionalism refers to the proposition that there is something unique about American society that makes it especially resistant to socialism and attempts to explain why the labor movement in the United States is weaker than in other industrialized states and why a mass labour or social democratic party never developed. Explanations for why the US has been exceptional in this regard usually focus on geography, history or sociological explanations. One common explanation is that the in the United States the democratization of government and manhood suffrage occurred before the Industrial Revolution while in Europe, it occurred afterwords. As a result, it is argued that division between labor and capital in the United States did not map itself onto preexisting class structures, making class struggle less pronounced in the United States than in Europe. > > In Marxist theory, the claim denotes an attempt to explain why socialist movements never became a mass phenomenon in the United States which, alone in the western world, does not have a major Labour Party. Proponents of the American exceptionalist theory such as former Communist Party USA leader Jay Lovestone argue that capitalism is more firmly established in the United States for various reasons and that the class struggle is at a lower intensity. Therefore socialists in the US must pursue more moderate methods such as collaborating with bourgeois forces and institutions, in order to put forward a progressive agenda. (I am not a Marxist, by the way. A socialist, but not a Marxist. But that’s another discussion.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/39 "2004-08-02T19:16:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If there is nothing special about America, why are you arguing that the US should intervene in the Sudan and Rwanda, instead of, say, the French? I never said I was opposed to American military intervention abroad on principle, only that I reject the notion of any special American mission in the world. We just need to pick and choose carefully. Sometimes we can beneficially intervene, and at relatively little cost to our own interests. And sometimes we can make a justifiable case for intervention purely in our own interests. If I had been president after 9/11/01, I think I would have invaded Afghanistan, just for the sake of eliminating al-Qaeda’s main base of operations; benefits to the Afghan people would have been a secondary consideration – but not to be disregarded entirely, as the Bush Admin seems to have done. But I would **not** have invaded Iraq, because we did not need to do that to defend ourselves, and the costs would be enormous, and the benefits to the Iraqi people very uncertain. Which is, now, proving to be the case. What we see happening there now is much like what happened when the Yugoslavian government fell: A brutal dictatorship, which was at least capable of keeping the lid on ethnic and religious hatreds, has been removed, and now all those forces are coming to the surface. We should have left bad enough alone. In the case of Rwanda, I think our intervention might have saved lives – changing the government would be a secondary consideration. Likewise in the case of the Sudan – but I’m not entirely convinced ( **Tamerlane** corrected me on certain important facts), and I have started a GD thread to discuss that issue ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269291](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269291)). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886/40 "2004-08-02T19:27:49Z")
Here’s another interesting discussion of the AE idea: From a review, by Michael Lind (yes, him again!), in _Foreign Affairs,_ March/April 1996 ([http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960301fareviewessay4193/michael-lind/the-american-creed-does-it-matter-should-it-change.html](http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960301fareviewessay4193/michael-lind/the-american-creed-does-it-matter-should-it-change.html)), of _American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword,_ by Seymour Martin Lipset (W.W. Norton, 1996): > [@](#): > > That the United States is different is the argument that links the diverse essays in Seymour Martin Lipset’s book. “America continues to be qualitatively different” from other advanced industrial nations, Lipset writes. “It is the most religious, optimistic, patriotic, rights-oriented, and individualistic. With respect to crime, it still has the highest rates; with respect to incarceration, it has the most people locked up in jail. . . . It also has close to the lowest percentage of the eligible electorate voting, but the highest rate of participation in voluntary organizations. . . . It is the leader in upward mobility into professional and other high-status and elite occupations, but the least egalitarian among developed nations with respect to income distribution, at the bottom as a provider of welfare benefits, the lowest in savings, the least taxed, close to the top in terms of commitment to work rather than leisure.” Lipset makes the important observation “that various seemingly contradictory aspects of American society are intimately related. The lack of respect for authority, anti-elitism, and populism contribute to higher crime rates, school undiscipline, and low electoral turnouts. The emphasis on achievement, on meritocracy, is also tied to higher levels of deviant behavior and less support for the underprivileged.” > > \ > > In American Exceptionalism, as in his previous studies on the subject, Lipset relies heavily on cross-national comparisons to prove that the United States is an “outlier” compared with a supposed European/East Asian norm. “European countries, Canada and Japan,” he writes, “have placed greater emphasis on obedience to political authority and on deference to superiors.” His own data, however, undermine his argument. “While America collected 31 percent of its GDP in tax revenues in 1991, other countries such as Sweden (52%), Holland (48%), Belgium (40%), and the United Kingdom (36%) were taxed at higher levels,” Lipset notes. Why not put Britain together with the United States in the low-tax category? Similarly, Lipset writes, “As of the early nineties, overwhelming majorities, 87 percent of West Germans, 86 percent of Italians, and 75 percent of Britons, believe in levying higher taxes on the rich to produce greater income equality, as compared to a much smaller majority, only 74 percent, of Americans.” The American majority on this issue is hardly “much smaller” than the British–the difference is one percentage point. **The cultural gap appears to be greatest not across the Atlantic but across the English Channel.** > > More important, Lipset exaggerates the role of the American Creed in explaining why the United States is the way it is. America does have a distinctive political culture, characterized by a high degree of individualism and antistatism. **But political culture–American, Japanese, or any other–is as much a response to social institutions and public policies as an explanation for them.** In a sustained comparison of the United States and Japan, Lipset observes that “Japanese clearly exhibit much stronger ties to their employers than Americans do.” Is this a result of some ancient Japanese cultural heritage or a reaction to the practice of lifetime employment that Japanese corporations adopted in the face of labor strife immediately after World War II? Conversely, in this era of downsizing, the attitudes of Americans toward their employers more likely reflect a rational assessment of the insecurity of their tenure than a tradition of American bourgeois individualism going back to the Founding Fathers. In the 1950s this same American culture exhibited a more “Japanese” relationship between large companies and their workers. And a supposedly consensual Japanese political culture was invoked to explain one-party rule and bossism in that country–until the recent appearance of multiparty politics and charismatic leadership. > > Lipset also draws attention to the low and declining levels of voter participation in the United States, as though they were somehow an inevitable result of American political culture. **He does not consider that they are a response to the voter registration regulations imposed by early-twentieth-century Progressives (who wanted lower turnout by the less educated and less wealthy) and to the penalty imposed on third parties by the first-past-the-post electoral system the United States shares with Britain.** Reforms such as easy, same-day voter registration, weekend voting, and proportional representation might not bring U.S. voter participation levels up to First World norms–but then again, they just might. > > Much of the difference in aggregate public spending between the United States and other English-speaking democracies, which Lipset cites to prove American exceptionalism, results from a single factor: the absence of universal health care in the United States. Lipset does not take into account the tax subsidies in health care and other areas which, many argue, constitute an “invisible welfare state” that is relatively generous to the affluent and the middle class, if not the poor, in the United States. At any rate, **if the United States could move dramatically closer to the statistical norm of developed countries by passing merely a single piece of legislation, how deep-rooted can American exceptionalism be?** > > \ > > Lipset concedes that American exceptionalism has not prevented the United States from adopting many institutions, from federal welfare to an enormous peacetime military establishment, that were once thought utterly un-American. He admits that “major changes have occurred which have modified the original American Creed, with its suspicion of the state and its emphasis on individual rights. These include the introduction of a planning–welfare state emphasis in the 1930s, accompanied initially by greater class-consciousness and trade union growth, and the focus on ethnic, racial, and gender group rights which emerged in the 1960s.” Meanwhile, Lipset acknowledges, the “statist” European nations are becoming more liberal in many respects: “The United States is less exceptional as other nations develop and Americanize. But, given the structural convergences in economy and ecology, the extent to which it [the United States] is still unique is astonishing.” **What is really astonishing is that a multiracial, continental country of 265 million people with a history of slavery and segregation should match the characteristics of relatively small, homogeneous European and Asian nation-states as closely as it does.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-jettison-american-exceptionalism-once-and-for-all/257886.md?page=3)