| American Exceptionalism |
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| Written by Administrator | |
| Friday, 16 July 2010 20:48 | |
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American Exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is special. Do you agree with that? How about you as an individual? Are you special? We all are, of course. But if everyone is special then no one is special, are they? Or, … is someone like President Obama or Queen Elizabeth II or the Dalai Lama special in a way that the rest of us aren’t? And, if they are special, is the United States special in a similar way? It seems doubtful that such questions have scientific answers. There are also those who object to the idea of American Exceptionalism. They say it is self-serving. They say it is arrogant. They say it’s intended to denigrate other nations or used to justify anything and everything ever done by the United States. But exceptional doesn’t have to mean better in every way. An exceptional student may still grow up to be a criminal. But neither is an exceptional student one that excels at field trip attendance, pep rally cheering or returning books to the library on time. Exceptionalism means achievement or distinction in something that is of particular importance. American Exceptionalism is an idea usually attributed to the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville. Toqueville and another man were sent by the French government in 1831 to study the American prison system. But they took notes on everything they saw from which Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America. For Tocqueville, American Exceptionalism meant the success of the American political experiment in representative democracy. It was a remarkable achievement because it had never been done before, especially on such a large scale. All previous efforts at self-government had been short-lived and hadn’t worked very well, even in the fabled Greek city-states where democracy was invented. But it is said that no other than Joseph Stalin actually first used the term “American Exceptionalism.” He did so while calling it a “heresy” advanced by fellow communists who used it as an excuse for failing to make the same inroads into American society and culture as had been made in other nations. It turns out that President Obama had something to say about American Exceptionalism, which was this:
President Obama was slammed for this statement, it being said that it showed that he does not actually believe in American Exceptionalism, that the President thinks that America is no more exceptional than Britain or Greece. This quote is not on the White House website, by the way, but I was able to track it down elsewhere as part of a news conference held by the President in Strasbourg, France on April 4th of 2009. Here is the question the President was responding to, from Ed Luce of The Financial Times:
So we see here, firstly, that the question is coming from a European, in Europe, and in the context, specifically, of America’s role as a world leader and with reference to previous US Presidents’ viewpoints. The answer given by President Obama was therefore a political one for the specific political circumstances. And quite a good one probably. But, wait, there’s more. Like him or not, agree with his policies or not, the President went on to say:
This seems the right approach to the idea of American Exceptionalism. The facts are that the United States is exceptional. History has now shown that reason and right are on the side of both government by consent of the governed – democracy – as well as the principle that governments are instituted for the specific purpose of securing human rights. The majority is not entitled to do anything it wants just because it is the majority. Has our nation always lived up to these ideals? No. But it has not gone so completely off the rails as to wreck itself and the rest of world either. As former President Clinton said:
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