American exceptionalism

Note: This appeared as the weekend op-ed in my paper.

Last April President Obama made some remarks about the idea of American exceptionalism, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

These remarks were immediately taken out of context by some to mean he was making light of America’s considerable accomplishments.

But anyone who listened further would have heard, “I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world… And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

It is clear that Obama does believe America is in some way an exceptional country, though he has in the past admitted that like a great many Americans he finds it hard to articulate why.

Claims of American exceptionalism are viewed with suspicion by some Americans, and resentment by some foreigners, because they take it as a synonym for “arrogant,” and indeed our president has done a fair amount of apologizing around the globe for American arrogance.

But if you spend any time abroad, you’ll realize that not only Americans view America as an exception among nations.

For one thing, you can choose to become an American. That’s true of very few other nations where you are born what you are and that’s that. That’s what has made this country a magnet for those who sensed there was something more for them here than a life at the bottom of “the natural order of things.”

Our American identity is based not on ancestry, but on our relationship to a body of political literature. It’s very loosely-defined but certainly includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist, and some of the great inaugural addresses of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

I have heard second-generation Americans quite un-selfconsciously refer to “our” Revolution, and “our” Civil War. And of course they’re right.

America is remarkable in terms of the continuity of its political institutions. Though young as a culture, our elections and succession of offices have been ticking over like clockwork, uninterrupted by war and crisis for two-and-a-quarter centuries now.

In that same length of time France has had five republics, two kingdoms and an empire. China fell into chaos and rose again to overshadow the world, and the mighty Soviet Union rose and then vanished, leaving only a legacy of horror.

This is indeed an exceptional country, brought into being by a unique set of historical circumstances that are not likely to be repeated.

And yet there is something arrogant about out assumption of exceptionalism, a dangerous arrogance.

Americans seem to assume that America is eternal, and immune to the kind of disasters that have overwhelmed countless other nations in the past.

And oddly enough, this is an assumption shared by a great many foreigners as well. People I’ve met in nations where they are grimly aware that their own national survival is precarious, nonetheless seem to assume that America will always be there to run to.

Very few Americans really believe that we could spend ourselves broke and decline to the status of another big second-world country. Hardly anybody believes we could be rent by sectional divisions, or drastic changes in population demographics and break apart – in spite of the fact that it very nearly happened here once. Few believe deep down, in spite of overheated rhetoric, that we could loose our liberty from conquest, coup d’etat, or just the slow decline of an enervated and apathetic population.

And yet, why not? Why are we any different from the Etruscans, the Lusitanians, or the Confederation of Poland/Lithuania?

Is that arrogance our secret weakness, our Achilles heel? I often wonder if any American can appreciate their own nation the way a Pole or a Lithuanian appreciates their own, after the experience of nearly losing it forever?

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