American Exceptionalism – A Double-Edged Word

Interestingly, while insistent that the USA is more democratic than any other country, the National Review is also partial to the line that the USA is a republic, not a democracy, which is important when justifying restrictions on the right to vote.

As with “people’s democratic republics”, the “republic” bit is needed to ensure that a truly democratic government represents the genuine Will of the American People, rather than the transient preference of a mere majority (who might, for example, be Democrats).

When I visited the Dominican Republic this past winter, I discovered a narrative of that nation’s history (which I gather is taught) that holds that its patriots thwarted the U.S. when we intervened militarily in 1965.

I remember reading a book that had excerpts from school textbooks from foreign countries on American events throughout history – like a British textbook bit on the American Revolution, and even an honest-to-god excerpt from a North Korean textbook about the Korean War. Lots of interesting stuff like this.

Thats consistent. They think every other nation is even worse. They just dont trust even the must basic social contract to hold up under any pressure in general. In the sky is falling Tv genre for example, other countries if mentioned at all are in evenworse shape.

@Antoine

Looking at it from the outside I’d say that American exceptionalism is easily counterbalanced in the America itself by its opposite, the constant demonization of the United States…

It’s a rare progressive blog in whose comments section you can’t get an up-vote, or whatever, for making the argument that the U.S. is, in fact, the Focus of Evil in the Modern World. Pointing out that this is, in fact, also a species of American exceptionalism doesn’t seem to advance the discussion, though. Threads full of “Uh-huh, we’re waaaaaay more evil than that…”

It’s been particularly commonplace lately. Many full-throated defenses of Putin’s adventurism I read in Ukraine eventually reduce to this proposition, before disappearing entirely into repetitive sotto voce chanting of “Victoria Nuland… Victorial Nuland…”

IIRC “ordered liberty” is a legal term of art, at least in constitutional law… 14rh Amendiment incorporation doctrine and theory… and that raises the prospect of it actually being a shibboleth.

Palko v. Connecticut is where I remember it from…

But that was long ago, in another country and besides, the wench hornbook is dead.

Supremacism might be charged with too much of a racial component or connotation to properly capture the essence of the idea. Wish I had just the right word as a substitute.

I think this kind of ‘comparison-with-nothing’ is a common thing in sloppy history writing, and Kurtz has elevated it to a principle. For example, a book on the economic history of Safavid Iran (1501-1722) I read years ago claimed that the Safavid social/political system stifled innovation and investment. The author didn’t seem to realize that this statement is meaningless without some specific point of comparison–chronological (vs, say, the 1370-1501 period) or geographical. The statement wasn’t clearly framed as comparative, rather than absolute–it was presented as a historical fact that could be asserted without a solid comparative framework. But as an absolute statement, it’s patently wrong (as this historian surely knew–the Safavid period saw recovery from the civil wars & famines of the late 15th c., major developments in the arts and philosophy…), so the only way to make sense of it is as comparative. But then it is meaningless outside of a clear comparative framework–you could say about any society that certain aspects of the social/political system stifle investment and innovation. I think what the ‘comparison-with-nothing’ got this particular writer (or the previous writers he inherited it from) was to be able to attribute the “slow” economic growth of Safavid Iran to internal factors of political culture (that, implicitly, did not exist in W. Europe), whereas really fleshing out a comparison with, say, France, would force the historian to consider the role of other differences, like France’s commercial expansion into the western hemisphere. Maybe a reason for this is that the historian in question, Willem Floor (whose work is pretty good & important), was an independent scholar whose formal employment was at (IIRC) the World Bank, and so was used to thinking in terms of autonomous nation states or something similar as the relevant economic actors, rather than in terms of a balance between different social groups within a geographically larger scene. (i.e. I doubt Floor thought of this comparison-without-comparative-framework as an ideological choice.)

Anyway, I think one could say something about “conservative thought” being a contradiction in terms, because what makes such conservative intellectual tendencies conservative is a kind of willingly-lazy unwillingness to improve on faulty assumptions & thought patterns when doing so would threaten a cherished hierarchy.

America is the only nation founded on a creed? How about Saudi Arabia? Or North Korea? Frankly, founded on a creed doesn’t seem a particularly desirable quality.

I offer my own discussion of the (legitimate) meaning of American Exceptionalism — and its’ more exceptional than Obama’s exceptionalism:
http://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/american-exceptionalism/

Antoine @6: Looking at it from the outside I’d say that American exceptionalism is easily counterbalanced in the America itself by its opposite , the constant demonization of the United States , the paranoid vision of the U.S. as a totalitarian state and a social hellhole.

“Easily counterbalanced”? American exceptionalism is practically the national religion. No candidate for public office, except perhaps in enlightened Vermont, can forswear it. Any TV anchor who expressed a shadow of a doubt about it would be off the air the next day. By contrast, I can’t remember the last time I heard even the most marginal leftist call the US a totalitarian country. I’m sure someone somewhere has said such a thing, but I’m equally sure he or she isn’t even a molecule on the scale against American exceptionalism.

Davis X. @9: Again. I haven’t heard this allegedly omnipresent meme about the omnipotence and absolute evil of the US. I have, on the other hand, heard people point out that the US was overwhelmingly the most powerful state in the second half of the twentieth century, and so, outside the Communist world, not much happened against which we set our face. And those things that did happen against our will — in Chile, in Indonesia, in Indochina, in Central America — did so only at a terrible cost to those who did them.

American exceptionality often takes form in the refusing to admit that foreigners have agency, and that things that happen overseas either don’t happen, or happen only because we make them happen, or let them happen.

You can be The Indispensible Nation, or the Bearded-Spock Indispensible Nation. But you’re still the Indispensible Nation.

But, intellectually, ‘exceptional’ is a double-edged word. There is the scholar’s sense and the jingo’s sense. These are different enough that we can’t do without two words.

I noticed dealing with computer language standards, that if a word has two meanings and you want to clear things up by using two words, you need to use two new words and retire the original. If you try to redefine the original you will sow confusion.

So I would suggest

American supremacism as you do for one side, and
American Unusualness for the other.

America is one of the most unique nations on earth, except that so many other nations have copied us in so many ways.

;-)

And we’re so good at mining other nations’ customs for fashion and food etc.

American exceptionalism seems to be held up more as something to be reflexively applauded than as a concept which can be reduced to concrete meaning. Its most fervent proponents are also likely to be the most virulent critics of what America is today, or at least of what it is perceived to be becoming thanks to the progressive undermining of American institutions by “liberals”. It’s not exactly clear what this version of American exceptionalism consists of; the only expressions of what it means in practice tend to refer to World War 2 and the “greatest generation” (which is a little strange because I’m sure the people who think this way would have been appalled by Roosevelt’s New Deal socialism). But generally the expression seems to mean either an idealised set of values that float free of any particular institutions or people, or some frontier quality that only survives in pockets of the “real America”, or an imagined past America; not an existing reality. In this sense it held out as something America is that no other nation is, not something America has more of than anyone else.

Bianca: I’m not sure I follow you. By “American exceptionalism,” I meant pretty much what JH identified as “Theorem 1” in the OP: that is, the belief that “[the US is] a model, vindicator, and at times the chief defender of ordered liberty and self-government in the world.” (Though it’s important to note that most politicians, pundits, and talking heads leave out the “at times.”) I thought Antoine was saying that there are just as many Americans who say that the US is uniquely evil as there are who say that it’s uniquely good, which seems to me nonsense. And I thought Davis was saying that practically every progressive blog is populated by people who think the US is not only supremely evil but supremely powerful, which he seems to imply is as silly as saying that it’s supremely benevolent and idealistic. To which I replied (or meant to reply) that I don’t think that’s received wisdom on the left, in the caricatured form he proposes, but that the US was indeed uniquely powerful in the second half of the 20th century and was indeed responsible for vast suffering and oppression in the “Free World.”

Claude Fischer’s interesting discussion of American exceptionalism mainly concerns social history rather than foreign policy, which is what it’s usually applied to.

The NED and the CIA don’t actually represent threats to Russia of similar magnitude to the threat that the Russian military represents to its neighbors, do they?

That’s an o.k. proposition for debating purposes, but really?

geo:

I thought you were saying basically the same thing as John Holbo in the original post: if it’s jingoistic, we’d like to call it “American exceptionalism,” if it’s just factual, we want to call it something else. I see you were mostly objecting to the idea that the two sides were equal. I misread you as saying there was no one on the other side. I just don’t think that’s true. Suppose you’re reading a book by an English writer, with an argument that a written constitution is a bad idea, or a book by a French writer, arguing that common law is bad, or someone like Solzhenitsyn or Shaw saying Mark Twain is the worst writer ever. For a certain kind of left-leaning person, do they feel they ought to agree that the American institution or the American writer is bad, lest they have to feel they’re being jingoistic and right-wing? I think they often do, and that feeling gets explained as their determination not to be “exceptionalist” about the US.

Actually, I think that quote by kurtz perfectly demonstrates the right wing view of american exceptionalism, that america is an exceptional nation, the shining city upon the hill, and our duty is to preserve and defend it. This is contrasted with the left wing view that america is exceptional because it has the potential to become the shining city upon a hill, and our duty is to build it. combine those two with the less influential but highly persistent frontier narrative (screw you people, I’m going to go west and build my own damn city) and I’d say you have at least 80% of the ideological underpinnings of american politics.

31.A Imagine Russia arming, inciting and organizing a separatist movement in Michigan. Or northern Mexico. Think Canada is fully sovereign and free? They absolutely aren’t, and as an American you would think so.

If you ever ever think “Well, this is different because America (*or any American*) is the good guy.” you are not only buying into American exceptionalism but fully onboard the Imperialist Full Spectrum Dominance Global Project.

34:US is exceptional in lots of ways, including some good ones

And Mussolini made the trains run on time, Hitler liked dogs, and Hirohito was such a gentle man. To say anything good about America or particular Americans (except those who are dedicated to its complete destruction) is wicked.

Superhero movies are the/one opium of this particular evil empire. It’s smart and subtle, but wants the same and worse than any previous empire. It wants everyone and everything.

This is an insightful post!

I found the linked article by Kurtz very light on what is specifically wrong with the AP US History Framework, and rather heavy on the background of those who contributed to it. On lack of specific evidence alone, Kurtz is very unpersuasive.

Kurtz’s lack of specific references, and various claims as to the meaning of American exceptionalism (which is surely a highly contested term, and moreover one for which the range of possible meanings changes by context), adds to the confusion. Obviously I’d disagree with his description of American exceptionalism which has more plausible interpretations than what he undeservedly hung upon it.

This paragraph is the clearest statement I could find of his underlying objection:

A detailed analysis of the new AP U.S. History Framework is for another time.

[Really? An article making sweeping claims about the Framework isn’t the time? I was annoyed on reading this. Anyway the paragraph continues:]

Suffice it to say that in its downplaying of America’s traditional national story and emphasis instead on material causation and exploitation within the context of a transnational Atlantic World, the new AP U.S. History Framework is a huge step in the direction of precisely the sort of de-nationalized American history advocated by Thomas Bender and the La Pietra Report.

So charitably, to make sense of the problems he finds in the new Framework, we can separate his objection into two claims:

(1) the new Framework requires a narrative that contradicts American exceptionalism in all the “usual ways that some lefties do,” focusing too much on American crimes, too much on how other nations viewed the US, and scorning the traditional narrative of America as… well, it’s late, you get the picture;

(2) the new Framework encourages American students to think of the US as merely another nation, merely another province, nothing special, nothing worthy of particular allegiance, a geographic and political rest stop on the global highway, an entity superficial and unimportant to their identities.

So far as (1) is concerned, without specific evidence it is impossible to assess.

I think (2) is more interesting, though overstated. I do think it’s important, especially at the high school level, to teach US history as “our history”, to foster a sense of national identity. That includes the good and the bad of course. To make this explicit, Martin Luther King Jr. is the cultural heritage of every American, regardless of race or ethnicity, as is slavery; the triumphs of the framers of the Constitution are the cultural heritage of every American, regardless of race or ethnicity, as are their failures; the crimes and failings of the United States are the cultural heritage of every American, regardless of race or ethnicity.

That is, the story needs to be told as “our story” and not simply “a story.” I don’t think this is quite the same as just recognizing ways in which the US is different from other nations, and the ways in which it is the same.

In particular, to tell a story as “our story” is to include aspirational principles that, though continually and necessarily compromised by the imperfections of our world, inform a sense of who we are as a people and a nation. This does not mean we should be uncritical, but that we should be pragmatic in our framing and in our understanding. And by pragmatic, I don’t mean deceptive or untruthful – I mean pragmatic in a sense closer to that of philosophical pragmatism (speaking of American perspectives).

Of course, what is pragmatic here is contested. Obviously a viable narrative should not be false, nor deficient in evidence relative to another. Assuming those criteria satisfied though, there are still choices to make. Those most concerned about the dangers of jingoism may find certain narratives better; those who are most concerned about the dangers of losing a sense of shared national identity may find others better. Surely though there is a middle ground that can reasonably serve both. But whether the Framework tilts too far in one direction or another, failing as deficient in evidence or for other reasons, is impossible to say without looking at the Framework itself.

“Kicking up partisan dust” as JH puts it is exactly the right verdict on the article.

bob: If you ever ever think “Well, this is different because America … is the good guy,” you are … buying into American exceptionalism

Couldn’t agree more.

bob: To say anything good about America … is wicked.

Couldn’t disagree more, assuming you’re serious. (It’s often hard to be sure.) To start with the obvious: the landscape of the American West is exceptional. Even after the damming of the Columbia and the Colorado, the flooding of Hetch Hetchy and Glen Canyon, the strip mining of the Appalachians and the clear-cutting of the Cascades, the poisoning of the Everglades, and so much more mindless destruction, this is still probably the most beautiful country on earth. But more: as Noam Chomsky always says when someone in the audience asks him plaintively whether resistance to the Empire is still possible, the US is the freest country on earth — no thanks, of course, to our ruling classes but rather to a rich history of popular struggles by workers, feminists, students, blacks, journalists, consumer advocates, etc. It’s not just ungrateful to forget about those struggles or sell them short, it’s counter-productive. After all, if efforts to fight the power have invariably been unsuccessful, why bother to try again?

American Exceptionalism:
The belief that no matter how many foreign governments and their elections the US subverts; no matter how many baseless wars devastate no matter how many millions; no matter how many are tortured and imprisoned without cause for no matter how long; no matter how many non-white Americans populate the extreme lower classes and prisons: The Government of America would NEVER do anything so cruel, underhanded and deceptive to its own people.

Somewhat more seriously, I do think bianca steele and Davis X. Machina have a point, but I’m ultimately with geo on this one. Yes, there’s a problem with certain kinds of American leftists denying agency to non-American actors, especially ones in the global south. (Adam Schatz’s recent piece in the The Nation that in part dealt with this sort of thing was excellent, e.g.) And it is true that certain kinds of American leftists like or prefer non-American institutions and ways of doing things for no reason beyond the fact that they’re non-American.

Bu ultimately, geo’s point @21 seems unassailable to me. The US was indeed “overwhelmingly the most powerful state in the second half of the twentieth century,” and as such was capable of causing more harm than any other country in the world. Which… it did. And yes, that’s a certain sort of de facto exceptionalism. I suppose it comes with the territory of being “#1”. (By comparison, the British Empire was pretty fucking exceptional for a good century or more.)

“the US is the freest country on earth”

Please tell me how the US is more free than, to take one example, Canada?

“You can be The Indispensible Nation, or the Bearded-Spock Indispensible Nation. ”

Your agonizer, please, Mr. Machina.

I would say most countries have founding myths that stress national exceptionalism, I dont find that point particularly unusual. Has the US behaved badly as a major power ? Of course. What countries havent ? Which countries have behaved better ?(however that is measured) Which major powers have been less explicitly rapacious in their ‘imperialism’ ? Which have allowed the same space for economic and political development to occur (somewhat) independently from the core ?
The problems in developing countries that plagued (and were exacerbated by)the cold war era still continue in a number of regions. Some of that is the fault of the western powers, some(most, imo) is domestic(political and economic mismanagment, ethnic division, local dysfunction) I, personally, think the post colonial era is over. The instinctive reaction to blame ‘the west’ (or the US) has passed. We’re living through something new where blame is more democratically assigned.
Bob’s empire is dead etc etc

I suppose I tend to associate criticism of “American exceptionalism” with things like: contempt for any marking of the anniversary of the Constitution in 1987, and readings of “Why No Socialism in the U.S.?” that emphasize the answer must be something rather like American wickedness. Maybe wrongly. Also a bit with the boyfriend whose comeback, to my saying why I was interested by my courses in Greek philosophy, was “You don’t think that was invented by the Greeks, do you?” (He was an anthropology major with an interest in Western Asia.) Of course, the correct answer was, “No.” Anyway, I think of it as domestic, rather than geopolitical.

Canada? It’s as much a foreign country as Wyoming.

indeed

Since it’s easier for all of us to think about others more clearly, let me (as a UK citizen and current resident) talk about the British Empire.

The big problem with the “exceptionalism” of the British Empire in terms of foreign policy was this all too common line of thinking:

1) We’re a force of good in the world, a land of democracy, the mother of parliaments, etc.

2) Therefore:

a) We must never fail to be evil enough to defeat those more evil than us. Democracy etc. must never fail to be protected because of democratic or ethical qualms.

b) Any evil we commit that leads to the greater growth or glory of the empire is justified because the empire is a good thing…

“There is a fixed idea that America is exceptional.”

I think at this point, on the right, the idea is that America used to be exceptional, and, could be exceptional again, but that a lot of work has been put in by liberals erasing that exceptional status, and it’s going to be a long, hard slog becoming exceptional again.

Especially with liberals trying to make America in to a knock-off of Europe.

#61 Brett Bellmore

I think at this point, on the right, the idea is that America used to be exceptional, and, could be exceptional again

“Exceptional” is blurring several different ideas that deserve to have their own names.

“unusual” America used to be different from other nations.
“superior” America used to be better than other nations.
“supreme” America used to rule other nations.

Which of these did you intend?

Harold in #8: “France did invent human rights ..” Les droits des anglais pour tous would not have read so well.

America is the only nation founded on a creed

Why am I reminded of Masha’s comment to Max Renn about Videodrome.
“It has a philosphy, Max, that’s what makes it dangerous.”

Brett Bellmore channeling Stephen Colbert. Who woulda thunk it?

Isn’t Kurtz expressing not American exceptionalism but the breakdown of American hegemony–that is, the realization that the US no longer leads on behalf of the Free World or the international community but finds itself at odds with the international community as its will is expressed in supra-national institutions such as the UN and the WTO. This is the difference between Bush pere having the authorization of the Security Council for his Iraq War versus W. having only a pathetic coalition of the willing. Instead of recognizing that US leadership is now seen as exploitative, Kurtz seems to be arguing that the US’s unique commitment to freedom puts itself at odds with even former allies. The US is alone in the world, according to Kurtz, not because the bases of international cooperation are breaking down but because its founding ideas are unique, exceptional.
As for the thesis of exceptionalism, I am wondering whether Claude Fisher’s very interesting findings of exceptionally strong commitments to free enterprise and individualism are in any way related to the impossibility of national solidarity in a country founded as a settler colony which later developed due to its geographic richness an internal colonial system for resource extraction on the basis of racialized formally unfree labor relations. The idea of internal colonialism comes from Fisher’s colleague Bob Blauner.

MPAV: It’s not a slam dunk, and it doesn’t need to be for my purposes (if you’ll remember, I was merely challenging mcmanus’ dictum that “to say anything good about America is wicked”). But in general, laws on libel (especially of public figures) and pri0r restraint are more liberal in the US than in Commonwealth countries and continental Europe. In any case, I think the main focus of the thread is, or ought to be, on “American exceptionalism” as a justification for American military intervention, where it is alive and well and has done much harm.

As far as America having a creed, at bottom is a sort of meta-creed of universalism that provides both right and left excuses for interventions and aggression.

“American exceptionalism” as a justification for American military intervention

As Empire expands and becomes immanent, “American exceptionalism” becomes less overt and necessary. Of course Empire wants our interventions accepted by the global community on the basis of universal values and basic human rights, as defined and inculcated by Empire in the earlier years of Empire or accepted as global elite consensus after co-optation of overseas elites. IOW, Americanism and Empire becomes most powerful when it becomes invisible, and conquest and control most efficient when overt force becomes unnecessary. Resistance is not only futile, it becomes unthinkable.

As to how it is done, the Panitch and Gindin discussions weren’t that long ago. Although I believed they only touched the surface.

Neoliberalism involves a complex of intersecting and internally supporting values, in which “People shouldn’t spread their religious views by violence” becomes a justification for “Ukraine should privatize its public farming industry because allowing individual initiative is more productive and increases freedom.”

Empire, with most of the Capital, is in the position to grab the surplus created by the spread of neoliberal individualism.

I suppose I tend to associate criticism of “American exceptionalism” with things like: contempt for any marking of the anniversary of the Constitution in 1987, and readings of “Why No Socialism in the U.S.?” that emphasize the answer must be something rather like American wickedness.

In that case, fair enough. I guess I’ve always understood it quite differently. I take it that the doctrine of American exceptionalism is something like the American version of what Metatone outlined @59 (delete references to ’empire’ and ‘parliament’; add ‘land of opportunity’, ‘equality for all’, etc.; but the basic structure of the mythology is rather similar). Criticism of American exceptionalism is then criticism of this mythical conception of US history, both domestically and foreign policy-wise.

“As Empire expands and becomes immanent, “American exceptionalism” becomes less overt and necessary.”

I don’t think this is happening, really. Things haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. It doesn’t expand, as we still have, within our western paradigm, the ‘civilized’ western world, the ‘barbarians’ in the east, and ‘savages’ in the south. But the East is rising, and the West is in crisis. Interesting times lie ahead.

I want the US to become like Denmark, till then I’m with Bob McM.

I don’t just mean the practice of buying Paul’s votes by taxing Peter, rather than finding some kind of work for Paul, even if it’s just make work. (But I suppose voting for a living is work, of a sort.) That’s hardly the only difference between America and Europe.

I’m talking about omnipresent regulation, the presumption that people need permission to do things, that the default is that things are illegal, rather than legal.

And the wussification of our culture, where people get hysterical about comparatively trivial risks, like a child paying in the park by themselves. Where people are encouraged to be passive, like being taught not to resist hijackers. That really worked out well on 9-11, and the government still likes to pretend that their subsequent security theater kept that from happening again, and not what happened on flight 93.

To give you an example, when I was a teen, I shared my recipe for thermite with my Jr. High chemistry teacher. Got extra credit for it. Do you suppose my son would get extra credit for doing the same? Or maybe be diverted into the juvenile justice system?

I mourn the dead culture I was raised in. Or, rather, the murdered culture I was raised in. Because it didn’t die a natural death.

I have no idea what “the indispensible nation” might mean. Hell, I don’t even know what “the indispensable nation” might mean.

Holbo, I’ve been meaning to apologize for posting a basically mean and unnecessary comment on the last thread of yours that I commented on. Honestly, truly, sorry.

Brett: “But I suppose voting for a living is work, of a sort.”

The Tea Party seems to think so.

js.

Without getting into it too deeply, I think that’s about right.

The two-step comes in when, for example, I say I’d like to assume the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion applies even though there are arguments (good Berlinian arguments, for example) against codifying freedom of religion and placing it above all over values. And I’d like to not have to fend off arguments that I’m being ideological or buying into a myth. Or that I’m buying into the imposition of IMF policies on the developing world. Or that I haven’t proved I’m up-to-date on my Marxian base-superstructure distinction. I don’t want to get into a metaphysical discussion about those Berlinian arguments, either. I just want to focus on positive arguments about domestic politics for a little bit, and see how far actually existing institutions might be able to take us in the direction of justice. Or where, specifically, they’re failing to take us where we want to go.

That in my opinion, it’s easier to see how a socialist opposes the House of Lords than equality for all is also interesting. I know it can be done: you just oppose “bourgeois equality” or “individualistic equality” to “true equality.” Or you oppose not equality in reality, but US discourse about equality. But in that case you would be refusing to participate in domestic politics at all at any level of detail. Effectively, you would be leaving it all to the right (and to liberal centrists who can’t talk to you because you would waste their time trying to enlighten or convert them).

51: “I would say most countries have founding myths that stress national exceptionalism”

I’d be curious of your examples. Pick three from every continent to make it interesting.

50: “the US is the freest country on earth”

As somebody explained above, it all depends on your comparative framework. Many of us have only recently become aware that the US is the one and only country where children can actually legally own guns (not handguns but rifles) and also where children any age can legally shoot military weapons such as Uzi machine guns. It is hard to imagine a freer country than that!

Unless of course your comparative framework takes into account such things as how many people there are in prison (Amercian exceptionalism: highest peace-time imprisonment rate of any country in recorded history) or whether it is legal for an adult to have a beer (again American exceptionalism).

This is all pretty obvious isn’t it. The US really is exceptional in many ways. Why being exceptional should be regarded such a good thing is a different question of course, and goes to the heart of US right-wing obsession with empire.

TM@95: I would like to withdraw the unfortunately distracting assertion @41 that “the US is the freest country on earth” and substitute, as a response to bob mcmanus @37, the (hopefully) less distracting assertion that “there are some good things about the US.”

That referred to the Chomsky quote about Japanese unions.

If you take a world map and plot the locations where the US has fought wars; supported coups; armed and cooperated with rigid dictatorships; has military bases…you can see where the idea the US is exceptionally evil comes from. Claiming a pretended equality between American exceptionalism, a right wing doctrine and an alleged “left wing” version is fatuous moralizing at best.

Zamfir, I’m mystified. Japan was under US military occupation after WW II. Does it really strike you as implausible that the US dominated Japanese politics in the postwar years, which is all Chomsky claims?

Ronan, the US does indeed have a unified global strategy: to render as much of the world as possible open to US economic penetration and control, ie, to make sure the climate for foreign investment is favorable and the local governments are business-friendly. It makes use of a wide array of tools and tactics: bribing local politicians and businesspeople, whose interests in any case align with those of US business, co-opting local armed forces and police with training and equipment (and bribes), recruiting local publishers and journalists, financing docile unions, and when necessary, orchestrating boycotts and sanctions, instigating coups, or even intervening militarily. Sometimes the US is more successful, sometimes less. All this is very solidly documented outside the mainstream of mainstream scholarship and media. What troubles you about this argument?

..there’s also(possibly) a difference in perspectives, as in I don’t think the expansion of ‘capitalism and democracy’ is neccesarily a bad thing.

“ent from 51 “most countries have founding myths that stress national exceptionalism” . The real issue is whether in any given country you will currently find a discourse about national exceptionalism, of which Kurtz’s article is an example. That is just not true for many countries. ”

Of course you would. Obviously in different form, but the claim would be the same. The reason I highlighted *in major powers especially* is that making claims of having to lead the world, or spread your specific form social or political organisation usually occurs only in countries with the power to do so.
See also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptionalism

Ronan, I am not aware of a “national exceptionalism” discourse in any contemporary country outside of the US. Provide evidence for your claims or don’t make them.

TM – Jesus Christ man are you actually serious ? To start with here’s the relevant wiki entry

“Many countries have claimed exceptionality including France, Germany, India, Pakistan, Imperial Japan, Iran, North Korea, Spain, Britain, United States, and the USSR. Historians have added many other cases, including historic empires such as China, the Ottoman Empire, and ancient Rome, along with a wide range of minor kingdoms in history.”

Now, more than your two line responses so far what is it you’re objecting too here, just so we’re not talking past eachother ? That other countries have founding myths that can manifest itself in what we’ll call ‘narratives of exceptionalism’? That large powers have tended to use these narratives to legitimise their dominance ? Or is it that *at this moment in history* the United States is the only country that uses such a narrative ?

I really dont think the first parts of the above can be argued against, .. but on whether or not the United States is the only country where a narrative of exceptionalism still exists, I find that unlikely.
Your demand for ‘evidence’ is completely arguing in bad faith(as I said, i am not an expert on countries x y and z) but anyway, here’s an example for Russia (the first thing that came when I googled it )

http://www.newsmax.com/jackiegingrichcushman/russian-exceptionalism-putin-ukraine/2014/03/06/id/556422/

you dont think that there might be similar pseudo religous myths that have underpinned Russian behavious in its near abroad ?You dont think the same is true of, for example, China, India, Iran ? I think that’san idiotic position(unless you’re arguing something else, in which case out with it)

On China

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/05/the_myth_of_chinese_exceptionalism

@geo, the claim there was that smart nefarious American action in the 1940s had decided Japanese labour relations down to 1991, with hardly a nod to 40 years of Japanese domestic politics.

But even for the occupation years themselves: don’t overestimate the capabilities of a handful of unfamiliar foreigners to run a country. If US occupation forces really had such social mastery (nefarious or benevolent), then Iraq would look rather different today.

Japanese domestic politics went on during the occupation years, just as much as Iraqi politics. If the US looked more in control in Japan, it was to a large extent because the Japanese let them look in control. Sincd their elites largely supported a mkre westernized, US-allied future. And if there was a lot of fascist union-bashing, then the main reason was that quite some Japanese elites were fascist union-bashers. Who could rally the occupation forces to their side, but who were quite capable of independent action afterwards.

Ronan, the wikipedia article does list those countries but doesn’t provide actual evidence (not even citations).

I take your claim to be that the “American exceptionalism” narrative is unexceptional, that almost any country has a similar narrative. I don’t buy that claim and lest you throw more exasperation at me, Yes Jesus Christ I am serious. Also I don’t see anybody in this forum agree with you. It is your claim that is extraordinary and requires evidence, which you haven’t provided (ok two links, only one of which refers to exceptionalism – but your claim applies to almost every country). And let me point out again the difference between “specialness” and “exceptionalism”. Each country has a unique history making it special – again I am belaboring the obvious. That is not the same as exceptionalism.

Zamfir @117 If US occupation forces really had such social mastery (nefarious or benevolent), then Iraq would look rather different today.

One could argue that the purpose of de-Baathification was to dismantle the Iraqi state as much as possible, and only secondly, to create investment opportunities for American companies. The last thing the Neocons behind the policy wanted was for Iraq to become a functioning democracy in any meaningful sense–although they claimed to believe that a democratic Iraq would be friendly to Israel and the US, they probably knew better, and weakening the Iraqi state as much as possible was more important for them than generating investment opportunities (except maybe for the war industry).

TM – Sorry for the exasperation.
I think national myths manifest themselves differently in differnet contexts, and mean different things to different people. If you are a small, poor country your myth of ‘exceptionalism’ will probably ring hollow. If you are larger, richer and with more influence then the form your national myths and legends take will be different. As the wiki article seems to imply, exceptionalism (loosely defined) has been used historically by powerful countries to justify/explain their dominance.
The US is the most dominant nation in the world, imo it makes sense that its ‘narrative of exceptionalism’ should be more prevelant at this time, but I dont think it’s unique(except in its specifics) Afaik, US exceptionalism has taken different forms throughout history, has been contingent on context and used to explain/justify different realities (for example, when the US was less interventionist outside of the Western Hemisphere it was used to imagine the US as ‘an example’ for other countries to follow, rather than as now where it *can be* used to ‘to encourage the US to ‘lead’ the world) In other words the myth of US exceptionalism twists itself to the context it exists in (in this case the post ww2 world), which afaict is the same for the myths and narratives that other people construct to explain their identity.
Does that make sense or does it smell of bullshit ? Am I belaboring the obvious ? ; )

@ TM 119

I would say you are the one making extraordinary claim that the US is unique among nations. I would say many countries have national myths and view themselves as just as extraordinary as the US.

Btw, that’s a compliment to Canadians.

@127

Peace, order and good government baby!

@128 – well now it seems you agree, so alls well that ends well

Well, “exceptionalist” claims are just an abuse of political “virtue”. Since politics requires mass conformity, and thus the promotion of “virtue”, regardless of its contents…

just to add..If your problem is my initial claim of *most countries*, or that Im confusing ‘exceptionalism’ with ‘specialness’ (as youve said above) then fine, im willing to concede that (and leave it to someone more knowledgable to argue the specifics) I’d be interested to see if anyone had something to say on that distinction.

@mcmanus
the way [the US] can divide and delegate procedural power and legitimacy and still manage to substantially enslave and exploit the world.

Putting aside for purposes of this comment the aptness or not of the verbs “enslave” and “exploit,” there is nothing unusual about ‘hegemons’ or ‘imperial’ powers ruling via division, delegation, via local elites and ‘intermediaries’, etc. Look e.g. at D. Nexon’s work (which in turn will point you to a lot of the relevant soc-sci and historical lit.).

Yeah, I read the Nexon when linked here at CT. Don’t remember enough details. More to find and read.

Funny, when I Googled Nexon Hegemony this page/paragraph came up in googlebooks. Can’t cut-and-paste, but keywords are “America’s peculiar situation” “universal interest” and “It is in this American liberal ideological discourse that America acquires the status of a universal symbol”

IIRC, the Nexon (+?) paper focused on the classic mechanisms for hegemony, material (bribes, delegated power) and military/police (RSA) and less on the Ideological Hegemonic Apparatus that I am interested in.

JH, suprematism… aren’t we simply distinguishing between descriptive exceptionalism and normative exceptionalism?

In any case, my curiosity got the better of me and I actually went to the College Board’s AP US History page for a glance. Scrolling down, I noticed an essay by Thomas Bender, Rethinking American History in a Global Context.

Kurtz quotes from the essay in his article, but reading the essay brings one into more direct contact with the source of Kurtz’s objections.

Bender illustrates his idea of “rethinking American history in a global context” by discussing briefly how the “origins” of the United States might be taught. He would begin around 1500, describing the growth of capitalism and the slave trade in the context of global history, of which story the colonies and the United States form but one small part and perspective.

He finishes by writing:

This account has been severely compressed, but I hope that one can see from it that the beginning of American history is not only about utopian dreams of opportunity or escape, whether from religious persecution or from poverty. It is also about the beginnings of capitalism, and it is about capture, constraint, and exploitation. In fact, more Africans than Europeans made the Atlantic transit in the colonial period. This early history is neither proto-national nor self-contained. American beginnings were the product of many interconnected histories, and the outcome was quite contingent and unpredictable.

The purpose of this rethinking is indeed political:

To the extent that we as historians teach the nation’s history in isolation from its historical relations, we bear some responsibility for the ways Americans understand (or misunderstand) their relation to the world. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of history or historians, but I do believe that the way we have taught history has reinforced what might be called a unilateralist understanding of the United States in the world — a conception that encourages surprise and anger whenever the world intrudes.

So at bottom the objection to “internationalizing” US history is really an objection to de-emphasizing forces and actors within the United States in favor of shifting perspective to a much more global view – and thereby encouraging students to view the US as merely another nation, one national vantage among many, less the product of aspirations or ideas or individuals, more an offspring of global institutions like capitalism and slavery, as contingent as the room number in which the class is taught.

Put differently, if one were to think about a national history in a similar sense to a biography (yes, an analogy imperfect and heavily laden with assumptions – it makes the point though), an “internationalized” US history is like a biography that emphasizes sociological frameworks, and the biographies of other individuals, while shading the individual subject as a coherent entity with self-efficacy.

That is certainly one way to teach history, and it has its advantages. But, to the extent it captures what “internationalizing” US history means, I don’t think it’s a good way to teach US history to high school students. Understanding the history of a nation, especially as a citizen of it, requires learning that history as one might that of one’s grandparents – being aware of the larger context, of course, but also delving into the interior contradictions, struggles, failings, successes, and aspirations, of the individual.

Useful reading in general on the idea of American exceptionalism:

Schuck, Peter H., James Q. Wilson and American Exceptionalism (2013). Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 310; Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 479. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2330375

Andrew F,
But your grandparents had parents, and those great grandparents in the American case came from across the globe. To put the point more abstractly: the great grandparents could be said to be the Glorious Revolution led by merchants enriched by a slave-based Atlantic trade and West African kingdoms imploding under external and internal pressures. US history does not make sense out of such developments. Americans are indeed the offspring of developments across the globe. I don’t see how this is ideological.

US industrialization a century later can probably be best understood in a global context. For example, it required an elaborate system of protectionism, given British industrial power (if Ha-Joon Chang is to be believed); moreover, Britain indulged US (and German) protectionism and absorb US goods because it could balance its books on the back of its colonies, India in particular.

“Britain earned huge annual surpluses in her transactions with India and
China that allowed her to sustain equally large deficits with the US, Germany
and the white Dominions. True, Britain also enjoyed invisible earnings
from shipping, insurance, banking and foreign investment but without Asia,
which generated 73 percent of British trade credit in 1910,
Anthony Latham argues, Britain ‘presumably would have
been forced to abandon free trade’ while her trading partners
would have been forced to slow down their own rates of industrialization.
The liberal world economy might otherwise have fragmented
into autarkic trading blocs, as it did during the 1930s

“‘The US and industrial Europe, in particular Germany,
were able to continue their policy of tariff protection only because of
Britain’s surplus with Asia. Without the Asian surplus, Britain would no
longer have been able to subsidise their growth. So what emerges is
that Asia in general, but India and China in particular, far from being
peripheral to the evolution of the international economy at this time,
were in fact crucial Without the surpluses which Britain was able to earn there,
the whole pattern of international economic development would
been been severely constrained.’ “India, of course, was the greatest
captive market in world history, rising rom third to first place among
consumers of British exports in the quarter century after 1870.

British rulers,’ writes Marcello de Cecco in his study of the Victorian
gold standard system, ‘deliberately prevented Indians from becoming skilled
mechanics, refused contracts to Indian firms which produced materials
that could be got from Britain, and generally hindered the formation of an
autonomous industrial structure in India.’ Thanks to a ‘government stores
policy that reserved most govt purchases to British products and
by the monopoly of British agency houses in organizing the
import-export trade,’ India was forced to absorb Britain’s surplus of
increasingly obsolescent and non competitive industrial exports.
By 1910, this included 2/5ths of the UK’s finished cotton goods and
3/5ths of its exports of electrical products, railway equipment, books
and pharmaceuticals.” –Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts

Or how can we appreciate what Isaac Kramnick has described as the revolutionary development of forbidding religious tests for political office without appreciation of the religious wars that had wracked Europe (See The Godless Constitution)? It seems to me that the transnational turn in American History and Studies is most welcome.

Yet, Andrew, global studies is not and should not be devoted to the study of global history relevant to the American experiment.

> I don’t think it’s a good way to teach US history to high school students.

If you don’t understand the british domestic political response to the issues raised by the french revolution, most of what happened in the US over the 19th century will make no sense. And most of what does depends on knowledge of the spanish response.

[I mean… tell me the vendor’s issues wrt the louisiana purchase. For extra bonus points, tie it to the war of 1812.]

Also, Bender himself seems to have a very Eurocentric outlook, he identifies the major changes in the global economy with European expansion, but there were rapid economic & demographic changes happening in Ming China and the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere throughout the 16th century (including in the 1st half of the century), which had relatively little to do with European maritime trade.

Australia and Canada notwithstanding, the idea that the US is alone in having a mythic exceptionalist self-conception—even in the specific senses of conceiving of itself as a uniquely virtuous nation or as having a unique destiny—is laughably false. I did my primary schooling in India, and mythic exceptionalist discourse is alive and well there. Hell, India beats the US hands down by having multiple exceptionalist narratives, corresponding to the various senses of its ‘founding’.

PS. Re bianca steele @93: I think I pretty much agree with all of that, tho at times I’m more than happy to the “oppose not equality in reality, but US discourse about equality” line.

…a classic statement of Australian aspiration occurs in the movie The Dish, about the tracking stations involved in the moon landing…

The part I love best in The Dish is when one of the characters says to another (regarding US opinions of the radar dish and the work they do):

“The Yanks’ll never take us seriously” (paraphrased)

Of course, as he says this they’re all standing around inside the radar dish playing cricket…

Oh, and then there’s the local kid’s version of the US anthem:

“PM: You know, we have a saying in the party. Don’t fuck up ….
Aspirant: And?
PM: That’s it

The saying is a pretty realistic summation of Australian aspirations on the world stage.”

IMHO, it’s a fine aspiration. We Americans have recently adopted it in the form “Don’t do stupid shit.” At least in our case, it would have avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths over the 60-odd years of my lifetime.

Some of us had it right even back in the day: http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/119895297/large

“Whatever you think about prices, don’t we act like it’s our oil?”

I don’t know about you, but I rarely pay for anything that I regard as already mine. So I’d have to say, no, we don’t act like it’s our oil.

“I think at this point the best hypothesis is: “This situation just plain does not make sense.””

I think at this point the best hypothesis is: “You’re wedded to some premise which is counter-factual, and will never be able to make sense of the situation until you abandon it.” See, here’s the thing, (Channeling Rand.) Whatever is, IS. If you’re not making sense of it, that isn’t the fault of what is. That’s the fault of what’s going on in your head.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely pay for anything that I regard as already mine. So I’d have to say, no, we don’t act like it’s our oil.

If I’m starting a company that sells to the US government and I want the perqs that the US government gives to a minority-led business, I have no objection to hiring a black woman as CEO and paying her a good deal. I don’t even mind blacks having 51% of the stock provided I can find somebody who hates her to have a slice of it.

It’s a lot cheaper to pay the Sauds to run Mecca and release our oil on an orderly schedule, than to run Mecca ourselves.

I think at this point the best hypothesis is: “You’re wedded to some premise which is counter-factual, and will never be able to make sense of the situation until you abandon it.”

Very likely. I just haven’t found it yet. Or maybe it isn’t that I believe a counterfactual so much as there’s some important fact I’m missing. And I haven’t found that yet either.

“Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck”

I think the same thing can be said about the US, but to use an americanism, the national response is to act like we hit a triple, instead of admitting we were born on third base.

Ronan @162: outside of the general (uninterested) public, nationalistic commentators and public officials, afaict pretty much no-one worth listening too would claim that the US is ‘exceptional’

In other words, since everyone except a few academics and a few leftists believe (or pretend to believe) that US foreign policy, unlike that of every other nation, is selflessly animated by noble intentions, US military interventions are generally given the benefit of the doubt and the US need not obey international law. QED.

driven primarily by its national interests

Except for not being annihilated by nuclear weapons or environmental catastrophe, there is no “national interest.” In every society, those with the power to do so define their group interest as the “national” interest. When you hear the phrase, you can stop listening to whoever is using it.

Capital is increasingly internationalized and national interests (even those of the national ruling class) are not the game anymore. ‘Empire’ has a different meaning; it’s more like financial empire, business empire.

Capital is increasingly internationalized and national interests (even those of the national ruling class) are not the game anymore. ‘Empire’ has a different meaning; it’s more like financial empire, business empire.

So, the owners can live wherever they want and not worry about politics? Maybe. Various of the Rothschilds got out of Austria barely in time before the Nazis got them. But of course that sort of thing can’t happen again, right?

I remember Buckminster Fuller said his father told him that a whole bunch of owners settled in england because it was an island and they felt safer there. Later a whole lot of them moved to the USA because Britain didn’t look that safe and a nation with two oceans around it was better. I’m not sure how much to believe Buckminster Fuller’s father. But following his reasoning, where would you feel safe living now, if you could live wherever you wanted? Given ICBMs and 9/11 the USA doesn’t look all that safe. But China doesn’t either — not so many years ago they were executing people for the crime of belonging to banking families. They could expropriate their billionaires in hours if they thought they didn’t need them any more.

Buckminster Fuller

What kind of world are we living in when mentioning the Rothschilds gets you moderated?

I can’t even begin to imagine what sort of societal sickness would enable such a thing.

Sorry, I thought you were implying that I was arguing:

“US military interventions are generally given the benefit of the doubt and the US need not obey international law”

But that’s probably a misreading on my part.

I have always taken American exceptionalism to mean that America represented a moral position in the world. And I think that this was the perception of, say, Thomas Paine, the first generation of French revolutionaries, and other among the trans-Atlantic democrats. An echo of this is found in Marx, who said that the workers in Europe looked on the United States as their thing.
This the heirloom idea, and it gets hauled out and revived from time to time. Most Americans, for instance, look at World War II through the lens of the US fighting the Nazis for moral reasons. Historians, of course, don’t see the causes in this way. On the other hand, it does raise morale.
So I suppose it is one of those things, American exceptionalism, that are what Plato called doxa – they have a half existence. It is why I think much of the world thinks Americans are hypocrites, saying one thing, and doing another. But even this indignation pays a certain homage to the myth of America as a moral force. I don’t think any historian can ignore this history, or these perceptions, as they actually function in the discourse all the way to the top. One of the reasons that the cause of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is still a debateable question is that it is mixed up with the idea that the US was acting as an armed moral force – the categorical imperative decked out with the weapons of shock and awe. But that idea suffered a big shock when it turned out that SH was not decking Iraq out with the WMD, because of course a moral force isn’t suppose to lie about its reasons for doing things.

The idea of the United States as a moral force is in play again with the rise of ISIS. Hope to see a CT thread on ISIS soon.