American exceptionalism

Not to be confused with Americanism (ideology).
German professor Sieglinde Lemke argues that the Statue of Liberty "signifies this proselytizing mission as the natural extension of the US' sense of itself as an exceptional nation."[1]

American exceptionalism is one of three related ideas. The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from other nations.[2] In this view, American exceptionalism stems from its emergence from the American Revolution, thereby becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation"[3] and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy and laissez-faire for business. This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism."[4] Second is the idea that the US has a unique mission to transform the world. As Abraham Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg address (1863), Americans have a duty to see that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Third is the sense that its history and its mission give the United States a superiority over other nations.

Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and other American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense. To them, the U.S. is like the biblical "City upon a Hill"—a phrase evoked by British colonists to North America as early as 1630—and exempt from historical forces that have affected other countries.[5] The theme of superiority is a common target for attacks from critics.[4][6]

The theory of the exceptionalism of the U.S. can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840.[7]

Terminology

The exact term "American exceptionalism" was occasionally used in the 19th century. In his The Yale Book of Quotations, Fred Shapiro notes that "exceptionalism" was used to refer to the United States and its self-image by The Times of London on August 20, 1861.[8] Its common use dates from Communist usage the late 1920s. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin chastised members of the Jay Lovestone-led faction of the American Communist Party for its claim that the US was independent of the Marxist laws of history "thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions". Stalin may have been told of the usage "American exceptionalism" by Brouder & Zack in Daily Worker (N.Y.) on the 29th of January 1929, before Lovestone's visit to Moscow. American Communists started using the English term "American exceptionalism" in factional fights. It then moved into general use among intellectuals.[9][10] In 1989, Scottish political scientist Richard Rose noted that most American historians endorse exceptionalism. He suggests that these historians reason as follows:

America marches to a different drummer. Its uniqueness is explained by any or all of a variety of reasons: history, size, geography, political institutions, and culture. Explanations of the growth of government in Europe are not expected to fit American experience, and vice versa.[11]

However, postnationalist scholars have rejected American exceptionalism, arguing that the U.S. had not broken from European history, and accordingly, the U.S. has retained class-based and race-based inequalities, as well as imperialism and willingness to wage war.[12]

In recent years scholars from numerous disciplines, as well as politicians and commentators in the popular media, have debated the meaning and usefulness of the concept. Roberts and DeCuirci ask:

Why has the myth of American exceptionalism, characterized by a belief in America's highly distinctive features or unusual trajectory based in the abundance of its natural resources, its revolutionary origins and its protestant religious culture that anticipated God's blessing of the nation, held such tremendous staying power, from its influence in popular culture to its critical role in foreign policy?[13]

Some historians support the concept of American exceptionalism but avoid the terminology, and thereby avoid getting entangled in rhetorical debates. Bernard Bailyn, a leading colonial specialist at Harvard:

is very clearly a believer in the distinctiveness of American civilization. Although he rarely, if ever, uses the phrase "American exceptionalism," he repeatedly insists upon the "distinctive characteristics of British North American life." He has argued...that the process of social and cultural transmission resulted in peculiarly American patterns of education (in the broadest sense of the word); and he believes in the unique character of the American Revolution.[14]

Origin of the term

Although the concept of American exceptionalism dates to the founding ideas,[15] the term was first used in the 1920s.

Some claim that the phrase "American exceptionalism" originated with the American Communist Party in an English translation of a condemnation made in 1929 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin criticizing Communist supporters of Jay Lovestone for the heretical belief that the US was independent of the Marxist laws of history "thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions".[9][16] This origin has been challenged, however, because the expression "American exceptionalism" was already used by Brouder & Zack in the Daily Worker (N.Y.) on the 29th of January 1929, before Lovestone's visit to Moscow. In addition, Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, has noted that "exceptionalism" was used to refer to the United States and its self-image during the Civil War by The Times on August 20, 1861.[8]

Early examples of the term's usage do include a declaration made at the 1930 American Communist convention proclaiming that "the storm of the economic crisis in the United States blew down the house of cards of American exceptionalism".[17]

After the 1930s, the phrase fell into obscurity for half a century, until it was popularized by American newspapers in the 1980s to describe America's cultural and political uniqueness.[17] The phrase became an issue of contention between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign, with Republicans attacking Obama for allegedly not believing in the concept.[18]

History of the concept

de Tocqueville and other visitors

The first reference to the concept by name, and possibly its origin, was by French writer Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835/1840 work, Democracy in America:[19]

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.[20]

Kammen says many foreign visitors commented on American exceptionalism including Karl Marx, Francis Lieber, Hermann Eduard von Holst, James Bryce, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc; they did so in complimentary terms.[21] The theme became common, especially in textbooks. From the 1840s to the late 19th century, the McGuffey Readers sold 120 million copies and were studied by most American students. Skrabec (2009) argues that the Readers "hailed American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and America as God's country... Furthermore, McGuffey saw America as having a future mission to bring liberty and democracy to the world."[22]

Communist debate, 1927

In June 1927 Jay Lovestone, a leader of the Communist Party in America and soon to be named General Secretary, described America's economic and social uniqueness. He noted the increasing strength of American capitalism, and the country's "tremendous reserve power"; a strength and power which he said prevented Communist revolution.[23] In 1929, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, disagreeing that America was so resistant to revolution, called Lovestone's ideas "the heresy of American exceptionalism"[24]—the first time that the specific term "American exceptionalism" was used.[25] The Great Depression seemingly underscored Stalin's argument that American capitalism falls under the general laws of Marxism.[26] In June 1930, during the national convention of the Communist Party USA in New York, it was declared that, "The storm of the economic crisis in the United States blew down the house of cards of American exceptionalism and the whole system of opportunistic theories and illusions that had been built upon American capitalist 'prosperity'".[27]

Subsequent development of the concept, post-1945

American uniqueness as a nation has been proposed by many writers. Historian Dorothy Ross discusses three major currents in the emerging post-war thinking around American exceptionalism:

  1. Protestant American Christians believed American progress would lead to the Christian Millennium.[28]
  2. American writers also linked their history to the development of liberty in Anglo-Saxon England, even back to the traditions of the Teutonic tribes that conquered the western Roman empire.[29]
  3. Other American writers looked to the "millennial newness" of America, seeing the mass of "virgin land" promised an escape from the decay that befell earlier republics.[30]

Riding with the rest of the nation on the wave of post-depression prosperity, academics in the U.S. redefined American exceptionalism as befitting a nation that was to lead the world, with the newer United States ready to serve the older European societies as an example of a country liberated and free from Marxist and socialist destinies.[24] More recently, socialists and other writers have tried to discover or describe this exceptionalism of the U.S. within and outside its borders.[31]

More recently, the concept has been discussed in the context of the 21st Century in a book co-authored by former American Vice President Dick Cheney: Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America (2015).[32]

Causes in their historical context

Scholars have explored possible justifications for the notion of American exceptionalism.

Absence of feudalism

Many scholars use a model of American exceptionalism developed by Harvard political scientist Louis Hartz. In The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Hartz argued that the American political tradition lacked the left-wing/socialist and right-wing/aristocratic elements that dominated in most other lands because colonial America lacked any feudal traditions, such as established churches, landed estates and a hereditary nobility.[33] The "liberal consensus" school, typified by David Potter, Daniel Boorstin and Richard Hofstadter followed Hartz in emphasizing that political conflicts in American history remained within the tight boundaries of a liberal consensus regarding private property, individual rights, and representative government. The national government that emerged was far less centralized or nationalized than its European counterparts.[34]

Puritan roots

Parts of American exceptionalism can be traced to American Puritan roots.[35] Many Puritans with Arminian leanings embraced a middle ground between strict Calvinist predestination and a less restricting theology of Divine Providence. They believed God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to provide a model for the other nations of the Earth. One Puritan leader, John Winthrop, metaphorically expressed this idea as a "City upon a Hill"—that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world.[36][37] This metaphor is often used by proponents of exceptionalism. The Puritans' deep moralistic values remained part of the national identity of the United States for centuries, remaining influential to the present day. In this vein, Max Weber was a pioneer in delineating a connection between capitalism and exceptionalism. In earlier texts, Maximiliano Korstanje explores the American exceptionalism and its effects on the current means of productions. This contribution to the existent literature is of paramount importance for two main reasons. The first and most important, he relates capitalism to Protestantism. This is of course nothing new, since Max Weber did it in the past. However, Korstanje adds, though Weber was correct by confirming the connection of the Reformation to Capitalism, the key role played by Norse Mythology was left behind. In effect, the concept of predestination as it has been discussed by Weber did not come from Luther alone. It was rather enrooted in the core of Norse Culture. Secondly, this impossibility to understand the future led to English speaking societies to construct a risk-prone culture, which resulted in what Ulrich Beck dubbed the "Risk Society". The criticism exerted in the uneven distribution of Capitalism should be explained by the "economy of saved peoples" formulated by Weber.[38][39][40]

American Revolution and republicanism

The ideas that created the American Revolution were derived from a tradition of republicanism that had been repudiated by the British mainstream. Historian Gordon Wood has argued, "Our beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and the well-being of ordinary people came out of the Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that we Americans are a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy."[41] Wood notes that the term is "presently much-maligned", although it is vigorously supported by others such as Jon Butler.[42]

Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the first time expressed the belief that America was not just an extension of Europe but a new land, a country of nearly unlimited potential and opportunity that had outgrown the British mother country. These sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the Revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism and were closely tied to republicanism, the belief that sovereignty belonged to the people, not to a hereditary ruling class.[43]

Religious freedom characterized the American Revolution in unique ways—at a time when major nations had state religions. Republicanism (led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison) created modern constitutional republicanism, with a limit on ecclesiastical powers. Historian Thomas Kidd (2010) argues, "With the onset of the revolutionary crisis, a major conceptual shift convinced Americans across the theological spectrum that God was raising up America for some special purpose."[44] Kidd further argues that "a new blend of Christian and republican ideology led religious traditionalists to embrace wholesale the concept of republican virtue".[45]

Jefferson and the empire of liberty

According to Tucker and Hendrickson (1992) Jefferson believed America "was the bearer of a new diplomacy, founded on the confidence of a free and virtuous people, that would secure ends based on the natural and universal rights of man, by means that escaped war and its corruptions". Jefferson sought a radical break from the traditional European emphasis on "reason of state" (which could justify any action) and the traditional priority of foreign policy and the needs of the ruling family over the needs of the people.[46]

Jefferson envisaged America becoming the world's great "Empire of Liberty"—that is, the model for democracy and republicanism. He identified his nation as a beacon to the world, for, he said on departing the presidency in 1809, America was: "Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence."[47]

Basis of arguments

Marilyn B. Young argues that after the end of the Cold War in 1991, neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers embraced the idea of an "American empire", a national mission to establish freedom and democracy in other nations, particularly underdeveloped ones. She argues that after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration reoriented foreign policy to an insistence on maintaining the supreme military and economic power of America, an attitude that harmonized with this new vision of American empire. Young says the Iraq War (2003–2011) exemplified American exceptionalism.[48]

In 2012, conservative historians Larry Schweikart and Dave Dougherty argued that American Exceptionalism was based upon four pillars: (1) Common Law; (2) Virtue and morality based in Protestant Christianity; (3) Free-market capitalism; and (4) the sanctity of private property.[49]

In a 2015 book entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney sets out and argues the case for American Exceptionalism, and concludes: "we are, as Lincoln said, 'the last, best hope of earth.' We are not just one more nation, one more indistinguishable entity on the world stage. We have been essential to the preservation and progress of freedom, and those who lead us in the years ahead must remind us, as Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan did, of the special role we play. Neither they nor we should ever forget that we are, in fact, exceptional."[50]

Republican ethos and ideas about nationhood

Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the United States is exceptional in that it was founded on a set of republican ideals, rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruling elite. In the formulation 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 Lincoln's interpretation, America is inextricably connected with liberty and equality, and in world perspective the American mission is to ensure, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Historian T. Harry Williams argues that Lincoln believed:

In the United States man would create a society that would be the best and the happiest in the world. The United States was the supreme demonstration of democracy. But the Union did not exist just to make men free in America. It had an even greater mission -to make them free everywhere. By the mere force of its example America would bring democracy to an undemocratic world.[51]

American policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism (between the states and the federal government) and checks and balances (among the legislative, executive and judicial branches), which were designed to prevent any faction, region, or government organ from becoming too powerful. Some proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that this system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a "tyranny of the majority", are preservative of a free republican democracy, and also that it allows citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect those citizens' values. A consequence of this political system is that laws can vary greatly across the country. Critics of American exceptionalism maintain that this system merely replaces the power of the national majority over states with power by the states over local entities. On balance, the American political system arguably allows for more local dominance but prevents more national dominance than does a more unitary system.[52]

Historian Eric Foner has explored the question of birthright citizenship, the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) that makes every baby born in the United States a full citizen: He argues that:

birthright citizenship stands as an example of the much-abused idea of American exceptionalism....birthright citizenship does make the United States (along with Canada) unique in the developed world. No European nation recognizes the principle.[53]

Global leadership and activism

Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh has identified what he says is "the most important respect in which the United States has been genuinely exceptional, with regard to international affairs, international law, and promotion of human rights: namely, in its exceptional global leadership and activism." He argues:

To this day, the United States remains the only superpower capable, and at times willing, to commit real resources and make real sacrifices to build, sustain, and drive an international system committed to international law, democracy, and the promotion of human rights. Experience teaches that when the United States leads on human rights, from Nuremberg to Kosovo, other countries follow.[54]

Peggy Noonan, an American political pundit, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "America is not exceptional because it has long attempted to be a force for good in the world, it attempts to be a force for good because it is exceptional".

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney explores the concept of United States global leadership in a 2015 book on American foreign policy entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, co-authored with his daughter, Liz Cheney, a former official of the United States Department of State.[55]

Frontier spirit

Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that many features of the "American spirit" were shaped by the frontier process (following Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis). They argue the American frontier allowed individualism to flourish as pioneers adopted democracy and equality and shed centuries-old European institutions such as royalty, standing armies, established churches and a landed aristocracy that owned most of the land.[56] However, this frontier experience was not entirely unique to the United States. Other nations had frontiers but it did not shape them nearly as much as the American frontier did, usually because it was under the control of a strong national government. South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Australia had long frontiers but they did not have "free land" and local control.[57] The political and cultural environments were much different—the other frontiers did not involve widespread ownership of free land nor allow the settlers to control the local and provincial governments as in America. Their frontier did not shape their national psyches.[58] Each nation had quite different frontier experiences. For example, the Dutch Boers in South Africa were defeated in war by Britain. In Australia, "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism was in the United States.[59]

Mobility and welfare

Further information: Economic mobility, Social mobility

For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity", and in this sense, it prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background.[60] Examples of this social mobility include:

However, social mobility in the US is lower than in a number of European Union countries if defined in terms of income movements. American men born into the lowest income quintile are much more likely to stay there compared to similar men in the Nordic countries or the United Kingdom.[64] Many economists, such as Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, however, state that the discrepancy has little to do with class rigidity; rather, it is a reflection of income disparity: "Moving up and down a short ladder is a lot easier than moving up and down a tall one."[65]

Regarding public welfare, Rose asked whether the evidence shows whether the U.S. "is becoming more like other mixed-economy welfare states, or increasingly exceptional." He concludes, "By comparison with other advanced industrial nations America is today exceptional in total public expenditure, in major program priorities, and in the value of public benefits."[66]

Criticism

Scholars have been polarized on the topic. Historians have generally weighed against it, while empirical social scientists have been supporters. Michael Kammen reports that historians Lawrence Veysey, C. Vann Woodward, Eric Foner, Sean Wilentz, Akira Iriye, and Ian Tyrrell have been opponents, while support has come from social scientists Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Alex Inkeles, Sanford Jacoby, Samuel P. Huntington, Mona Harrington, John P. Roche, Richard Rose, Peter Temin, and Aaron Wildavsky.[67]

Kammen argues that the hostile attacks began in the 1970s in the wake of the Vietnam War, when many intellectuals decided, "The American Adam had lost his innocence and given way to a helpless, tarnished Gulliver."[68] At about the same time, the new social history used statistical techniques on population samples that seemed to show resemblances with Europe on issues such as social mobility. By the 1980s, labor historians were emphasizing that the failure of a labor party to emerge in the United States does not mean that America was exceptionally favorable grounds for workers. By the late 1980s, other academic critics started mocking the excessive chauvinism displayed by popular usage of exceptionalism. Finally mid-1980s, colonial historians downplayed the uniqueness of the American experience in the context of British history.[69] On the other hand, some of the critics pulled their punches, with Wilentz arguing for "distinctively American forms of class conflict" and Foner saying there was a "distinctive character of American trade unionism."[70]

The third idea of American exceptionalism—superiority—has been attacked with charges of moral defectiveness and the existence of double standards. In American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (2005), Canadian commentator Michael Ignatieff couches his discussion of the topic in entirely pejorative terms. He identifies three main sub-types: "exemptionalism" (supporting treaties as long as U.S. citizens are exempt from them); "double standards" (criticizing "others for not heeding the findings of international human rights bodies, but ignoring what these bodies say of the United States"); and "legal isolationism" (the tendency of U.S. judges to ignore other jurisdictions).[71]

Exceptionalism as "exemptionalism"

During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context.[72] Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein certain political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the Law of Nations.[73] (This phenomenon is less concerned with justifying American uniqueness than with asserting its immunity to international law.) This new use of the term has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters, since its unilateralist emphasis and historical orientation diverge somewhat from older uses of the term. A certain number of those who subscribe to "old-style" or "traditional American exceptionalism" the idea that America is a more nearly exceptional nation than are others, that it differs qualitatively from the rest of the world and has a special role to play in world history—also agree that the United States is and ought to be fully subject to and bound by the public international law. Indeed, recent research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.S.] public, but very little evidence of unilateral attitudes".[74]

On September 12, 2013, in the context on U.S. President Barack Obama's comment about American exceptionalism during his September 10, 2013, talk to the American people while considering military action on Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Obama saying that "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation."[75]

In his interview with RT on October 4, 2013, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa criticized Obama's policies and compared America's exceptionalism with Nazi Germany, saying: "Does not this remind you of the Nazis' rhetoric before and during World War II? They considered themselves the chosen race, the superior race, etc. Such words and ideas pose extreme danger."[76]

Moral purity

Critics on the left such as Marilyn Young and Howard Zinn have argued that American history is so morally flawed, citing slavery, civil rights and social welfare issues, that it cannot be an exemplar of virtue.[77] Zinn argues that American exceptionalism cannot be of divine origin because it was not benign, especially when dealing with Native Americans.[78]

Donald E. Pease mocks American exceptionalism as a "state fantasy" and a "myth" in his 2009 book The New American Exceptionalism.[79] Pease notes that "state fantasies cannot altogether conceal the inconsistencies they mask", showing how such events as the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the exposure of government incompetence after Hurricane Katrina "opened fissures in the myth of exceptionalism".[79]

American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr argued that the automatic assumption that America acts for the good will bring about moral corruption. However Niebuhr did support the nation's Cold War policies. His position (called "Christian Realism") advocated a liberal notion of responsibility that justified interference in other nations.[80]

Double standards

U.S. historians like Thomas Bender "try and put an end to the recent revival of American exceptionalism, a defect he esteems to be inherited from the Cold War".[81] Gary W. Reichard and Ted Dickson argue "how the development of the United States has always depended on its transactions with other nations for commodities, cultural values and populations".[82] Roger Cohen asks, "How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?"[83] Harold Koh distinguishes "distinctive rights, different labels, the 'flying buttress' mentality, and double standards. (…) [T]he fourth face—double standards—presents the most dangerous and destructive form of American exceptionalism."[84] Godfrey Hodgson also concludes that "the US national myth is dangerous".[85] Samantha Power asserts that "we're neither the shining example, nor even competent meddlers. It's going to take a generation or so to reclaim American exceptionalism."[86]

The Americanist heresy

Main article: Americanism (heresy)

In 1898 Pope Leo XIII denounced what he deemed to be the heresy of americanism in the encyclical Testem benevolentiae nostrae.[87] He targeted American exceptionalism in the ecclesiastical domain, arguing that it stood in opposition to Papal denunciations of modernism.[88][89] At the end of the 19th century, there was a tendency among Catholic clergy in the United States to view American society as inherently different from other Christian nations, and to argue that the understanding of Church doctrine had to be enlarged in order to encompass the 'American Experience', which included greater individualism, tolerance of other religions, and Church–State separation.[90]

Pre-emptive declinism

Herbert London has defined pre-emptive declinism as a postmodern belief "that the United States is not an exceptional nation and is not entitled by virtue of history to play a role on the world stage different from other nations".[91] London ascribed the view to Paul Krugman, among others.[92] Krugman had written in The New York Times that "We've always known that America's reign as the world's greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic."[92]

According to RealClearPolitics, declarations of America's declining power have been common in the English-language media. In 1988, Flora Lewis said that "Talk of U.S. decline is real in the sense that the U.S. can no longer pull all the levers of command or pay all the bills." According to Anthony Lewis in 1990, Europeans and Asians are already finding confirmation of their suspicion that the United States is in decline. Citing America's dependence on foreign sources for energy and "crucial weaknesses" in the military, Tom Wicker concluded "that maintaining superpower status is becoming more difficult—nearly impossible—for the United States".[93] In 2004, Pat Buchanan lamented "the decline and fall of the greatest industrial republic the world had ever seen".[94] In 2007, Matthew Parris of The Sunday Times in London wrote that the United States is "overstretched", romantically recalling the Kennedy presidency, when "America had the best arguments" and could use moral persuasion rather than force to have its way in the world. From his vantage point in Shanghai, the International Herald Tribune's Howard French worries about "the declining moral influence of the United States" over an emergent China.[93]

In his book, The Post-American World, Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria refers to a "Post-American world" that he says "is not about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else".[95]

Similarities between the U.S. and Europe

In December 2009, historian Peter Baldwin published a book arguing that, despite widespread attempts to contrast the 'American way of life' and the 'European social model', America and Europe are actually very similar on a number of social and economic indices. Baldwin claimed that the black underclass accounts for many of those few areas where a stark difference exists between the US and Europe, such as homicide and child poverty.[96]

The historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto argues that it is common thought that all people consider themselves exceptional. In most cases in which this subject is broached the similarities between the conflicting parties outweigh the differences. Things such as the "dynamic wealth creation, the democracy, the accessibility of opportunity, the cult of civil liberty, the tradition of tolerance," and what Fernández-Armesto considers evils such as the materialistic economy, the excessive privileges of wealth, and the selective illiberality are common features in many modern societies. However, he adds, America is made exceptional by the intensity with which these characteristics are concentrated there.[97]

Debates

In April 2009, Barack Obama responded to a journalist's question in Strasbourg with the statement, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."[98] In the same response, Obama noted that "I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone."[99] Mitt Romney attacked Obama's statement, arguing it showed Obama did not believe in American exceptionalism.[100] Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said that Obama's "worldview is dramatically different from any president, Republican or Democrat, we've had...He grew up more as a globalist than an American. To deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation."[101]

In a speech on the Syria crisis on September 10, 2013, Barack Obama said: "But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act....That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional."[102] In a direct response, the next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an op-ed for the New York Times on September 11, 2013, articulated that "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation." He went on to say: "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."[103]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Winfried Fluck; Donald E. Pease; John Carlos Rowe (2011). Re-framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies. University Press of New England. p. 207.
  2. ↑ American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. Seymour Martin Lipset. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 1996. Page 18. .
  3. ↑ Seymour Martin Lipset, The first new nation (1963).
  4. 1 2 Lipset, American Exceptionalism, pp. 1, 17–19, 165–174, 197
  5. ↑ Harold Koh, "America's Jekyll-and-Hyde Exceptionalism", in Michael Ignatieff, ed., American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, p. 112
  6. ↑ The American Spectator : In Defense of American Exceptionalism "the conditions American Exceptionalism provides, allow us to enjoy the economic and social mobility that other countries envy" and "progressivism rejects American Exceptionalism".
  7. ↑ de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America (1840), part 2, page 36: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no other democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one."
  8. ↑ Zimmer, Ben "Did Stalin Really Coin "American Exceptionalism"?", Slate.com Retrieved 1st of February 2015
  9. 1 2 Albert Fried, Communism in America: A History in Documents (1997), p. 7.
  10. ↑ Donald E. Pease (2009). The New American Exceptionalism. U of Minnesota Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-8166-2782-0.
  11. ↑ Rose, Richard (1989). "How Exceptional is the American Political Economy?". Political Science Quarterly 104 (1): 91–115. doi:10.2307/2150989.
  12. ↑ David W. Noble, Death of a nation: American culture and the end of exceptionalism, pp. xxiii ff.
  13. ↑ Timothy Roberts and Lindsay DiCuirci, eds., American Exceptionalism (2013) vol 1 p 9
  14. ↑ Michael Kammen and Stanley N. Katz. "Bernard Bailyn, Historian, and Teacher: An Appreciation." in James A. Henretta, Michael Kämmen, and Stanley N. Katz, eds. The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology (1991) p 10.
  15. ↑ Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution p 92
  16. ↑ The New American Exceptionalism, Donald E. Pease U of Minnesota Press, 2009 ISBN 0-8166-2783-5, ISBN 978-0-8166-2783-7 Length 246 pages p.10
  17. 1 2 How Joseph Stalin Invented American Exceptionalism, The Atlantic.
  18. ↑ Iviea, Robert L.; Ginerb, Oscar (2009). "American Exceptionalism in a Democratic Idiom: Transacting the Mythos of Change in the 2008 Presidential Campaign". Communication Studies 60 (4): 359–75. doi:10.1080/10510970903109961.
  19. ↑ Foreword: on American Exceptionalism; Symposium on Treaties, Enforcement, and U.S. Sovereignty, Stanford Law Review, May 1, 2003, Pg. 1479
  20. ↑ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vintage Books, 1945
  21. ↑ Kammen p 7
  22. ↑ Quentin R. Skrabec (2009). William McGuffey: Mentor to American Industry. Algora Publishing. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-87586-728-1.
  23. ↑ Fried, Albert. Communism in America: a history in documents, pp. 7–8, 19, 82–92. Columbia University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-231-10235-6
  24. 1 2 Pease, Donald E. Editors: Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. "Exceptionalism", pp. 108–112, in "Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU Press, 2007. ISBN 0-8147-9948-5
  25. ↑ Edwards, Brian T.; Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar (2010). Globalizing American Studies. University of Chicago Press. pp. 58–59. ISBN 0-226-18507-9.
  26. ↑ McCoy, Terrence. "How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism'". The Atlantic, March 15, 2012. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  27. ↑ Johnpoll, Bernard K. A Documentary History of the Communist Party of the United States. Vol. II, Vol. II. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1994, p. 196.
  28. ↑ Dorothy Ross (1991). Origins of American Social Science. p 23.
  29. ↑ Dorothy Ross (1991). Origins of American Social Science. p 24,5.
  30. ↑ Dorothy Ross (1991). Origins of American Social Science. p 25.
  31. ↑ American Exceptionalism. The Washington Post
  32. ↑ "Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, By Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney". Simon & Schuster. 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  33. ↑ Holland, Catherine A. (2005). "Hartz and Minds: The Liberal Tradition after the Cold War". Studies in American Political Development 19 (2): 227–233. doi:10.1017/S0898588X05000155.
  34. ↑ Cross, Gary (1995). "Comparative Exceptionalism: Rethinking the Hartz Thesis in the Settler Societies of Nineteenth-Century United States and Australia". Australasian Journal of American Studies 14 (1): 15–41. JSTOR 41053761.
  35. ↑ Anna Gandziarowski, The Puritan Legacy to American Politics (2010) p. 2
  36. ↑ Justin B. Litke, "Varieties of American Exceptionalism: Why John Winthrop Is No Imperialist", Journal of Church and State, 54 (Spring 2012), 197–213.
  37. ↑ The Hanover Historical Texts Project, ed. (August 1996). "John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity(1630)". Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, 1838), 3rd series 7:31–48. Archived from the original on April 13, 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  38. ↑ Skoll, G. R., & Korstanje, M. E. (2012). Risks, totems, and fetishes in Marx and Freud. Sincronía, (2), 11-27.
  39. ↑ Skoll, G. R., & Korstanje, M. E. (2013). Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism. International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 1(4), 341-364.
  40. ↑ Korstanje, M. E. (2014). Why Risk-Research is More Prominent in English Speaking Countries in the Digital Society. International Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism (IJCWT), 4(1), 8-18.
  41. ↑ Gordon Wood, "Introduction" in Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (2011) online.
  42. ↑ Gordon S. Wood (2009). The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History. Penguin. p. 240.
  43. ↑ Hoogenboom, Ari (2002). "American Exceptionalism Republicanism as Ideology". In Gläser, Elisabeth; Wellenreuther, Hermann. Bridging the Atlantic: the question of American exceptionalism in perspective. pp. 43–67. ISBN 0-521-78205-8.
  44. ↑ Kidd, Thomas S. (2010). God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution. New York: Basic Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-465-00235-1.
  45. ↑ Kidd, God of Liberty, p 8
  46. ↑ Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of liberty: the statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (1992) quote on p. ix
  47. ↑ Quoted in Tucker and Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty p 7; see John P. Foley, ed. The Jeffersonian cyclopedia (1900) text p 895
  48. ↑ Marilyn B. Young, "One Empire Under God", European Contributions to American Studies, May 2004, Vol. 55, p8-18
  49. ↑ Larry Schweikart and Dave Dougherty, A Patriot's History of the Modern World, From America's Exceptional Ascent to the Atomic Bomb, 1898–1945. Sentinel. ISBN 978-1-59523-089-8. and A Patriot's History of the Modern World, Vol. II, From the Cold War to the Age of Entitlement, 1945–2012. Sentinel. ISBN 978-1-59523-104-8
  50. ↑ Cheney, Dick and Liz Cheney. Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, Threshold Editions, New York, 2015 – p. 259f. ISBN 978-1-5011-1541-7.
  51. ↑ T. Harry Williams, "Abraham Lincoln--Principle and Pragmatism in Politics: A Review Article," Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1953) 40#1 pp. 89-106 at page 97 in JSTOR
  52. ↑ Robert Alan Dahl (1997). Toward democracy--a journey: reflections, 1940–1997. Institute of Governmental Studies Press, University of California, Berkeley. p. 2:711.
  53. ↑ Eric Foner, "Birthright Citizenship Is the Good Kind of American Exceptionalism," The Nation Aug. 27, 2015
  54. ↑ Harold Hongju Koh, "On American Exceptionalism" 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479 (2003)quote at p 1487 online
  55. ↑ "Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, By Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  56. ↑ Richard W. Etulain, Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional? (1999)
  57. ↑ Walker D. Wyman and Clifton B. Kroeber, eds. Frontier in Perspective (1957)
  58. ↑ Marvin K. Mikesell, "Comparative Studies in Frontier History", in Richard Hofstadter and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Turner and the Sociology of the Frontier (1968) pp 152-72
  59. ↑ Carroll, Dennis (1982). "Mateship and Individualism in Modern Australian Drama". Theatre Journal 34 (4): 467–480. JSTOR 3206809.
  60. ↑ Kaelble, Hartmut (1981). Social Mobility in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Europe and America in Comparative Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05274-X.
  61. ↑ Thernstrom, Stephan (1999). "The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970". Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 1-58348-443-4.
  62. ↑ Stephenson, Charles; Jensen, Richard; Webster, Janice Reiff (1978). Social predictors of American mobility: a census capture-recapture study of New York and Wisconsin, 1875–1905. Newberry Library.
  63. ↑ Blau, Peter M.; Duncan, Otis Dudley (1978). The American Occupational Structure. London: Collier Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-903670-4.
  64. ↑ De Grauwe, Paul (July 2, 2007). "Structural rigidities in the US and Europe". Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  65. ↑ Mankiw, Greg (January 12, 2011). "Half-Full Glass of Economic Mobility" (blog). Archived from the original on January 22, 2011. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
  66. ↑ Rose, "How Exceptional is the American Political Economy?" Political Science Quarterly (1989) 104#1 pp 91, 92 in JSTOR
  67. ↑ Michael Kamman, "The Problem of American Exceptionalism" American Quarterly (1993) p 2 online
  68. ↑ Kamman, "The Problem of American Exceptionalism" p 12
  69. ↑ Kamman, "The Problem of American Exceptionalism" pp 12-13
  70. ↑ Kamman, "The Problem of American Exceptionalism" pp 12-14
  71. ↑ Michael Ignatieff (2009). American Exceptionalism and Human Rights. pp. 3–8.
  72. ↑ Charles Philippe David,David Grondin, Hegemony or empire?: the redefinition of US power under George W. Bush
  73. ↑ Frel, Jan (July 10, 2006). "Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?". AlterNet. Archived from the original on May 13, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2008.
  74. ↑ Thimm, Johannes. "American Exceptionalism – Conceptual Thoughts and Empirical Evidence" (PDF). Berlin. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
  75. ↑ Vladimir Putin's comments on American exceptionalism, Syria cause a fuss. CNN. 12 September 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  76. ↑ "Ecuador's Correa: Obama's exceptionalism talk reminiscent of Nazi rhetoric before WWII". RT. 4 October 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
  77. ↑ Zinn, Howard (1980). A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present. Harper & Row.
  78. ↑ Howard Zinn. "The Myth of American Exceptionalism". Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved October 21, 2007.
  79. 1 2 Pease, Donald E. (2009). The New American Exceptionalism. University of Minnesota Press.
  80. ↑ Edwards, Mark (2009). "'God Has Chosen Us': Re-Membering Christian Realism, Rescuing Christendom, and the Contest of Responsibilities during the Cold War". Diplomatic History 33 (1): 67–94. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2008.00747.x.
  81. ↑ "Index of /wp". Gilderlehrman.org. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  82. ↑ Reichard, Gary W.; Ted Dickson. America on the World Stage, University of Illinois Press, 2008, back cover. ISBN 0-252-07552-8
  83. ↑ Cohen, Roger (September 24, 2008). "Roger Cohen: Palin's American exception". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
  84. ↑ Koh, Harold Hongju (May 2003). "Foreword: On American Exceptionalism". Stanford Law Review. The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Archived from the original on September 11, 2006. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  85. ↑ "Book review: The Myth of American Exceptionalism". The Atlantic. March 18, 2009. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  86. ↑ Hirsh, Michael (January 21, 2009). "No Time to Go Wobbly, Barack". Washingtonmonthly.com. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  87. ↑ "Library : Americanism, Then and Now: Our Pet Heresy". Catholic Culture. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  88. ↑ "The Heresy of Americanism: Response to Radical Traditionalists". Bringyou.to. Archived from the original on February 5, 2010. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  89. ↑ "The Phantom Heresy?". West Virginia University. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
  90. ↑ McAvoy, Thomas T. (1959). "The Catholic Minority after the Americanist Controversy, 1899–1917". Review of Politics 21 (1): 53–82. doi:10.1017/s0034670500021975.
  91. ↑ "Is the U.S. Still a Dependable Ally?". Hudson Institute. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  92. 1 2 "Examining Declinism". HumanEvents.com. Retrieved November 10, 2010.
  93. 1 2 "Three Centuries of American Declinism". RealClearPolitics. August 27, 2007. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  94. ↑ "The Decline and Fall of Declinism". American.com. Archived from the original on January 29, 2010. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  95. ↑ Zakaria, Fareed, The Post-American World. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-670-08229-2
  96. ↑ Lloyd, John (December 20, 2009). "Financial Times". Martian myths that flatter Europe. Archived from the original on December 31, 2009. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  97. ↑ Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. The Americas: A Hemispheric History. New York: Modern Library, 2003. 17. Print.
  98. ↑ Kirchick, James (April 28, 2009). "Squanderer in chief". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 11, 2010.
  99. ↑ Sheer, Michael (April 5, 2009). "On European Trip, President Tries to Set a New, Pragmatic Tone". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
  100. ↑ Mitt Romney (2010). No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. Macmillan. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4299-3960-7.
  101. ↑ Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith, "The New Battle:What It Means to be American," August 20, 2010, www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41273.html.
  102. ↑ Karen Tumulty, "American exceptionalism, explained", Washington Post September 12, 2013
  103. ↑ Max Fisher, "Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked", Washington Post September 12, 2013

Bibliography

Primary sources

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: American exceptionalism
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.