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American exceptionalism
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American exceptionalism (def. "exceptionalism") refers to the controversial theory that the United States occupies a special niche among developed nations in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who noted that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.
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Encyclopedia
American exceptionalism (def. "exceptionalism") refers to the controversial theory that the United States occupies a special niche among developed nations in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who noted that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. The term itself did not emerge until after World War II when it was embraced by neoconservative pundits in what was described by the IHT as "an ugly twist of late". Research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.S.] public, but very little evidence of unilateral attitudes".
The theory of American exceptionalism has a number of opponents, especially from the Left. They argue that the belief is "self-serving and jingoistic" (pointing out slavery and civil rights issues), that it is based on a myth,and that "[t]here is a growing refusal to accept" the idea of exceptionalism both nationally and internationally. U.S. historians like Thomas Bender also "try and put an end to the recent revival of American exceptionalism, a defect he esteems to be inherited from the Cold War". G. 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", while Joseph Lepgold and Timothy McKeown "demonstrate that there is little or no basis to the claims that US foreign policy has differed greatly from that of other large nations". 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?"
In recent years, the term has also been used to describe an alleged phenomenon wherein certain political interests, to include the George W. Bush Administration, along with Americans subscribing to the political theory of neoconservativism, along with certain other US individuals and interests, allegedly view the United States as somehow being "above" or being an "exception" to the law, specifically the Law of Nations. (This phenomenon might be called a priori exceptionalism or "neoexceptionalism".) Though this new use of the term has come into wide use in certain circles, it has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters surrounding the traditional use of the term. This is due to the fact that a large number of persons who believe in what might be termed "traditional American exceptionalism" or a posteriori exceptionalism - the idea that America is a unique nation - that it differs qualitatively from the rest of the world - and has played a unique role in world history - also agree that the United States is and ought to be fully subject to and bound by the public international law. Individuals who subscribe to this point of view opine that America's exception is found in her history and behavior, not the laws she is subject to.
Overview
Dorothy Ross, in Origins of American Social Science (1991), argued that there are three generic varieties of American exceptionalism:
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supernaturalist explanations which emphasize the causal potency of God in selecting America to serve as an example for the rest of the world; for example, see the speech of Reverend John Winthrop to the Puritan colonists of Massachusetts Bay: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world." Indeed, scholars such as Robert Bellah believe there are religious overtones embedded into American history and society itself--an civil religion with its own temples and civic gods. genetic interpretations which emphasize racial traits, ethnicity, or gender; for example, Adolf Hitler claimed that due to America's tolerant, multiracial, multiethnic polity, it was exceptional in its racial inferiority, once saying in a speech to his headquarters staff: "I don't see much future for the Americans...it's a decayed country...my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance...everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaized, and the other half Negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?" environmental explanations such as geography, climate, availability of natural resources, social structure, and type of political economy.
The concept was first used in respect of the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831 in his work Democracy in America:
American exceptionalism is close to the idea of Manifest Destiny, a term used by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the purchase of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, the Gadsden Purchase, and the Mexican Cession). The concept of "manifest destiny" was later used in the 1890s by members of the Republican Party as a theoretical justification for the seizure and retention of former Spanish foreign colonies as the colonies and protectorates of the United States during the Spanish-American War of 1898. This short-lived phenomenon of classical colonial imperialism, was an arguably aberrational episode of US history that involved the occupation of the Philippines, as well as Puerto Rico, in addition to the establishment of a protectorate over Cuba, and an imperial adventure in Panama prior to the construction of the Panama Canal. This took place during a period from around 1898 to 1913 in the U.S. expansion outside of North America.
However, it must be noted that this colonialist phenomenon was quite limited in time and scope compared to practically all of the classical imperial powers, such as France, Imperial Japan, the United Kingdom, etc, who had extensive foreign empires lasting for centuries. On the contrary, the United States moved rapidly to grant home rule to and liquidate its acquisitions over the next several decades. At least in the case of Puerto Rico, she requested and received home rule in 1927, and changed her form of government in 1948 to that of a freely-associated Commonwealth retaining complete, unilateral, and popular self-determination over her own future. Since that point, Puerto Rico's people have voted in numerous referenda on free association - including the options of independence from the United States, statehood in the United States (as a sovereign and equal State thereof), as well as to remain freely associated with the United States; thus far, all votes have been in favor of free association with the United States (usually around 50% of votes), although a significant minority has always favored formalizing her association with the United States by becoming a full State thereof (between 35% to 45% of votes); those in favor of ending Puerto Rico's free association and declaring complete independence usually receive a small part of the vote (between 5% to 15% of votes). The Philippines requested and received home rule in 1935, and subsequently declared independence in 1946, following the Second World War. The removal of the Cuban protectorate took place in phases stretching from the mid-1930s until the U.S.-supported overthrow of the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, who was believed to be a democrat, but subsequently made Cuba a protectorate of the USSR from 1959 to the end of the Cold War. Decolonization of the Panama Canal Zone took place over a period of some 30 years, ending in 2000 with the return of the American-built canal to the people of the Republic of Panama.
The basis most commonly cited for American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government; and that through these values America diverged from the rest of the world at least during its early years.. Of course, America as it is does not reflect the fulfillment of these ideals in whole, but most Americans throughout history have viewed these as goals to work for, to live for, and to fight for. The term is also used by United States citizens to indicate that America and Americans have different states of mind, different surroundings, and different political cultures than other nations, and still others use it to refer to the American dream and the slow yet continuous journey of the people of the United States, sharing a nation and a destiny, to build a more perfect union, to live up to the dreams, hopes, and ideals of its founders, so that "these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this Earth."
Researchers and academics, however, generally use the term "American exceptionalism" to strictly mean sharp and measurable differences in public opinion and political behavior between Americans and their counterparts in other developed democracies.
Persons who are not supporters of the theory of American exceptionalism often argue that it is equivalent to ethnocentrism or jingoism and nationalist propaganda. In their arguments, they often compare the US to other countries that have claimed an exceptional nature or destiny. Examples in more recent times include Great Britain at the height of the British Empire, the USSR and Nazi Germany, while many historic empires such as Ancient Rome, China, and a wide range of minor kingdoms and tribes have also embraced exceptionalism. In each case, a basis was presented as to why the country was exceptional compared to all other countries, drawing upon circumstance, cultural background and mythos, and self-perceived national aims.
However, it is also claimed that this view of American exceptionalism as nationalistic propaganda is markedly incorrect, because American exceptionalism, as a phenomenon, means qualitative differences from other nations, not superiority over them. One example of the nature of this exceptionalism (as in difference) is that all of the nations mentioned in the previous example were societies based on an exclusive ethnic group, or an exclusive ethnic group as first-class citizens within those societies: the Romans, in the case of Ancient Rome; the British, in the case of the British Empire; "Aryans" in the case of the Nazi entity; etc. Compared to these states, the United States is fundamentally different; it may be British in origin, but is not very British today, aside from the more or less (See American English and British English differences) shared English language, and certain shared, ancient, traditional customs and structures. Today the U.S. is a amalgamated pluricentric multiethnic polity, consisting of citizens of many ethnicities: Native American, Alaska Native, Pacific Islander, English, African (including Cape Verdean-Americans, Liberian-Americans, Ghanaian-Americans, South African-Americans, Kenyan-Americans, and Nigerian-Americans, among many others), Scottish, Welsh, Irish, French, German, Jewish, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Scandinavian (including Icelandic-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, Danish-Americans, Swedish-Americans, and Finnish Americans), English Canadian and French Canadian, Filipino, Somali, Ethiopian, Armenian, Russian, Serbian, Albanian, Croatian, Bosnian, Romanian, Roma, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Middle Eastern, Latino and Hispanic (including Salvadorian-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Colombian-Americans, Venezuelan-Americans and Brazilian-Americans), Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Afghan, Tibetan, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi - in essence, a sample of all mankind, many of whom remember their ethnic heritage, yet proudly describe themselves as Americans, and share a common citizenship, a common compact, a common land, and a common destiny.
This exceptionalism in difference may even be considered to extend beyond the synthesis of ethnicities that America represents: it can also speak to a shared experience. Unlike the empires of the past, it can be said that Americans do not believe they are the "Chosen People"; they believe that they are a people who chose. When famine, oppression, warfare, religious persecution, tyranny, genocide or stagnation threatened their old country, unlike those who remained behind, they chose to not be the passive victims of history, they chose to get on a boat or a plane, they chose to seek a better life in a new land. Whether that is exceptional, in terms of difference, or exceptional, in other ways, is a matter for history and the reader to determine.
Causes in their historical context
In essence, it characterizes the course of American history as a "deliberate choice" of "freedom over tyranny" which was properly made, and was the central reason for why American society developed "successfully." With this in mind, American exceptionalism is just one of many national exceptionalist movements.
Puritan roots
The earliest ideologies of English colonists in the country were embodied by the Protestantism of Puritan settlers of New England. 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 lead 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. This metaphor is often used by proponents of exceptionalism.
Although the world-view of New England Puritans changed dramatically, and the strong influence of other Protestant traditions in the Middle Colonies and the South, the Puritans' deep moralistic values remained part of the national identity of the United States for centuries, remaining influential to the present day. Parts of American exceptionalism can be traced to American Puritan roots. This theory does, however, ignore the fact that the earliest British colonies in North America (such as Virginia, which predates the colonization of New England) were not at all Puritan, and that most of the colonies and citizens thereof that were later absorbed in to the United States were essentially Roman Catholic. It also tends to overlook the fact that the original Puritan colony all-but failed in its first two years, and was forced to admit mass numbers of colonists who were not motivated by any strong religious feelings whatsoever. But, despite their comparative statistical importance, the 'Puritan Roots' of America have become an important, unquestionable, almost sacrosanct part of the American Myth, even though it is mostly untrue.
American Revolution and Republicanism
A milestone in the history of American Exceptionalism is the American Revolution. The ideas that created the American Revolution were derived from a tradition of republicanism that had been repudiated by the British mainstream. 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.
Alexis de Tocqueville stressed the advanced nature of democracy in America, arguing that it infused every aspect of society and culture, at a time (1830s) when democracy was not in fashion anywhere else.
Immigration
A core argument of exceptionalism is that America is unusually attractive to immigrants from all parts of the world for two reasons. First, advocates of American exceptionalism say that economic and political opportunities are unusually high, and that the United States possesses a high degree of social mobility. Since its founding, immigrants such as Andrew Carnegie and Carl Schurz have risen to the top layers of the economic and political system. The "American Dream" describes the perceived abundance of opportunities in the American system. Second, unlike many old world countries, where citizenship is based on blood, immigrants can become US citizens - and full Americans - by passing a test showing a basic level of skill in English & US History & Government, demonstrating good moral character (not being convicted of a felony), residing in the nation for seven years, and pledging allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.
The United States has the largest population of immigrants in the world - over 38.5 million people living in the United States are first-generation immigrants. On an annual basis, the United States naturalizes approximately 898 thousand immigrants as new citizens, the most of any country in the world. From 1960 to 2005, on a 5-year period basis, the United States was ranked first in the world for every five year period but one for the total number of immigrants admitted - and overall, since 1995, the United States has admitted over 1 million immigrants per year. Of the top ten countries accepting resettled refugees in 2006, the United States accepted more than twice as many as the next nine countries combined, approximately 50,000 refugees; in addition, on average, over 100,000 refugees per year were resettled annually between 1990 - 2000; further, over 85,000 asylum seekers annually come to the United States in search of sanctuary, of which approximately 45% are successful in obtaining.
Critics point out that America is now hardly unique in its appeal to immigrants, and that many countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand are at least as popular and welcoming to immigrants.
Cold War
American exceptionalism during the Cold War was often cast by the mass media as the American Way of Life personifying "liberty" engaged in a battle with "tyranny" as represented by totalitarianism. These attributions made use of the residual sentiment that had originally formed to differentiate the United States from the 19th century European powers and had been applied multiple times in multiple contexts before it was used to distinguish democracies (with the United States primus inter pares of the democracies) from authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships.
A peculiar political tendency, that some have called "American exceptionalism", but is generally not connected (or only very tenuously connected) to the traditional meaning of the phrase "American exceptionalism" (the traditional meaning of the phrase "American exceptionalism" being the theory that America qualitatively differs from the rest of the world due to its history and past behavior) arose during the later period of the Cold War. This alleged phenomenon, which might be termed a priori "American exceptionalism" or neoexceptionalism, is an allegedly connected to neoconservativism, and allegedly sees the United States as being an exception to the Law of Nations, and particularly being an exception to international human rights standards and instruments. This alleged phenomenon manifested itself at certain times in an anti-internationalist streak as part of which certain presidential Administrations rejected participation in international institutions which they allegedly could not control. The Bricker Amendment movement, for instance, rejected the adoption of international human rights conventions by the United States - though that movement was unsuccessful.
Aspects of arguments
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 this view, America is inextricably connected with liberty and equality.
The United States' policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism and checks and balances, which were designed to prevent any person, 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 a free republican democrat, and also that it allows citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect that citizen's 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 more local dominance but prevents more national dominance than does a more unitary system.
Frontier spirit
Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that the "American spirit" or the "American identity" was created at the frontier (following Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis), where rugged and untamed conditions gave birth to American national vitality. However, this 'frontier spirit' was not unique to the United States - other nations such as New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Argentina and Australia had long frontiers that were similarly settled by pioneers, shaping their national psyches. In fact, all of the British Imperial domains involved pioneering work. Although each nation had slightly different frontier experiences (for example, in Australia "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism was in the United States), the characteristics arising from British attempting to "tame" a wild and often hostile landscape against the will of the original population remained common to many such nations. Of course, at the limit, all of mankind has been involved, at one time or another, in extending the boundaries of their territory.
Mobility
For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, the United States was exceptional in its occupational and physical mobility. America is 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. Examples of this social mobility include:
- Occupational - children could easily choose careers which were not based upon their parents' choices.
- Physical - that geographical location was not seen as static, and citizens often relocated freely over long distances without barrier.
- Status - As in most countries, family standing and riches were often a means to remain in a higher social circle. America was notably unusual due to an accepted wisdom that anyone - from impoverished immigrants upwards - who worked hard, could aspire to similar standing, regardless of circumstances of birth. This aspiration is commonly called living the American dream. Birth circumstances were not taken as a social barrier to the upper echelons or to high political status in American culture. This stood in contrast to other countries where many higher offices were socially determined, and usually hard to enter without being born into the suitable social group.
It is disputed whether Americans statistically have greater or lesser economic mobility.
American Revolution
The American Revolutionary War is the claimed ideological territory of "exceptionalists". The intellectuals of the Revolution, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, arguably shaped America into a nation fundamentally different from its European ancestry, creating modern constitutional republicanism, with a limit on ecclesiastical powers. Others counter that there is nothing unique about the revolution — the English "Glorious Revolution" was nearly a century prior to the American Revolution and led to constitutional monarchy. The French Revolution also arguably led to a form of modern democracy but was much more bloody.
Opposing views
Opponents of the notion of American exceptionalism argue that, while all societies differ in their history and social structures, the notion that the United States is uniquely virtuous overstates the importance of differences between American and other present-day First World countries. It ignores aspects of American history and society that contradict ideals of freedom and equality, such as slavery, segregation of schools in the South, the annexation by force of the Hawaiian islands, McCarthyism, the poverty and sometimes ghettoisation of millions of citizens, the unequal quality of health care and education, and the genocide and displacement of the Native American population. Proponents of American exceptionalism counter that these examples indeed show the failure of America to live up to its putative ideals, but that on the strength of those ideals, later generations of Americans have admitted these errors and have made attempts to redress them, through programs such as affirmative action.
A typical argument against the American exceptionalist position is to identify positive qualities in specific other countries that correspond to allegedly unique qualities of the United States. These arguments are seldom convincing to proponents, who reply that the historical uniqueness of the United States is the result of a combination of many factors and not captured by particular aspects of the national character.
Canadian and American politics and economies compared explores this issue by contrast to the most similar nation, on the same continent, with a quite different history.
Opponents of American exceptionalism point out that there are many nations in the world that have considered themselves "exceptional." Many proponents do not consider this relevant, as it is the way in which America is exceptional that is relevant, not the mere fact that it is exceptional in some way.
Critics point out that the idea of American exceptionalism is not so much manifested in an actual difference between the US and other countries in terms of outward behavior, but more in terms of a ‘truth’ about the mental and moral superiority of Americans being actively reiterated by American culture to the American public via movies, television and political rhetoric. To generalize, all Americans are told every day in the media that only they know how the world really works, and only they know how it should be worked. In this way, the myth is kept alive.
Chicano studies and African diaspora scholars have long documented transnational movements, identities, and processes, although their work was often ignored by white historians. Had their vision been taken seriously a century ago, Robin D. G. Kelley notes, “It could have overthrown American nationalist, jingoistic historiography once and for all.” The framework, however, has attracted new champions in recent years. American studies scholars, alarmed by renewed U.S. jingoism, have taken aim against American exceptionalism. Transnational perspectives, they hope, will free citizens from the political trap of “with us or against us” as well as the intellectual delusion that the United States is the alpha and omega of history.
"The big change coming is not the end of American exceptionalism but the end of American triumphalism. Winning the cold war left many Americans intoxicated with power. Even Bill Clinton boasted about America as the “indispensable nation” — a country that stood taller and saw farther than its rivals. The mood is very different today. The main challenge facing the next president will not be to blunt American exceptionalism, but to make sure that American triumphalism is not replaced by a grumpy and irresponsible isolationism."
See also
Further reading
- Glickstein, Jonathan A. American Exceptionalism, American Anxiety: Wages, Competition, and Degraded Labor In The Antebellum United States (2002)
- Ferrie, Joseph P. The End of American Exceptionalism: Mobility in the US Since 1850, Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer, 2005)
- ** Lipset, Seymour Martin. "The First New Nation." Basic Books, 1955.
- Lipset, Seymour Martin. "Still the Exceptional Nation?." The Wilson Quarterly. 24#1 (2000) pp 31+
- Lloyd, Brian. Left Out: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Poverty of American Marxism, 1890-1922. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.* Ross, Dorothy. Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
- Ross, Dorothy. "American Exceptionalism" in A Companion to American Thought. Richard W. Fox and James T. Kloppenberg, eds. London: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995: 22-23.
- Shafer, Byron E. Is America Different?: A New Look at American Exceptionalism (1991)
- Rick Tilman. "Thorstein Veblen's Views on American 'Exceptionalism': An Interpretation." Journal of Economic Issues. 39#1 2005. pp 177+. * Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993)
- Wilentz, Sean. Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor Movement, 1790-1820, 26 Int'l Lab. & Working Class History 1 (1984)
External links
- "Summary: Seymour Martin Lipset explains why the United States is exceptional. Michael J. Sandel blames its individualistic tradition for the country's ills and says America should return to the New England town square. But it isn't exceptional, and it shouldn't return."
- Debate between Grover Norquist and Will Hutton
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