On American Exceptionalism

Once again, this time during a civil war in Syria, atrocities perpetrated by some group or other have roused sentiments that "America had ought to do something" about the situation. It has taken the surprise wisdom of an an internationally acknowledged tyrant and thug, published in a US newspaper, to give us all pause from our rush to near-unilateral military intervention. A major point of the published thesis is that America's exceptionalist self-image poses a threat to lasting world peace.

Oh for the days when we were not a so-called "Superpower". The decades -- well over a century if they were gathered up and packed together -- when we meddled with and aggressed only the unlucky other governments that happened to inhabit the land now known as the Continental United States. Even when our aggressiveness began spilling beyond those borders, our invasions involved only our nearest neighbors and our false flag operations were conducted within 90 miles of the Florida Keys. The Presidents in office during the years at the start of both world wars won their elections by promising to keep America out of them. We used to go to war for old-fashioned, unexceptional reasons: the gaining of territory and the weakening of other expansionist nations operating near our borders.

Supposing America were found to be exceptional, would that be a good thing? This is an important question, worth pondering and debating. Perhaps the Roman Empire did not fall because of greed or invasion by barbarians or due to the neurological effects of drinking from heavy metal goblets. Perhaps the Roman Empire fell the way every great society does in which an exceptional class of its citizens comes to control its policies. (always in the name of the "good" of the unexceptional) Under every such regime, only a generation or two passes before the old guard, consumed with defending its power and privileges grows increasingly blind and irrelevant to the concerns and aspirations of the very people it imagines it is serving. As an example, the architects of America's Cold War policies in the 1970s and 80s had about as relevant a contribution to make to the question of Iraq's danger to the world in 2002 as a horse might offer to an octopus regarding the question of sea-floor territory.

The same holds true for movements and institutions. Were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement exceptional? Without a doubt, they were. Simply witness the situations in American society before and after the movement to judge the question correctly. Yet, only Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton remain muted voices in American politics today. And, this is as just as it should be. Today's societal struggles are not -- cannot -- be led by the heroes of yesterday's movements. Without a doubt, past heroes can inspire and advise new movements and help society understand the broader context in which the struggle continues. Yet, the fire that refines us in every generation is kindled with the tinder of today's hearts, not borrowed from the cooling embers of yesterday's. I assert this to be true also of heroic nations within epochs of international crisis.

So what is the conclusion? Are we Americans "exceptional"? To silently suspect one's own exceptionalism can be a source of great inner strength that motivates one to attempt acts of virtue or valor corresponding with a blossoming greatness sensed within. This is a mature, inner fountain of self-motivation, healthy to cultivate in children and in the unassertive. But to claim rights or privileges due to exceptionalism or -- worse still -- to defend one's claims to exceptionalism seems to me to be a sign of immaturity and weakness rather than of strength. It conjures up the image of a former ballerina Prima Donna, having lost her youthful beauty, grace, and flexibility, clumsily crashing the stage of a new production in a tattered, ill-fitting costume to demand fresh applause.

Did the world, once upon a time, give America a "pass" for using atomic weapons in war or for participating in the choosing of other nations' borders or their forms of government? What of it? We must have, at the time, so earned those privileges and so conducted ourselves in the immediate redemption of them as to invite the awe and respect of the greater mass of humanity rather than their outrage and vows of vengeance. Exceptionalism, then, like any other accolade or privilege, is best observed in ourselves silently or conferred upon us by peers worthy of our respect. As with any other virtue, it has a shelf life and begins to spoil and stink when hoarded too long. Only the insecure claim it as a right or use it as a justification.