AMERICAN%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20EXCEPTIONALISM

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AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

• ? ? ?

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• Our particular claim to greatness as a nation
  rests on the fact that we have done without may
  elements that might be thought of as the marks of
  a great people, among them the myth of origin.

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• Americans have been suckled by no wolf, sired by
  no Trojan fleeing Troy they are not descended
  from the sun or from the dragons teeth sown in
  the earth.

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• Indeed, our greatness consists precisely in the
  fact that we are making it up as we go along --
  that we are perpetually in the process of
  devising ourselves as a people.
• Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laurete

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• All civilizations rest on myths,
• but in America myths have exceptional
• meaning....
• America is different. It is the only peaceful
  multi-racial civilization in the world
• - Theodore White,
• journalist

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AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

• Myth...?
• ....or Reality...?

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SOME FACTORStoCONSIDER
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America as a NEW WORLD

• Unanticipated
• Huge, immense
• Relatively unpopulated
• Comparatively vacant
• Resource rich
• Unclaimed by existing political powers

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Whats New?

• New England
• New Jersey
• New York
• New Hampshire
• and (new) Portland -
• of Oregon
• Maine
• and England

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An ABSENCE OF HISTORY

• No feudal traditions...
• of landed aristocracy
• .....or of fixed peasantry
• .....or of inherited statuses
• No incorporation of pre-European --i.e.,
  indigenous--settlements into American history

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• Whereas Europe is a land with too much history
  and not enough geography, America has little
  history and plenty of geography.
• - Daniel Boorstin Aldous Huxley
• historian author

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the SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
FRONTIER

• Open land
• Continual expansion
• Verge or Frontier mentality
• Absence of laws
• Acceptance of violence

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• Every movement inward was a verge between the
  advanced European civilization and the stone-age
  culture of the American Indians, between people
  and wilderness.
• - Daniel Boorstin,
• historian

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Frontier Characteristics(ala Frederick Jackson
Turner)
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the CENTRALITY OF IDEAS

• Founding documents
• Declaration of Independence
• Constitution
• Background of English Enlightenment
• Lincolns proposition of equality
• The great experiment of democracy

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• European nations are the products of history
  and not of philosophy. The United States, unlike
  any other nation, has been built upon an
  idea--the idea of liberty.
• - Margaret Thatcher,
• British Prime Minister

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The American Creed According to Seymour Martin
Lipsetcontemporary sociologist

• - Liberty
• - Equalitarianism
• - Individualism
• - Populism
• - Lassiez-faire

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an AUTOCTHONOUS
PEOPLE

• Self-created
• Coming from everywhere else
• Many-cultured
• Rooted in neither time nor place nor history nor
  culture
• no motherland or fatherland
• Having a Manifest Destiny

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• Americas people come of such diverse heritages
  of religion, tongue, habit, fatherhood, color and
  folk song that if America did not exist it would
  be impossible to imagine that such a gathering of
  alien strains could ever behave like a nation.
• - Theodore White,
• journalist

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RELIGOUSLY MANDATED

• Being of the elect
• Selected for a larger destiny
• Especially blessed
• Having an extra-national moral responsiblity

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• We Americans are the peculiar, chosen
  people--the Israel of our time we bear the ark
  of the liberties of the world. God has
  predestined, mankind expects, great things from
  our race and great things we feel in our souls.
• - Herman Melville,
• author

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Popular Mandates

• New England Puritans
• to establish the City upon the Hill
• Joseph Smith
• to found the promised Land of Zion
• Woodrow Wilson
• to make the world safe for democracy
• George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton
• to establish a new world order

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HISTORICALLY EXEMPT

• Since 1812 not invaded by a foreign power until
  9/11/2001
• No socialist worker political tradition
• Without a state religion
• Peacefully bordered

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War Dead

• The War U.S. Dead Total
  Dead
• Civil War 600,000 600,000
• Great War 30,000 9,000,000
• WW II 300,000 55,000,000
• English civilians alone 60,000
• Viet Nam 60,000 2,060,000
• Iraq II Afghanistan 4922 over
  1,425,000 U.S. wounded 32,987
  
  confirmed as of 2/24/2011

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the SOLE WORLD POWER

• Oldest republic
• Oldest democracy
• Oldest written constitution
• Highest GNP
• 3rd wealthiest per capita
• Strongest military in human history

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What is Our National Interest?

• There is nothing in the national interest or in
  the American creed which demands that we dominate
  the rest of the world but there is much in our
  tradition and way of life which requires that we
  be the defender and promoter of the democratic
  cause on the world scene
• - W. W. Rostow,
• economist

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What is Our National Interest?

• Only in a world where the powers great and small
  enjoyed liberal democratic institutions could
  there obtain the peaceful international relations
  in which America could prosper in its own way of
  life.
• - Charles Hershfield,
• historian

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This is Our National Policy

• History has called America and our allies to
  action, and it is both our responsibility and our
  privilege to fight freedoms fight.
• We seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war
  on terror. Evil is real and must be opposed.

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In a single instant, we realized that this will
be a decisive decade in the history of liberty --
that we have been called to a unique role in
human events. We have known freedoms price.
We have shown freedoms power. And in the great
conflict, my fellow Americans, we will see
freedoms victory. - George W.
Bush, President of
the U.S.
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The New Bush Doctrine

• To provide a single sustainable model for
  national success freedom, democracy, and free
  enterprise.
• To defend freedom of religion and conscience from
  encroachment by repressive governments.
• To engage in proactive counter-proliferation
  efforts.

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New Bush Doctrine continued...

• To exercise our right of self-defense by acting
  preemptively.
• To deter and defend against any threat before it
  is unleashed.
• To maintain the capability to defeat any attempt
  by an enemy to impose its will on the U.S., our
  allies, or our friends.

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New Bush Doctrine continued...

• Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade
  potential adversaries from pursuing a military
  buildup in (their) hopes of surpassing, or
  equaling, the power of the United States.

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Critique of the Bush Doctrine

• The development of a U.S.-centered world view in
  which the United States presumptively and
  unilaterally pursues its objectives as it sees
  fit.

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Super Power as Role Model?

• Withdrew from the Kyoto Treaty on global warming,
  signed by 186 nations.
• Refused to sign the Land Mines Ban Treaty, signed
  by 137 nations.
• Unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty of
  1973.
• Refused to join the International Criminal Court.

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• Abstained from the renewal of the Outer Space
  Treaty.
• Refused to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty,
  accepted by 120 nations.
• Rejected an agreement to enforce the 1972
  International Biological Weapons Convention,
  ratified by 413 countries.

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• If we have to use force, it is because we are
  America.
• We are the indispensable nation.
• We stand tall.
• We see further into the future.
• - Madeline Albright,
• former Secretary of State

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AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

• Myth...?
• ....or Reality...?