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Those who think that USA is not exceptional,usually regard some other tiny little country of 3,4,5m pop as "exceptional"...
The honest move for them would be to emigrate to that "exceptional " country
& not bust our nerves in forums for... "non-exceptional" Americans...
Rock on Harry, I've come to rely on your concise, well thought and in-depth analysis. Harry, you da man!
While flipping through my latest copy of The American Conservative magazine, I ran across this in print and noticed it is also shown on Youtube, to which I'll post.
It offers an reasoning that coincides with a conversation I had with Andrew Bacevich recently, on the obligatory aspect of exceptionalism. If I obtain permission from Bacevich to reprint a recent piece of his that goes directly to what you are referring to as well as DC at the Ridge, I'll post it here.
While I find it hard in some respects to disagree with your position, I think it warrants examination of how we got to this point. I don't think it is entirely laziness or even dumbing down, although I think it is a part of it, but also due to Americans demanding cheap energy, cheap food, cheap goods. However, more to that later.
This short video, while having more focus on US-Israeli relations, also offers a great deal on US-world relations and how we view ourselves.
I checked out the video, and I also read the article that Bacevich wrote for the Boston Globe in 2008 about transitioning from Bush to a new administration and what he felt the chances of real change happening were. I confess, I was overly optimistic about Obama. As I read the article, I realized more about what you meant by American exceptionalism. My sociology background had me evaluating your question from more of a sociological perspective rather than a political perspective. I think Bacevich is very specific in looking at American exceptionalism and how that mindset expresses itself in terms of our foreign policy.
I think when I was younger, many of my teachers were referencing an American foreign policy that was pre-World War II, even if they got their degrees post-war. I think the war itself and the subsequent cold war fundamentally changed how Americans perceived the world and perceived ourselves. I think that even our own creation of the nuclear bomb, the most terrible weapon known to mankind, ushered in a sense of fear that may be a note running underneath all our dealings with foreign nations. The transformation to a superpower could also have transformed American exceptionalism in the way that Bacevich is using the concept.
I checked out the video, and I also read the article that Bacevich wrote for the Boston Globe in 2008 about transitioning from Bush to a new administration and what he felt the chances of real change happening were. I confess, I was overly optimistic about Obama. As I read the article, I realized more about what you meant by American exceptionalism. My sociology background had me evaluating your question from more of a sociological perspective rather than a political perspective. I think Bacevich is very specific in looking at American exceptionalism and how that mindset expresses itself in terms of our foreign policy.
I think when I was younger, many of my teachers were referencing an American foreign policy that was pre-World War II, even if they got their degrees post-war. I think the war itself and the subsequent cold war fundamentally changed how Americans perceived the world and perceived ourselves. I think that even our own creation of the nuclear bomb, the most terrible weapon known to mankind, ushered in a sense of fear that may be a note running underneath all our dealings with foreign nations. The transformation to a superpower could also have transformed American exceptionalism in the way that Bacevich is using the concept.
While I could not bring myself to vote for Obama, I too had a sense of optimism towards our foreign policy that has since waned. What has since come to sink in is that many of the elements that progress our foreign policy remain and are far slower to change than the mere election of a President or member of Congress.
The Cold War era created a sense of paranoia that fed and grew many of the Neoconservative hawks which resided in key areas of the Executive and the Pentagon, many of which are still in these positions. After the fall of the Soviet Union, this group wished to seize upon the vacuum of power under the premise that since we were the only ones left standing that it was due to our exceptional nature or values or system of government and society. Because they saw it in terms of our being exceptional, they believed this was an opportunity to export this exceptional manner of existence elsewhere, as after all who wouldn't want to be just like us.
As Bacevich has eluded to, it is this sense of obligation, due to that of our exceptionalism that has led to the promotion of being the world police and further increasing our interventionist and even expansionist progressive nature. Fed by small successes in places like Panama, Grenada, and in Desert Storm, there was a belief that the US was and is invincible and so thus operates accordingly.
My greatest concern is that the premise of operating under this ideological position of exceptionalism will at the very least obfuscate the realities of things like open ended wars which costs huge sums of money, global political capital, our economic health and most importantly, the cost in lives to our military which must bear this burden nearly alone.
Those who think that USA is not exceptional,usually regard some other tiny little country of 3,4,5m pop as "exceptional"...
The honest move for them would be to emigrate to that "exceptional " country
& not bust our nerves in forums for... "non-exceptional" Americans...
The USA was exceptional at one time. The world beat a path to our door and bought everything we could make and sell to them. We are not exceptional anymore. We are a fat, lazy dumb down has been empire in decline. What England was 100 years ago.
If u have any arguments against mines,post them...
We,the good Americans,80% of the pop,think ourselves & our state as exceptional...
If u ( the rest 20%) don't think so,maybe u should consider emigration & incorporation to some other nation...
The "good" Americans????
If you were born in the USA, or were naturalized, you are an American. The need some people have to divide the nation between "good" Americans and other Americans, or "real" Americans and other Americans, or "true" Americans and other Americans is simply anti-American. Dividing Americans and trying to qualify them is as un-American as it gets.
If u have any arguments against mines,post them...
We,the good Americans,80% of the pop,think ourselves & our state as exceptional...
If u ( the rest 20%) don't think so,maybe u should consider emigration & incorporation to some other nation...
For starters Harry, your premise is already faulted, as I acknowledge that America is in fact exceptional in many respects.
However, I'll consider emigrating to another nation when you consider improving your basic English and grammar. I, as a native born, English speaking Appalachian-American am struggling to understand what you are trying to convey. Sorry, I just felt left out and wanted to be a hyphenated American today, carry on.
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