American exceptionalism
[1] Proponents argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.
[2] It originates in the observations and writings of French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, most notably in his comparison of the United States with Great Britain and his native France.
[4] Seymour Martin Lipset, a widely cited political scientist and sociologist, argues that the United States is exceptional in that it started from a revolutionary event.
Critics of the concept claim that the idea of American exceptionalism suggests that the US is better than other countries, has a superior culture, or has a unique mission to transform the planet and its inhabitants.
[12] In 1989, the Scottish political scientist Richard Rose noted that most American historians endorse exceptionalism, and he suggested their reasoning to be as follows: America marches to a different drummer.
[13]However, postnationalist scholars reject American exceptionalism and argue the U.S. did not break from European history and accordingly has retained class-based and race-based differences as well as imperialism and willingness to wage war.
Roberts and DiCuirci ask: Why has the myth of American exceptionalism, characterized by a belief in America's highly distinctive features or unusual trajectory based on 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?
He argued that the process of social and cultural transmission result in peculiarly-American patterns of education in the broadest sense of the word, and he believed in the unique character of the American Revolution.
[17] The first reference to the concept by name, and possibly its origin, was by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835/1840 work Democracy in America:[18] The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional [emphasis added], and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
[19] Historian Michael Kammen says that many foreign writers commented on American exceptionalism including Karl Marx, Francis Lieber, Hermann Eduard von Holst, James Bryce, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc and that they did so in complimentary terms.
[23] In mid-1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, disbelieving that America was so resistant to revolution, denounced Lovestone's ideas as "the heresy of American exceptionalism",[24][25] which was likely a reference to an article published in the Daily Worker earlier that year.
"[36] Obama further noted, "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 can't solve these problems alone.
"[40] In a direct response the next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin published an op-ed in The New York Times, articulating, "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.... We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.
[44] The platform adopted in 2016 defines it as "the notion that our ideas and principles as a nation give us a unique place of moral leadership" and affirms that the U.S. therefore must "retake its natural position as leader of the free world.
Sheldon Wolin has argued that the American Revolution was a reaction against increased centralization by the British government, while Karen Orren has claimed that aspects of feudal employment law lasted in America as late as the 1930s.
Those 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 a hereditary ruling class.
The historian Thomas Kidd (2010) argues, "With the onset of the revolutionary crisis, a significant conceptual shift convinced Americans across the theological spectrum that God was raising America for some particular purpose.
"[65] 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 usual priority of foreign policy and the needs of the ruling family over those of the people.
She argues that after the September 11, 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 the new vision of American empire.
[68][failed verification] In 2012, the conservative historians Larry Schweikart and Dave Dougherty argued that American exceptionalism be based on four pillars: (1) common law; (2) virtue and morality located in Protestant Christianity; (3) free-market capitalism; and (4) the sanctity of private property.
Some proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that the system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a "tyranny of the majority," preserve a free republican democracy, and allow citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect those voters' values.
[72] The historian Eric Foner has explored the question of birthright citizenship, the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) that makes anyone born in the United States a full citizen.
[77] The political and cultural environments were much different since these other frontiers neither involved widespread ownership of free land nor allowed the settlers to control the local and provincial governments, as was the case in America.
In American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (2005), the Canadian commentator Michael Ignatieff treats the idea negatively and 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 the organizations say of the United States"), and "legal isolationism" (the tendency of U.S. judges to ignore other jurisdictions).
"[103] Critics such as Marilyn Young and Howard Zinn have argued that American history is so morally flawed because of slavery, civil rights, and social welfare issues that it cannot be an exemplar of virtue.
Citing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and "crucial weaknesses" in the military, Tom Wicker concluded "that maintaining superpower status is becoming more difficult—nearly impossible—for the United States.
"[123] In 2007, Matthew Parris of The Sunday Times wrote that the United States is "overstretched," and he romantically recalled 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.
[128] Critics of American exceptionalism have argued that the bipartisan political class believes that one purpose of the United States is to spread democracy to nations that are under tyrannical governments.
