Why Exactly Are We So Exceptional?

Hint: It's Not Because We Treat Our Citizens Well

By Leonard Fein
Published October 19, 2013, issue of October 25, 2013.

Several weeks ago, in a New York Times op-ed piece, Vladimir Putin wrote, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.” It did not take long for President Obama to assert the contrary, in his address to the UN General Assembly: “Some may disagree, but I believe America is exceptional,” Obama said. He believes in American exceptionalism “in part because we have shown a willingness through the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest but for the interests of all.”

There’s a vast literature on American exceptionalism. Often, the unstated intent is to call attention to America’s “destiny,” to its status as the land of the free and the home of the brave, the shining city on the hill, the nation that early on broke with European tradition and hinged everything on the consent of the governed. “Exceptionalism” becomes a form of self-congratulation.

Yet the empirical truth seems to be that if you bother to parse our exceptionalism, it’s not all that exceptional, especially these days, when the crown jewel of our exceptionalism, the vastness of our middle class, seems rather badly tarnished, in a state of escalating atrophy. “The consent of the governed” is a seductive phrase, but it presumes a broad consent to the current lunacy in Washington — in the House of Representatives in particular — that the polls decisively belie.

Or take the individual components implicitly referenced when American exceptionalism is invoked: A caring society? We are far behind other nations in the supports we offer the down and out. We’re second in childhood poverty, 49th in life expectancy, 16th in manufacturing compensation, 9th in retirement security, 17th in educational performance. Income equality? Dishonored in the breach. Health care? Higher costs and worse outcomes than elsewhere. Pre-school learning opportunities? In Belgium, 99.6% of three year-olds are in pre-school; in the US, 33.3%. And so on down the line.

Nor, after Vietnam and Iraq, can we plausibly claim the high ground in peace-making.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/185856/why-exactly-are-we-so-exceptional/#ixzz2iNaYwLgU