American exceptionalism

:Amerocentrism redirects here. For the generalised topic, see Ethnocentrism

In historical context

In the wider historical view, American exceptionalism is the term for a popularized cultural mythos that delivers a benevolent explanation for why and how American society succeeded. It replaces the original phrase "Manifest Destiny" which was commonly employed at a time when it became apparent that the absolute destruction of the native American Indian was unstoppable. "Manifest Destiny" cast an esoteric righteousness over the reality of ethnic cleansing that was being enacted on the ground. In one way or another, exceptionalism (and ideas like it) attempt to assert either a "divine destiny" of American history (see US nationalism) or are otherwise (for sake of discussion) simply focusing on subjective and ideological factors, while avoiding the material ones; particularly if they seem too obtrusive or general.

Related Topics:
Mythos - Manifest Destiny - American Indian - Ethnic cleansing - US nationalism

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Since the 19th century, the claim of American exceptionalism has been widely espoused; from scientific and historical explanations to polemic or even racialist diatribes. In essence it claims that a 'deliberate choice' of 'freedom over tyranny,' was properly made, and this was the central reason for why American society developed 'successfully.'

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Fundamental differences exist between exceptionalism as it was originally described in the 19th century, and how it is used today. Shifts in the both general concept and its common use can be seen in relation to the stages of American development; from colonial outpost to an established nation with institutional wealth and power.

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Perhaps the most telling landmarks for this change are the points where imposed practical and race-based limitations on immigration to America; signalling the country's change from the world symbol of welcoming and opportunity, to one of established power and protectionism.

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As it is used today, American exceptionalism refers to claims that the earlier welcoming symbolism of America has a direct relationship and virtuous lineage to its current policies and ideologies, regardless of any conflicts and differences between past and present. In the differences between the US government policy and its culture, glaring paradoxes are often seen. And because the United States is relatively new, its culture has largely grown to conform to its government. Modern exceptionalism can be viewed a perpetuation of this link in the form of both a state-academic assertion and the common layman understandings of patriotism and nationalism. Note that in societies where a culture is much older and richer than its current government and the mythologies which it sustains, these assertions tend to be rejected as uncultured and unsophisticated propaganda.

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What began as the collective reflections of a number of 19th century academics and writers on American culture, grew into an cornerstone of the USA's internal self-image, its propaganda, and its collective social views. While more objective analysis for the apparent success of the United States have arisen, "exceptionalism" and its related views are often unburdened by facts and logical arguments, and are hence quite resonant among layman Americans as a more formalized version of the collective American idealism. Proponents of an exceptionalism doctrine tend to be less concerned with historical details, emphasising instead the positivism continuity of a positive social ideology. Maintaining a positive, forward-looking ideology is considered by a number of influential thinkers as an important component of social doctrine and propaganda. In this light, exceptionalism can be viewed as the academic parallel to the common cultural mythos; the two very different syntaxes interface with a more abstract common language wherin Americans discuss issues their collective point of view. In the current age of global communications, a great many localized doctrines are losing the contextual bounds for their existence, and hence are dying. The degree to which American nationalism has the power to crush or overwhelm other forms of nationalism is widely seen as being American cultural and economic imperialism.

Related Topics:
Propaganda - Layman - American idealism - Positivism - American cultural and economic imperialism

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Exceptionalism attempts to assert a philosophical basis for why development occurred, contrasting a number of theoretical choices. Some of which were not yet in existence during earlier stages of America's development, and thus not at all in question. For example, there was very little disagreement at all on the issue of private property as a fundamental right of (privileged) citizens. While public ownership ideas were raised, they were not taken seriously, hence the premise of "exceptionalism," as an alternative to later incarnations of socialism, rests on an assumption of a choice that did not in fact exist at the time. By claiming that privatization and property rights are largely due the credit, exceptionalism wields the implication that communist-style "socialization" and "public property" were in fact material options debated within the new United States, when in fact they were not. "Democratic rule" (originally, for the privileged) simply meant a civil system by which the new American aristocracy could maintain order amongst themselves through their representatives. At the time, the issue was avoiding the problems inherent to feudalism.

Related Topics:
Privatization - Property - Rights - Feudalism

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There are a number of events that one can point to which would contradict "exceptionalism," particularly the calamities and near-calamities of Wars, civil unrest, and political fracturization that exposed very dissenting views to the happy picture that "exceptionalism" attempts to describe. Aside from events, the exceptionalist view is contradicted by ideological exceptions and differences among its various claimed ideological components. The American Civil War represents a refutation of the "exceptionalism" explanation, both for the basic fact that it threatened to destroy the country, and its causes did not fall along the ideological lines that "exceptionalism" explains. In fact, the Civil War represented a division between two largely agreeing camps; the important difference being over the finite boundaries of federalism, to supersede national authority, and the question of slavery; the abolition of which would fundamentally alter the Southern economic system. Because federalism is simply the governmental philosophy of apportionment (land division), both sides were at least in complete agreement that land and its ownership should lean toward the private; without slaves, private land ownership in the South was thought to lose its "self-sustainability."

Related Topics:
American Civil War - Slavery - Slaves

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Land

The prime factor in American development from Native nation-feudalism to European-based culture and society was, in a nutshell land incentivization (material rewards for citizenship and service), of which newer incarnations continue; American consumer capitalism being largely geared toward the artificial creation of new material incentives.

Related Topics:
Land incentivization - Consumer capitalism - Material

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Because American existence as an influential and powerful society is due to its vast resources, the story of how common American ethos is itself due to its vast resources; the current state of development being the culmination of an opportunity for 15th to 20th-century Europeans upon the discovery of the New World. Even long before the United States ever came into being, the very discovery of the New World brought a stir to the Old, that sparked renaissance of ideas regarding wealth, society, government, liberty, and even God. After the dissolution of Britain's corporate rulership, the War of Independence, and numerous territorial disputes, treaties, and purchases, (Spain, France, Russia, Mexico, etc.), the basic design for what was to be the United States' territory was outlined.

Related Topics:
New World - Old - God - Britain's - Corporate - War of Independence

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Because the existing powers needed the services of (and preferred the company of) Europeans, preexisting Old World restrictions on social class and status were overlooked. The peasant class was abolished in the United States of America, replaced at first by an indentured servant class; the Industrial revolution would allow for a more broad definition of classes by their functions. The advent of Labor unions would be the culmination of the cultural mythos of freedom, with the practical reality that labor can, in a new and limited society, control their destiny to a large degree.

Related Topics:
Peasant - Indentured servant - Industrial revolution - Labor unions

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The controlled, incentivised, distribution of the land's ownership would be the single material driving force behind the development of the United States, overshadowing any moralistic or ideological claims of influence. Regardless of the ideology, the reality of colonialism dictated that there be a shift in culture values, leaning toward the practical and the simple. Because the origin (and continuing) goal of American European-based colonial society was to develop the new "found" land in accordance with its established customs for property ownership and sale, the elevation of social status of European peasants over others was simply a necessary change for the society to become established. By strictly controlling the division of this new land, the American state could maintain a greater degree of security, and hence offer to its subjects greater freedoms, provided they conformed to the preferred economic and legal methods.

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America's development into a European-based society may not have happened any other way than it did, and any exceptions would appear to be outside of human control. So the claim that America's growth is certainly due to the wisdom and carefully chosen steps seems a rather thin claim. Careful steps were needed at times to quell public dissent, but the basic goals continue to remain; based on those outlined by British colonial rule. Thus many look skeptically upon the use of such neologisms like American exceptionalism as simply another example of a tendency within local societies to develop their own natural national folklore. When the facts are either absent or beyond the ability of most people to understand in context, the lore tends to be quite resonant.

Related Topics:
Public dissent - Neologisms - Folklore

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The incentives of land, wealth, "opportunity," and "freedom" that the New World offered were unprecedented, and offered Europeans at least the new hope that they could escape the cruelties of aristocratic rule and to begin developing new concepts of self and society that had previously been unimagined or inhibited. Populist proposals for dismantling the existing aristocratic societies emerged, based on the new humanist idealism and philosophy that developing reports from the New World had inspired. Called communism and socialism, the emergence of these radical new ideas led to disastrously costly conflicts, in the aftermath of which opportunistic figures would construct totalitarian regimes, rather than the egalitarian ones proposed in ideology. Meanwhile, the new "freedoms" that its vast and untapped resources afforded, had sparked in America a new renaissance and enlightenment with regard to ideas about personal freedom, democracy, and economic development. Centuries later, a Cold War would flare up, between a democratic and aristocratic alliance against communist and socialist revolutionary governments. American exceptionalism would find new life of the 20th century as propaganda for the mass-media, casting American idealism and communism, as a battle between the cultural personifications of liberty and tyranny.

Related Topics:
Aristocratic - Humanist - Communism - Socialism - Totalitarian - Cold War - 20th century - Propaganda - Mass-media - American idealism - Liberty - Tyranny

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