AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

     Both political parties have advocates of a thing called American Exceptionalism. In general the left sees it as reflecting the noble achievements we have blessed the world with (there are many), without ignoring where we have failed to achieve nobility. I cannot say for sure, but I imagine that is what characterizes Critical Race Theory, but being a liberal I may be too close to the subject.

     The right, while extolling American Exceptionalism from every pulpit and podium, have a more cynical view of our exceptionalism. It seems to be a sermon on how there are certain norms that apply to all nations except, when the truth is finally out, us. Very much in the same way that the Evangelical views their own religious exceptionalism. 

     It is a character flaw of colonial nations that they see themselves as exceptional, bringing culture, or the deity, or capitalism, to the savages of the hitherto unexceptional nations. As Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the civilized man and the savage is, one is gilded and one is painted". The colonial history of these exceptional nations is depressingly similar throughout history (the critical history that conservatives do not wish to confront). They have been violent and cruel, and arrogant. A nation need not acquire vast territories, or the mineral resources there-in, to be exceptional, they may simply move the indigenous inhabitants out of the way. The technical word for this is "displace"; an inoffensive word that hides the harsh realities of such actions.

     All first-world countries, at the height of their imperialistic power have had versions of their own exceptionalism. Germany (who could certainly be allowed to proclaim their exceptionalism, today) has managed to stay above the cheap theatrics. They remember a time when they were proclaiming a 1000 year Reich, and all that that entailed. Canada is not a colonial nation, they won their freedom from their colonizers like we did,  and is much too nice to proclaim exceptionalism, but they are even now discovering stark reminders of their lack of exceptionalism among their indigenous peoples. 

     Britain had an expanded concept of its exceptionalism when it was said, "the sun never sets on the British Empire". By the early years of WWII, that claim had sunk into the English Channel.  France too, had a colonial surge, Holland, Spain, Portugal, China, Belgium, and of course Japan. In the decades and centuries since we saw that colonial exceptionalism humbled, the history is now being told of where they failed to attain nobility in vast areas of what comprised their empires. A sort of critical imperialism theory. That should be the purpose of history, to expose the blemishes as well as the moments of greatness. The right sees history as a sort of perpetuation of myth. We are still in the stage where that idea clings like nettles to our pants. The insecure and the delusional do not wish to be confronted with our historical debts. How dare we criticize the "American Myth"! they say at every school board meeting or public gathering. For such people history is told by the victors. Yet that history, told by the victors, leads head-on to the George Santayana aphorism, "those who cannot remember the past are codnemned to repeat it". Since the emergence of the teaparty we have seen a larger, more dominant segment of our political leaders who have seen nothing wrong with such ignorance,  even as they have trouble identifying George Santayana. It should be no surprise that the same people have a similar truncated idea of myth. Karl Rove, in the early o-o's famously said that he wanted to see a hundred years of Republican control of government, failing to see the irony in the comparison between pre-war Germany and his vision. That is, of course, much less than the thousand-year Reich, but the 1000-year Reich lasted less than two decades. Rove's vision, now twenty-odd-years old, is in no danger of going away anytime soon. It blossomed in about 2016, which some of us called the oh-no's, when we became aware of an administration that was exceptional only for it's cruelty, and stupidity. Even though that President was not re-elcted, he continues to claim erroneously that he won. The historical precedent is obvious to a sizable number of us, but the number of Amercans who fail to acknowledge that frightful history is nearly as large. It is as if they follow the quote attributed erroneosly to Joseph Stalin, "It's not who votes, but who counts the votes". Wherever Republicans control state power, that principal is being applied.

     History is a study of a complex web of events leading to a political, social, or economic outcome. It is compiled by long hours of study in libraries and historical archives, and is likely never finished. Decades or centuries after an event is written about, some new information can be unearthed to change the historical account. Conservatives do not have the patience for all of that. They are like the newspaper editor at the end of that great John Ford movie, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", who opines, "This is the west, when the fact becomes legend, print the legend". Consequently, nations who see themselves as the legend, ignore the curse they became until it's too late. They become, to carry on the metaphor, Liberty Valence and some unassuming man of the people emerges from the frightened rabble and starts a movement to right the wrongs. Sometimes that becomes a revolution. Sometimes that revolution succeeds and, many generations hence, a new strain of Exceptionalism emerges.