There is no such thing as American Exceptionalism, at least not right now. I'll probably never win a Republican nomination for anything now, but it had to be said. For the last few years, demagogues and political agitators on the right have been repeating the chorus that America and Americans are great simply because of where they are from. It's this line of thinking that has fucked our country, and while there may be short term fixes, nothing has been done to stop the underlying decline of American society.
In the early nineteenth century many of the elements of the nascent American society were vastly different from the rest of the world. And America was better. The United States liberated itself from the colonial system before anyone else; as South America, Africa, and most of Asia were struggling under European domination, the United States was growing, fueled by innovations that the rest of the world was unable to pursue.
As steam power and the seeds of industrialization were taking root in the United States, the rest of the world was struggling to emerge from chaos. Europe was consistently embroiled in continent-wide warfare and revolution, South and Central America were struggling for independence, and Africa and Asia were still being stripped of their resources and ravaged by European colonizers. As progress was stagnate in the rest of the world, America alone drove forward, taming a continent, harvesting its resources, and reinvesting those resources to propel further development. By the start of the twentieth century, the United States had essentially established hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, and was poised to overtake and dominate Western Europe.
Of course things were not perfect, and travesties like slavery continue to be a blight on American history. But seemingly all of America's flaws were met by people pushing for progress and improvements, not only for themselves, but for others. Abolitionist and suffrage movements worked to undo two of the most heinous forms of discrimination the US has ever seen. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Susan B. Anthony have all been immortalized for the work they did to give others a better life.
With such a fast and dramatic rise to power, it's difficult not to assume some degree of American Exceptionalism so, starting with de Toqueville, that's what people did. They saw that America was different, recognizing the absence of extremism and divisiveness in American politics, that America had limited the role of religions in society, and that feudalism and aristocracies had been replaced by a society that permitted, and even encouraged, upward mobility. In looking at the United States, nineteenth century observers saw a haven for immigrants, a country that offered opportunities to people from all over the globe, integrated them into society, and benefited enormously from their contributions. Knowledge and education were admired and sought; without them, the United States would not have been at the forefront of innovation for such a long time. Edison, Bell, Einstein and the Wright Brothers are all products of this. In the nineteenth century, America was exceptional; not inherently so, but because its people did exceptional things.
This continued into the twentieth century, as America became the most dominant nation on the planet. Fascism, Communism, and Japanese Imperialism all fell to American innovation, manufacturing, and technology. Enormous strides were made in the fields of genetics and computer science. Nuclear power was developed and harnessed. Shit, over forty years ago we put Americans on the moon; no one else has even tried since.
Unfortunately, in recent years America has ceased to be exceptional, because Americans have stopped trying to be exceptional. Instead of trying to be great, people are now trying to star in Teen Mom. The attributes that first made the United States great are largely absent now.
While American politics are not nearly as radicalized as in some other countries, we're rapidly trending in that direction. Compromise and conversation are being replaced by a terrifying polarization, and moderate voices are being drowned out by greedy, attention-starved politicians and their shouts of incitement to ever-more-extreme political bases.
The Establishment Clause is slowly becoming a relic of the eighteenth century, as Christians are trying to integrate their dogma with the American government. More and more schools across the country are teaching Intelligent Design in science classes, at the expense of actual science. Freedoms are being inhibited because of a sentence in the book of Leviticus and the nebulous, borderline hilarious (and very recent) concept of the sanctity of marriage.
For really the first time in American history, an aristocracy has emerged, headed by corporations (they're people now!) and their enablers, who don't see their rampaging greed as a flaw. This aristocracy, from both sides of the aisle, is shaping the nation's agenda for its own benefit and entrenchment; wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the middle class is disappearing, and the idea of upward mobility is being transformed from a dream to an impossibility.
Immigrants are no longer seen as a resource; as fences go up and nativism surges, new ideas are not given a chance to contribute anything of value. Hatred and fear of outsiders have sharply curbed the benefits we can derive from them; people all over the world still want to come to America, and we're turning them, and the progress they might bring, away.
While racism was never fully driven out of American culture, it seems to have experienced a revival in the last few years. For the first time in almost 250 years, the President of the United States is an African American; while this is unquestionably progress on the path to racial equality, the backsliding that has accompanied Obama's election is far from encouraging. No white President ever had to endure such a sizable minority of the country doubting that he was really American, or insinuating that he was secretly a Muslim (and who cares if he is?). All three branches of government have been complicit in the widespread discrimination against Muslims in the last ten years.
Those problems, this failing of American Exceptionalism, are almost entirely the result of decisions made by those who have already had their moment in the spotlight. The much greater problem, and the reason that America is, at best, decades away from recapturing any sort of exceptionalism, is the coming generations. Kids are fucking stupid, and at times is seems like that is encouraged. Vast portions of the country have embraced an anti-intellectual attitude; I cannot think of a worse way to decide who to vote for than "who would I rather have a beer with." Sarah Palin, who isn't even competent to be a student government president, and other politicians have ridden this wave of ignorance to political prominence and celebrity.
Fortunately in the case of Palin, but unfortunately in the case of millions of young people all over the country, most people are drawn much more towards the trappings of celebrity than having a prominent position in society based on achievement. People strive for fame as its own end, rather than the byproduct of an actual accomplishment. A century ago, the Wright Brothers became famous for inventing the airplane. Today, Paris Hilton is famous for having a rich grandfather and blowing some guy in night vision. We're doing things backwards; Neil deGrasse Tyson should be a household name, and Kim Kardashian shouldn't be. But NASA's budget is minuscule and shrinking, teachers everywhere are being laid off, and engineering jobs are being outsourced, not because foreign engineers are cheaper, but because they're smarter. America is falling behind so many countries, even some developing countries, in math and science. Coupled with drastic reductions in arts education, pretty soon we're not going to be good at anything.
As bleak as this looks, American Exceptionalism isn't dead, just dormant, and it can be revived. But that won't happen if people continue to see it as a birthright; America will only be exceptional again if people realize, like Americans 200 years ago did, that exceptionalism is something that needs to be earned. But who wants to do that while The Jersey Shore is on?
