American Exceptionalism Is Really................
- Thread starter wkmac
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MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Hah, I knew you were a secret Muslim.
Babagounj
Strength through joy
That was one of my first post here at the Brown Cafe , so much for it being a secret.
Catatonic
Nine Lives
Maybe they will ask us to leave.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
I'll bet you kave the Koran memorized from cover to cover.
How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism'
How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism' - Terrence McCoy - Politics - The Atlantic
How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism' - Terrence McCoy - Politics - The Atlantic
wkmac
Well-Known Member
Former Top US Drug Cop on police practice and American Exceptionalism.
Flee the United States as Fast as You Can
Flee the United States as Fast as You Can
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Back to the original topic. There is no such thing as American Exceptionalism. It's an invention of the usual suspects to justify/rationalize excessive behavior(s). It's interesting that most "exceptional" Americans happen to be white and conservative. America has enormous advantages in terms of natural resources, excellent ports, large areas of excellent farmland etc., but to say we are exceptional is just plain wrong. Mr. Limbaugh is a big proponent of this, and it's interesting to see him use the tool to his advantage in arguments that support US interests at the expense of someone else.
UnconTROLLed
perfection
"American Exceptionalism" as a term and philosophy has existed for centuries, to say it doesn't exist is being delusional.
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
We as a nation have only existed for just over two centuries.
Sportello
Well-Known Member
wkmac
Well-Known Member
But the idea of a "New Jerusalem" or "New Atlantis" was there centuries before that. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis in the early 1600's became an ideal in some circles of a land to the west that held great promise. Bacon, also head of the Rosicrucian Lodge in England, his New Atlantis ideal was influence and thus an influence on many enlightenment thinkers of the day. His "New Atlantis" was not his own but the ideal was much older and from ancient writings often only found in the circles of enlightened thinkers in esoteric societies. And such esoteric societies would come to play an important role in the New World on many of the very men who would help to shape it.
Amongst the religious, there were sermons of a New Jerusalem across the Atlantic. We are familiar with the religious idea of what is called god's promised land to his promised people in the Middle Eastern context but this idea is barely 100 years old, if that. Before the creation of the Zionist cause by Herzel, christianity itself saw the promised land through purely christian eyes and itself as the people of it.
On my personal library shelf of which is growing and I'm running out of space is a 2 volume work on writings from the founding era 1765'-1805' and another large volume of sermons from the founding era and this ideal of America being something of special importance or even the makings from divine hands is not anything new at all. These were all ideals taken up from much earlier if not very ancient causes.
Many a sermon of Joshua and the Israelites crossing the Jordan was given as early European folk set out to cross the Atlantic to settle in the New World. Sermons during the revolutionary period picked up this ideal and ran with it using the Egyptian bondage ideal and of course the British as the Egyptian taskmasters. Alexis de Tocqueville in his early 19th century work took the idea forward calling America "exceptional" and along with westward expansion came the term Manifest Destiny thanks to Jacksonian democrats. President Wilson in his 1917' war message to Congress set the stage for our global quest with his "make the world safe for democracy" speech and every President since has taken this ideal and put their spin on it.
Reagan is rightly remembered for his "City on a Hill" ideal but this was also borrowed from the Puritan lawyer and Massachusetts Bay Colony leader John Winthrop who himself pulled the ideal from the Gospel of Mathew Chapter 5. Reagan is known for using the term as President but adding the word "shining" turn the phrase into his own which people now assign to him. Reagan first used the "shining city on a hill" in a 1974' speech in which he said, "we will be a shining city upon a hill." This era of speeches and moving forward had a decisive tilt towards the Soviet Union and the coldwar narrative of the time.
But this American ideal was not something new to Reagan as he also gave an important speech in 1964' called "A Time for Choosing" in which he endorsed Goldwater. Not only was this idea of America being something set apart and of some divine origin underlying this speech, but many consider the speech the event that launched Reagan from Hollywood to politics. In our modern context, it was Reagan who began so to speak the new quest, actually a very old one, of this idea we are something special and of some divine purpose. The best salesman knows to first make the customer feel good about themselves.
Some time ago I read a paper I think from Columbia University on the ideal of American Exceptionalism and until recent times it was mostly a term heard in scholarship circles. At least in those exact words. The 19th century Manifest Destiny seems to me was about making and building the nation we know as America and then along comes Wilson to give it an international spin and Reagan who oddly enough in his "A Time for Choosing" speech gave the argument for a small gov't and what would seem a less provoking international stance only to 10 years later begin too change and take on the utopianist mantle laid by so many before him. Now here we stand today.
From Bacon's New Atlantis to Winthrop's "city on a hill" to de Tocqueville's "exceptional", Jacksonian Manifest Destiny, Wilson's "making the world safe for democracy to Reagan's "shining city on a hill", the religion of the American NationState Utopia has always been there and IMO pre-existed well before the actual formation of the American dream turning more and more these days into a nightmare.
"We, the elect of god, know best how to run the world as god put us here just for that purpose."
Under that matrix, one can morally justify anything, even the immoral.
We too will one day enter the dustbin of history, people being lazy and not knowing said history we'll likely fall prey once again to utopianist ideals in which some group sez, "follow us as we know God's plan and you are a part of it."
The old adage of history once again repeating itself.
And yes, historically speaking, Sleeve is actually correct.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
American Exceptionalism is as real as Kryptonite and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
UnconTROLLed
perfection
Well that's your opinion, but others would argue that the "American" U.S. brought forth the aeroplane. Just for starters. Now personally I could do without
But that would be an example of "American Exceptionalism" at work.
BrownArmy
Well-Known Member
"American Exceptionalism" is an interesting concept, except when our fearless leaders use it as a drum to distract us from our very real problems.
Crumbling infrastructure?
Really shoddy primary schools compared to the rest of the developed world?
Very low world ranking in healthcare outcomes, regardless of how much money we throw at the problem?
On and on and on...
Bring these issues up, and you clearly hate 'MURICA!
Ask why we're spending so much money bombing the eff out of our enemies, only to create more enemies?
WHY DO YOU HATE 'MURICA?
It's a joke.
Crumbling infrastructure?
Really shoddy primary schools compared to the rest of the developed world?
Very low world ranking in healthcare outcomes, regardless of how much money we throw at the problem?
On and on and on...
Bring these issues up, and you clearly hate 'MURICA!
Ask why we're spending so much money bombing the eff out of our enemies, only to create more enemies?
WHY DO YOU HATE 'MURICA?
It's a joke.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Some of the most exceptional scientists ever came out of Nazi Germany (think Von Braun), and the Germans have always been cutting-edge. Our space program had it's roots in ex-Nazi scientists. Yet, I never hear anyone referring to "German Exceptionalism".
Like Manifest Destiny, AE has been an excuse for imperialism, inane Right Wing political thought and action, and a host of other wrongs "justified" through it's usage.
The fact that Limbaugh constantly references it should be proof-positive that it's insane.
Catatonic
Nine Lives
Knowledge is Power - France is Bacon
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