The Only Exception

"American Exceptionalism," the very phrase that adds an air of mystique to U.S. culture and politics. But just what exactly constitutes such exceptional qualities that sets our nation apart from all others? Apart, of course, from the fact that we're on the Western Hemisphere?

According to Wikipedia's uncommonly comprehensive entry on the very subject, American Exceptionalism has gone by several different definitions by several different personnages throughout history, but the theme is still the same; it is merely a theory. No different from the "American Dream," it is a thought-up, made-on-the-fly and ham-handed pretense for our successes and in this century, our failures; much in the same spirit as the term Manifest Destiny, which (unironically)is mostly responsible for the virulent propagandist mantra that nearly wiped out the indigenous Americans of this country. But is such an abstract concept a detriment to the mindset of the American public?

I set out to analyze the theory of American Exceptionalism in lieu of how often it had been bandied about by political pundits, and have since been sorely disappointed. To my findings in this, it amounts to little more than a rhetorical formula not unlike how Pascal's Wager (in the realm of lame excuses) is thrown at religious skeptics like an impotent spitball at a granite wall. A reason to "not play ball," an idea that had only been enforced over the centuries by people who are not even American-born, but still hold in awe the potential strength of our nation.

So, can it be said that other nations see that there is so much more the United States are capable of than we ourselves can see? Perhaps so, as our nation's credit rating immediately tanked, as foreign investors are wary of the nation that used to produce but produces no more. The country that went from being the world's supermarket, to the world's police precint, to the world's hospitality suite in our growing role as a "service-based economy." It is no wonder to this writer that foreign investors have pulled out.

Instead of this flimsy pretense for not accepting our respective roles as world citizens, perhaps it's time to accept our spot in the global economy as an alternative to barking back and forth across the aisles? Or, do we keep drinking the Kool-Aid of American Exceptionalism?

You know, this stuff is starting to taste more and more like Nationalism as of late.