During the short time I’ve been posting here, I’ve been struck by how widespread is the notion that the U.S. is exceptional and unlike any other country. Sometimes this exceptionalism is described as a good thing – the U.S. is exceptional because it is the `best’ nation in the world, or because its ideals are unique, or its Constitution and its system of checks and balances make it superior to any governmental system. Other times, this exceptionalism is portrayed as a bad thing – the U.S. is uniquely vulnerable to terrorism, the U.S. is uniquely opposed to universal health-care, the U.S. is uniquely immature or uniquely inward-looking and so good ideas that could work elsewhere would never work in the U.S.
American exceptionalism is often taken as a self-evident fact – common knowledge that everyone knows, that doesn’t need to be supported by evidence or argument. There’s also a kind of immutability associated with American exceptionalism – America’s an exception because it’s an exception and for good or evil, nothing will ever change that. I think that many liberals and leftists in the U.S. need to question American exceptionalism – in particular I think they need to ask who benefits from this concept.

In my opinion, every time that a liberal or leftist adopts the language of American exceptionalism, that’s one more small victory for U.S. conservatives. Because the concept of American exceptionalism is not politically neutral – it serves the Republican agenda in a whole host of ways.

When the concept is used `positively’ – in the sense of distinguishing the U.S. as the `best’ in some way – it is deeply bound up with ideas of U.S. patriotism/nationalism. Its adoption encourages liberals and leftists to confuse human virtues with national virtues. It encourages them to re-envision democratic and human rights movements that were and are international in their origins and their scope of action, as merely national – the product of a single nation. It encourages an insular outlook – if the U.S. is exceptional in a positive sense, there can be little to learn from beyond its borders.

If all that is wrong with America can be fixed with all that is right about America (to paraphrase Bill Clinton), what reason is there to look beyond the U.S border for inspiration, or information? There’s a big wide world out there, with all kinds of people engaging in all kinds of attempts to make political changes – some of it state-based, lots of it not. But it’s hard to see that if you only look at the world through the lens of American exceptionalism.

Make no mistake — when liberals and leftists adopt American exceptionalism in this `positive’ sense, it is nothing less than a Republican victory. It is as though the Republicans had persuaded liberals and leftists to put on blinkers, to only read certain approved books, to only think within certain prescribed boundaries, to only ally themselves with people on a vetted list.    

When liberals and leftists in the U.S. use the concept of American exceptionalism `negatively’ – whether in the sense of positioning the U.S. as uniquely exposed to the threat of terrorism (which it is not), or uniquely insular in its approach to foreign policy, or facing unique difficulties in reforming its political system – once again the result is a Republican triumph. If the U.S. is uniquely insular, uniquely incapable of grasping that people’s lives matter equally regardless of what citizenship they hold, then efforts to change people’s minds on this score are futile. If there is something uniquely intractable about U.S. political opposition to universal health care, then there is no reason to look at how other countries have managed to overcome political opposition to such programmes. Whereas the `positive’ version of American exceptionalism is narcissistic and self-regarding, the `negative’ version of American exceptionalism is self-defeating – it never even raises its eyes to see clearly what other places have accomplished.

Rejecting American exceptionalism doesn’t mean saying that there are no differences between the U.S. and other countries. Of course every nation has its own particular history and has been shaped by its own particular geography. Of course every nation has its own particular political and economic landscape.

But rejecting American exceptionalism does affect how those differences are interpreted. Those who reject American exceptionalism are encouraged to see similarities and points of resemblance between nations as well as differences.  Where they do see difference, they are empowered to think `How could this strategy that works in this context be adapted to work in this other context? What could be adapted and applied to the U.S. context, and what could not?’ – as opposed to simply thinking `Oh – well that could never work here.’

I don’t think that the damage that the Bush administration is doing to the world can be undone by U.S. liberals and leftists alone. But conversely, it can’t be done without them. `You’ need `us.’ And `we’ need `you.’ For `us,’ that means refusing to buy into the idea that `you’ Americans now deserve whatever `you’ get post-election. For `you,’ that means rejecting American exceptionalism as playing into the hands of your enemies. Ultimately, it means rejecting notions of `you’ and `us’ that are based on our respective citizenships rather than our political convictions and allegiances.