If you want to get an up - close - and - personal understanding of American exceptionalism , just visit any small town or expectant metropolis in the United States on the 4th of July .
On this Clarence Day , Americans keep the espousal of the Declaration of Independence on July 4 , 1776 , the papers by which the American colony discerp necktie with the British Crown and pose forth certain " ego - evident " truths that set apart the newcomer nation : " that all men are created adequate , that they are endowed by their Godhead with certain inalienable right wing , that among these are life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness . "
require any American what they love about their body politic onJuly fourth , and no matter their political persuasion , they ’ll in all probability add it up in one word : freedom . exemption to work out their religion , exemption to protest injustice , exemption from government violation or exemption to utter their mind .
For others , America is about opportunity . It ’s a blank space where the circumstances of your parturition do n’t dictate the course of your life . Where individuals who work hard and rest optimistic can achieve any goal , whether it ’s have a humble business or being president of the United States .
And then there ’s the room that Americans fete the 4th of July , which points to some core aspects of American exceptionalism , including a few that itch other nations the wrong way .
On the 4th of July , America ’s blustery patriotism is on public display , with parade in the street and fleur-de-lis adorning every building , lawn and outsize T - shirt . Refrains of " God Bless America " reward the notion of America as a divinely sanction Edwin Herbert Land and people . Topping it all off are explosive and expensive fireworks display , not - so - insidious nods to the military might that not only secures American exemption but solidifies its influence over the quietus of the world .
In America ’s deeply divided political discourse , the termAmerican exceptionalismis now wielded as a political weapon system . Candidates from the right hand incriminate their opponents of not " get laid America " or of abandoning the singular attributes that make America " great " in a move toward " European - way " forms of administration .
And candidates from the left hand assert that America ’s exceptionalism is born from its diversity and sensation of equivalence and argue that policies that limit in-migration or infringe on polite rights are themselves " un - American . "
To get a better clutches on this slippery notion of American exceptionalism , we ’re go to dive into the double meaning of the term . We ’ll wait at its surprising blood in communistic theory , and the many style that America ’s exceptionalism is a product of both factual difference between America and the rest of the world ( metric scheme , anyone ? ) , and simply the stories Americans wish to secernate about themselves .
What Exactly Do We Mean by ‘Exceptional’?
On one hand , to be exceptional means to stand aside as dissimilar , as in the " elision to the formula . " But exceeding can also intend unusually excellent , or in popular political parlance , " great . "
The first definition of American exceptionalism — that America , its government , its people and its refinement are typical from other industrialized nations — is easier to show . For case , Americans as a whole are far more religious than citizens of other affluent , industrialized countries [ source : Gao ] . American also own far more guns per capita than any other nation ( 89 hired gun for every 100 Americans ) [ source : Fox ] . Those are two ways in which Americans are undeniably exceptional .
The 2nd definition of American exceptionalism — that America , its government , its multitude and its culture arebetterthan most , if not all other body politic — is intelligibly a matter of legal opinion , although it ’s an opinion shared by most Americans .
When the Pew Research Center asked Americans in 2014 how their country rate liken to other nations , 28 percent said it was the best , 58 percent said the U.S. was " one of the gravid countries , along with others , " and only 12 pct suppose that other countries were adept than America . Interestingly , those number were down from 2011 , when 38 per centum of Americans said that U.S. stood alone as best [ rootage : Tyson ] .
Traditionally , Republicans have held a much higher notion of America ’s innate greatness thanDemocratsor Independents . Back in 2011 , for good example , a full 52 percent of Republicans pronounce America was the best commonwealth on Earth , while only 33 percent of Democrats and Independents agreed . But those Republican numbers drop 15 percentage point between 2011 and 2014 , likely reflect letdown with a 2nd - term Obama administration [ source : Tyson ] .
As we ’ll learn , though , these double meanings of American exceptionalism have been pushing and pull on Americans ' sense of identity and its vision of the nation ’s situation in the world , long before the term " American exceptionalism " was uttered for the first time ( as an insult , BTW ) .
Let ’s start by listing a few of the room in which the United States undeniably stand apart from other wealthy , industrialised nation .
America Exceptionalism at Work
America is undeniably prodigious is several ways when compared to other moneyed , industrialized nation .
For fledgling , Americans are far morereligious . harmonise to the Pew Global Attitudes Survey , 54 percentage of Americans say that faith is " very important " in their life . Compare that to other countries of like riches and demographics like Canada , where only 24 percent of masses hold that religion is very important , or Australia and Germany , both at 21 pct [ root : Gao ] .
In fact , Americans have much more in common with citizens of inadequate commonwealth when it come to spiritual judgment of conviction . For model , high-pitched percentage of people in poor countries like Indonesia and Ghana say that belief in God is essential for living a moral spirit , while most North Americans and Europeans conceive the opposite , that it ’s possible to be a good soul without faith in God . America is very much the exclusion among Western countries , with 53 percent insisting that God is necessary for moral support [ rootage : Pew ] .
There also seems to be a correlation between America ’s exceptional religious organized religion and its ardent optimism . Again , citizens of wretched and more religious nations are much more likely to say , for example , that today is a " in particular good day . " In Nigeria and Colombia , virtually 60 percent of citizenry have a highly overconfident position of their Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , while wealthy but largely secular Germany sits at 21 percent and Japan a gloomy 8 percent . The U.S. rides both its religiosity and its wealth for a thumping 41 pct of mass with a positive outlook [ generator : Gao ] .
America ’s wealth is exceptional by another less positive metric — inequality . More than 41 percentage of the total creation ’s personal wealth is owned by Americans , but America ranks at the bottom when it come to spreading those rich around [ origin : Sherman ] . The richest 1 per centum of American households , for example , controls closely 39 percent of the nation ’s full wealth , while the " bottom " 90 pct hold only 22 percentage of the total [ rootage : Egan ] . While America leads the pack in inequality , it ’s intimately come after by Sweden , the U.K. and Indonesia [ reservoir : Sherman ] .
Then , there ’s America ’s love liaison with guns . The Second Amendment protects every American ’s right to " keep and bear arms " and boy do they ever ! Americans own an count on 265 million to 310 million firearm , nearly enough for every human being , woman and child in the country to throng some heat [ author : Kertscher ] . lamentably , gun homicides are 25 clock time higher in the U.S. than other moneyed countries [ root : Fox ] .
Finally , there are policies that are enshrined in laws in the rest of the world that are non - existent in the U.S. The U.S. is one of ahandful of countriesthat does not mandatepaid motherliness leave , and the others in this class are low developing land . Of naturally , many U.S. companies bid this benefit to their employees , but they do n’t have to , unless they live in one of the few state that have mandated some type ofpaid motherliness benefit .
Why is America so different from other countries ? You have to go back to the birthing of the nation .
The Roots of American Exceptionalism
By nature of its geographical location alone , America has always constitute something " coif asunder " from everything that came before . Among the early European settler to the New World were persecuted spiritual minority seeking the freedom to practice their organized religion in peace . Puritan leader John Winthrop believe that America was the new Promised Land and that the faithful were to " be as a metropolis upon the mound " in their New Jerusalem [ reservoir : USHistory.org ] .
But to really realise what made America exceptional from the starting time , you have to wait at two remarkable founding documents : theDeclaration of Independenceand theConstitution . The Declaration of Independence put out the democratic ideals and values of the new nation : that the right hand to govern is derived from the " consent of the governed , " that " all men are make equal " and endowed by God with sure rights , among them " life , liberty and the pursual of happiness . "
These democratic principle were not distinctly " American , " since they were acquire by European Enlightenment philosophers like John Hobbes ( equality as raw state ) , John Locke ( " inalienable rights " of life and liberty ) , and Jean - Jacques Rousseau ( consent of the regularise ) [ source : Constitutional Rights Foundation ] . But America was the first commonwealth to enshrine those nonesuch as the basis of a government .
America is fundamentally exceptional , therefore , because it was founded upon an idea . Prior to the Declaration of Independence , nations had evolved from tribal association , common languages and the will of an elite few exercising their top executive over many . The fact that America was founded on shared moral and political principles rather than shared ancestry meant that anyone who embraced these nonesuch — no matter where they were born or their socioeconomic status — was now an American .
The Constitution is another exceptional document . While the Bill of Rights buzz off a lot of sexual love ( and rightfully so ) for safeguard case-by-case exemption against governance tyranny , the basic social structure of the Union government activity as outlined in the Constitution was also a game - changer .
The U.S. administration was the first to explicitly distribute the Union government ’s power between three " separate but equal branches " : the legislative to write the laws , the judicial system to translate the law and the executive outgrowth to enforce them . ( you’re able to give thanks French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu for that one . ) This system of bridle and balances all but guarantee gridlock , but also ensures that no case-by-case president or majority party can act with impunity .
So that ’s the historic foundation of American exceptionalism , but when was the term first coin and how was it used ? This one might surprise you .
Origins of the Term ‘American Exceptionalism’
It ’s tempting to say that Alexis de Tocqueville , the 19th - one C Gallic diplomatist and sharp reviewer on the political and cultural case of the other United States , invented the full term American exceptionalism . The grounds is found in his landmark work , " republic in America , " whenanswering the questionof whether the good example of America proves that democratic body politic do n’t deal about science , literature or prowess .
Tocqueville does n’t fight back America ’s cerebral rigor — quite the contrary . " It must be recognize that in few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher science made less progress than in the United States ; and in few have slap-up artists , distinguished poet , or celebrated writers been more rarefied , " he writes .
Instead , Tocqueville fence that America is " quite exceptional " in several important manner — its hard-nosed puritanic origins , its innate commercial-grade cause , its geographical closing off and distracting rude lulu — that it ca n’t possibly function as a bandstand - in for all future democratic country . Just because American English do n’t care about artistic production and science , he fundamentally say , does n’t entail that commonwealth is for dummies .
So while Tocqueville was one of the first to call America " exceptional , " it was for certain meant in the " strange and dissimilar " mother wit , and was not necessarily a compliment .
There ’s a stronger disputation to make that the term American exceptionalism was first coined by American communist in the late twenties . Yes , communists . fundamentally , European Marxists set off inquire in the other 20th century why the United States was the only capitalist and industrialist nation that had n’t experienced a socialistic rising . Were n’t American workers longing for the same rights as their fellow in country like Germany and Russia ?
American communist leader Jay Lovestone argued in 1928 that the economic and societal conditions in American were " exceptional " and that a temperate , reform-minded approach was more suitable than violent class warfare [ generator : Liberman ] . Joseph Stalin was n’t a fan of this theory to say the least . He demand that Lovestone end his " heresy of American exceptionalism . " For his elbow grease , Lovestone was kicked out of the American Communist Party in 1929 [ source : Zimmer ] .
Again , the American communist and Stalin utilise the term American exceptionalism to explain the oddity of the United States , for sure not to hold it up as a glisten light source to the world .
But Lovestone was on to something . Unlike most European democracies , America has no story of monarchy or feudal system , and therefore less complaisance to the DoS , as well as less class cognisance . This could translate into citizen being less concerned in unite barter matrimony ( or communist parties ) as well less concerned in having their government order policy . Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset argued that Americans key with the societal class they aspire to rather than the one they are in , so they are more sympathetic to the concerns of the small bourgeois ( who would be forced to give for these benefit ) than to those of his or her worker [ origin : Kurtzleben ] . This could be one account for why a policy like pay gestation leave has never been a suffrage - getter .
Next , we ’ll research how American exceptionalism number to be hug by buttoned-down politicians as a badge of pride and patriotism .
American Exceptionalism as Political Stance
In 1980 , nearly 350 year after the Puritans landed in Massachusetts Bay , then - presidential candidate Ronald Reagan invoked John Winthrop ’s words to describe the Republican party ’s vision for America . It was time for America to be that " shining metropolis on a hill " that not only function as a lighthouse of unspoiled government activity , but also stands up for the downtrodden the world over .
Not by the way , that very same yr score the first time that the full term " American exceptionalism " appeared in a mainstream American newsprint [ source : McCoy ] . It was part of an editorial in The New York Times highlighting the issue that matter most in the 1980 presidential race between Reagan and Democratic incumbentPresident Jimmy Carter .
Topping the list , indite Richard Tofel , was the " spiritually troubling enquiry " of American exceptionalism . " Is America different from other nations ? … In the yesteryear , our leaders unhesitatingly accepted an olympian role ; lately , others have derided this sight as uninitiate , imperialistic , or worse . As our undisputed domination recedes , we need to decide what ' America ' means to us , and what it will entail to the earthly concern . "
Reagan clearly think in America ’s exceptionalism and inherent greatness , and his landslide triumph in 1980 marked the arrival of conservative ideals to the White House . It was Reagan who embody the modern conservative political values of limited regime , a strong military , the preponderating importance of religion and phratry , and the unquestionable demurrer of liberty , at menage and abroad . And perhaps more significantly , Reagan ’s faith in these particular values of American life come up in response to a world in which America ’s top spot was under menace .
Subsequent generations of materialistic politicians have taken up the flag of maintain American exceptionalism while at the same time mourn its dying . After the 9/11 attack , President George W. Bush and his neoconservative policymakers tip on themes of American exceptionalism to warrant the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as extensions of America ’s urge to do trade good in the world [ root : Grandin ] .
But it was the 2008 presidential race where the actual term " American exceptionalism " was first uttered in a presidential debate and assume on its current meaning as political shorthand for patriotism in the nerve of perceived threats to impropriety , both outside and national [ origin : McCoy ] . As the popular candidate , Barack Obama embraced his own definition of American exceptionalism , one based on inclusion and opportunity , call in his entire career " a testimonial to American exceptionalism . "
Despite Obama ’s elbow grease , Republicans have essentially owned the terminus politically in the advanced era . Newt Gingrich ’s 2011 book , " A Nation Like No Other : Why American Exceptionalism Matters , " is a shining example of conservative ’s full - throated embrace of the term , although no presidential candidate captured the duple essence of American exceptionalism quite like President Donald Trump .
Trump ’s effort slogan , " Make America Great Again , " seethe the American exceptionalist ornateness down to four simple tidings on a crimson lid . America is by nature the greatest nation on the planet . Ascendant superpowers like China are beating America because it has drifted from the Founding Fathers ' sight of a special authorities and put " globalism " ahead of " America first . "
Ironically , liberal political psychoanalyst have called Trump ’s election " the end of American exceptionalism , " arguing that the 2016 election proves that Americans are n’t immune to the same populist force of patriotism and anti - immigrant thought that placed correct - wing hardliners in power worldwide and acquire musical accompaniment for Brexit in the U.K. [ seed : Zeitz ] .
Lots More Information
In President Barack Obama ’s last State of the Union words in 2016,he stated , " I believe in American exceptionalism , just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism " . The difference , and I suspect the reason why American exceptionalism is a topic of globose political vexation , is America ’s outsized influence on the earth . Perhaps it ’s less important of America ’s values and system of government are truly unique on the face of Earth , and more important that we use our very blazing position for good . Interestingly , when Donald Trump was postulate on the campaign trail what he thought of American exceptionalism , he respond , " I do n’t think it ’s a very nice terminus … I consider you ’re insult the world . " Maybe our political science are n’t as divided as we think .
