[quidnunc]

This drives the Euroexcreta and their fellow-travellers out of their rabbit-assed minds.

[tet68]

Exceptional Bump.

[Southack]

[apackof2]

GOD BLESS AMERICA bump

[McGavin999]

This is what people don't understand. We're not exceptional because we're powerful, we're powerful because we're exceptional. I was stunned at the graphs on the article. Can you imagine only 20% of the people in france are proud of being french? Even the Brits, with only 50% being proud of being British.

[Pubbie]

Another Rambling, incoherent essay about the USA filled with meaningless International Psychobabel from the "The Economist" (Aka "The Communist")

[wimpycat]

I'm in the middle of reading the whole thing. It's great so far. I just hope people in Europe read it. They think they understand us, when they really have no idea.

[MJY1288]

Excellent article, thanks for posting it

Freegards,

Mike

[Brian Allen]

A nation apart

FRom The Economist print edition of November 6 2003


The terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 have not only widened the differences between America and the rest of the world, but have also deepened divisions within the country itself, says John Parker


AT NINE o'clock on the morning of September 11th 2001, President George Bush sat in an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, listening to seven-year-olds read stories about goats. ¡§Night fell on a different world,¡¨ he said of that day. And on a different America.

At first, America and the world seemed to change together. ¡§We are all New Yorkers now,¡¨ ran an e-mail from Berlin that day, mirroring John F. Kennedy's declaration 40 years earlier, ¡§Ich bin ein Berliner¡¨, and predicting Le Monde's headline the next day, ¡§Nous sommes tous Am?ricains¡¨. And America, for its part, seemed to become more like other countries. Al-Qaeda's strikes, the first on the country's mainland by a foreign enemy, stripped away something unique: its aura of invulnerability, its sense of itself as a place apart, ¡§the city on a hill¡¨.

Two days after the event, President George Bush senior predicted that, like Pearl Harbour, ¡§so, too, should this most recent surprise attack erase the concept in some quarters that America can somehow go it alone.¡¨ Francis Fukuyama, a professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, suggested that ¡§America may become a more ordinary country in the sense of having concrete interests and real vulnerabilities, rather than thinking itself unilaterally able to define the nature of the world it lives in.¡¨

Both men were thinking about foreign policy. But global terrorism changed America at home as well. Because it made national security more important, it enhanced the role of the president and the federal government. Twice as many Americans as in the 1990s now say that they are paying a lot of attention to national affairs, where they used to care more about business and local stories. Some observers noted ¡§a return to seriousness¡¨¡Xand indeed frivolities do not dominate television news as they used to.

But America has not become ¡§a more ordinary country¡¨, either in foreign policy or in the domestic arena. Instead, this survey will argue that the attacks of 2001 have increased ¡§American exceptionalism¡¨¡Xa phrase coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in the mid-19th century to describe America's profound differences from other nations. The features that the attacks brought to the surface were already there, but the Bush administration has amplified them. As a result, in the past two years the differences between America and other countries have become more pronounced.

Yet because America is not a homogeneous country¡Xindeed, its heterogeneity is one of its most striking features¡Xmany of its people feel uneasy about manifestations of exceptionalism. Hence, as this survey will also argue, the revival and expansion of American exceptionalism will prove divisive at home. This division will define domestic politics for years to come.

Not all New Yorkers any more

From the outside, the best indication of American exceptionalism is military power. America spends more on defence than the next dozen countries combined. In the nearest approach to an explicit endorsement of exceptionalism in the public domain, the National Security Strategy of 2002 says America must ensure that its current military dominance¡Xoften described as the greatest since Rome's¡Xis not even challenged, let alone surpassed.



In fact, military might is only a symptom of what makes America itself unusual. The country is exceptional in more profound ways. It is more strongly individualistic than Europe, more patriotic, more religious and culturally more conservative (see chart 1). Al-Qaeda's assaults stimulated two of these deeper characteristics. In the wake of the attacks, expressions of both love of country and love of God spiked. This did not necessarily mean Americans suddenly became more patriotic or religious. Rather, the spike was a reminder of what is important to them. It was like a bolt of lightning, briefly illuminating the landscape but not changing it.

The president seized on these manifestations of the American spirit. The day after he had defined America's enemies in his ¡§axis of evil¡¨ speech, in January 2002, Mr Bush told an audience in Daytona Beach, Florida, about his country's ¡§mission¡¨ in the world. ¡§We're fighting for freedom, and civilisation and universal values.¡¨ That is one strand of American exceptionalism. America is the purest example of a nation founded upon universal values, such as democracy and human rights. It is a standard-bearer, an exemplar.

But the president went further, seeking to change America's culture and values in ways that would make the country still more distinctive. ¡§We've got a great opportunity,¡¨ he said at Daytona. ¡§As a result of evil, there's some amazing things that are taking place in America. People have begun to challenge the culture of the past that said, ¡¥If it feels good, do it'. This great nation has a chance to help change the culture.¡¨ He was appealing to old-fashioned virtues of personal responsibility, self-reliance and restraint, qualities associated with a strand of exceptionalism that says American values and institutions are different and America is exceptional in its essence, not just because it is a standard-bearer.

On this view, America is not exceptional because it is powerful; America is powerful because it is exceptional. And because what makes America different also keeps it rich and powerful, an administration that encourages American wealth and power will tend to encourage intrinsic exceptionalism. Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations dubs this impulse ¡§American revivalism¡¨. It is not an explicit ideology but a pattern of beliefs, attitudes and instincts.


The Bush administration displays ¡§exceptionalist¡¨ characteristics to an unusual extent. It is more openly religious than any of its predecessors. Mr Bush has called Jesus his favourite philosopher. White House staff members arrange Bible study classes. The president's re-election team courts evangelical Protestant voters. The administration wants religious institutions to play a bigger role in social policy.

It also wears patriotism on its sleeve. That is not to say it is more patriotic than previous governments, but it flaunts this quality more openly, using images of the flag on every occasion and relishing America's military might to an unusual extent. More than any administration since Ronald Reagan's, this one is focused narrowly on America's national interest.

Related to this is a certain disdain for ¡§old Europe¡¨ which goes beyond frustrations over policy. By education and background, this is an administration less influenced than usual by those bastions of transatlanticism, Ivy League universities. One-third of President Bush senior's first cabinet secretaries, and half of President Clinton's, had Ivy League degrees. But in the current cabinet the share is down to a quarter. For most members of this administration, who are mainly from the heartland and the American west (Texas especially), Europe seems far away. They have not studied there. They do not follow German novels or French films. Indeed, for many of them, Europe is in some ways unserious. Its armies are a joke. Its people work short hours. They wear sandals and make chocolate. Europe does not capture their imagination in the way that China, the Middle East and America itself do.

Mr Bush's own family embodies the shift away from Euro-centrism. His grandfather was a senator from Connecticut, an internationalist and a scion of Brown Brothers Harriman, bluest of blue-blooded Wall Street investment banks. His father epitomised the transatlantic generation. Despite his Yale education, he himself is most at home on his Texas ranch.

Looked at this way, the Bush administration's policies are not only responses to specific problems, or to demands made by interest groups. They reflect a certain way of looking at America and the world. They embody American exceptionalism.

[edwin hubble]

This is important.

I have reviewed the ten-article series of this Survey of the United States by John Parker published in The Economist (London). You should save it now while it is easily done.
It will still be available in reprint, though.

I don't think I have seen a more thoughtful or powerful work since Paul Johnson.

This work is represents a reincarnation of de Tocqueville.

A thesis of 'Morning in America' has been written for our moment in time... and by an Englishman who really knows his economics.

[4mycountry]

[wimpycat]

Best line of the whole series of articles:

No one knows which of these ideas will be more influential in the world in future: America's top-dog exceptionalism or the EU's basket of squealing puppies.

[spodefly]

bttt

[Ronzo]

My favorite quote from the article:

In the 2000 election, 63% of those who went to church more than once a week voted for George Bush; 61% of those who never went voted for Al Gore. About 70% of those who said abortion should always be available voted for Mr Gore; 74% of those who said it should always be illegal voted for Mr Bush. As Pete du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, pointed out, a map showing the sales and rentals of porn movies bore an eerie resemblance to the map of the 2000 election results.

[Jackson Brown]

IMO -- unless one is just a knee-jerk reactionary who sees things in only black and white -- this set of articles should be seen as just plain excellent!

No human entity on earth is perfect. The best any country can claim is to be more good than bad and striving to get even better. That's basically what this series states.

AND, if your keeping score, the US looks MUCH better than the rest of the world by comparison in this series.

I don't agree with (even close) to every point in this series, MANY I would ardently disagree with if taken alone.

However, for a far reaching effort, I've not seen better.

I've saved all the parts of the series, as well.

[Rose in RoseBear]

Pingpingping!

[Savage Beast]

"Indeed, for many of them, Europe is in some ways unserious."

Indeed, for even more of them, Europe is decadent and self-destructive.

[kayak]

America is not exceptional because it is powerful; America is powerful because it is exceptional.

[Billthedrill]

Well, you just pooched an hour of my Saturday night! Very, very interesting article, and thank you for posting it.

Later, maybe - I'm going to have to chew on this one awhile.

[MissAmericanPie]

"It is not an explicit ideology but a pattern of beliefs, attitudes and instincts."

Does he mean this exceptionalism will cause trouble on the national political scene for decades to come because that exceptionalism has become deluted as the nation has balkanized?

Maybe politicans like Clinton had better weigh the cost of the loss of that exceptionalism before embracing and proclaiming their desire to bring to an end the dominance of the european culture in this nation.

[ellery]

Must read. BTTTTT.