When people say ‘American exceptionalism,’ what do they mean? Plus Russia, Burma, baseball, and more.
When people say ‘American exceptionalism,’ what do they mean? Plus Russia, Burma, baseball, and more.
T he more experience I have, the more I think that definitions are virtually the whole ballgame. What do you mean? What do you mean by that word or phrase? Once this is sorted out, conversation can proceed.
I have written articles about “conservatism” and “liberalism” — here, for example. Today, I’d like to take up “American exceptionalism.”
I have heard this phrase a lot in the last several years — more than I ever have in my life. The phrase really got going in the 1920s, when it was used in Communist circles. The Communists were having great success in many nations. But not so much in the United States. Why? Some Reds began griping about “American exceptionalism.”
What makes America exceptional — different from other nations? I have been mulling this, and will supply a little list.
As a rule, we have been open to immigrants and refugees. We have had an open economy, including free trade. We have been free — relatively free — of tribalism and identity politics. We have been a world-embracing nation, and the world has embraced us.
I can’t help noticing something: Many of the people who talk the loudest about “American exceptionalism” are not very friendly to things that make America, in fact, exceptional. They want the United States to be more like other nations — less exceptional, in other words. They want us to be more insular, more closed, more parochial. Less creedal — less idea-oriented — and more ordinary. More like the nations that our forebears were glad to get away from, in order to breathe different air.
Let Hungary be Hungary — but let America be America, too.
So, these are a few words offered as food for thought. Spit it out, if you like. Or chew on it. In any case, when someone talks of “American exceptionalism,” you may want to ask what he means.
• Steven B. Smith is a well-known political scientist and professor at Yale. I podcasted with him the other day, here. He is the author of a new book: Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes.
Earlier this week, he participated in a debate on his campus, hosted by the Yale Political Union. At issue: patriotism. Smith was for it; others were against it. The house voted for Smith (and patriotism), 18 to 17.
That was close!
I got a lesson in one-vote victories when I was 13. The year was 1977, in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. The mayor, Albert Wheeler, won reelection by — get this — 10,660 to 10,659.
I related this to Professor Smith. He said, “Every vote counts.” Boy, does it. I had this starkly illustrated, early on.
If you would like to read a news article on the Yale debate, go here. The article quotes the vice president of the Yale Political Union, Mathis Bitton. He is a sophomore, and last summer was an intern at National Review. Said Monsieur Bitton to the reporter, “This debate is a way for us to ask whether patriotism itself can be distinguished from the demagogues who weaponize it.”
Well put. And I certainly hope so.
A few weeks ago, Daniel Hannan wrote a column in appreciation of George Shultz, the late secretary of state. Hannan touched on broader issues as well. He quoted his old friend Roger Scruton, the philosopher, who “used to talk about the politicians who were ‘nationalists without being patriots.’”
I know just what Scruton meant.
• Yesterday, the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, tweeted,
Three years ago today, Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a chemical weapon on British soil. We reaffirm our commitment to justice for all victims of Russia’s repeated use of chemical weapons, including Aleksey Navalny. Russia’s actions have consequences.
The tone out of Washington is very different. President Trump did not accept that the Russian government was responsible for the Skripal poisoning at all. Here is one report involving the subject; here is another. I don’t believe that Trump ever uttered a critical word of Putin and the Kremlin. He did a lot of defending, though.
(Last October, I did a review of Trump and his relations with dictators. Find it here.)
• What do dictatorships have in common? Many things — but one of them is, they don’t want news of their misdeeds to get out. The Burmese dictatorship has been mowing down democracy protesters in the street. On one bloody Sunday, state agents killed at least 18, wounded at least 30 more, and arrested about a thousand.
The dictatorship would like to do all this in general darkness. Did you see this report?
Authorities in Myanmar have charged Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw and five other members of the media with violating a public order law that could see them imprisoned for up to three years . . .
Even before the imposition of martial law — when the government was semi-democratic — the government was doing this. You may recall the Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned for about a year and a half.
• Something in a Ross Douthat column made me think of a memo, written long ago. Ross’s column was called “Rush Limbaugh and the Petrification of Conservatism.” I will quote the passage that sparked my memory:
. . . you don’t need 55 percent of the country to build a huge talk-radio audience or an incredibly successful cable news network or a vast online ecosystem. You need a passionate audience, a committed audience, a church of Dittoheads.
That word “church.” Somewhere along the way, James Burnham wrote Bill Buckley a memo about a debate within National Review. John Judis discusses the memo in his biography of Bill.
“Priscilla and I,” wrote Burnham — referring to the divine Priscilla Buckley — “want simply to have the best magazine in the world, assuming a general (not too sharply defined) conservative and anti-Communist point of view.” And others?
They too “want a good magazine, of course, but they first of all want a crusade, a political party, and a kind of ersatz church, and they want National Review itself to be all these things or at least organically and intimately part of all three, rather than a magazine . . .”
“Ersatz church” is a damn interesting phrase. (Smart dude, Burnham.)
• Shall we do a little sports? “Blue Jays’ Guerrero Jr. dropped 42 pounds in offseason.” That’s nice. He did so for a specific reason: “so he could move back to third again” — from first base, where he has been playing, to third, where he used to play.
That is an interesting, interesting commentary on one difference between the two positions. (If you’re a little hefty, park yourself at first, Charlie.)
• End on a little language? Okay, let’s. I spotted a headline in the Washington Post: “Two of Biden’s top DOJ nominees are subjected to baseless smear campaigns.” I didn’t like that word “baseless.” If it’s a smear, it’s baseless. In recent times, I have been reading things such as “false smears.” That’s a little like saying “wet water.”
My friend and colleague Mike Potemra used to cite a Rocky movie — in which Mr. T’s character says, “I’m gonna crucify him. Real bad.”
I love that, and so did Mike.
When I wrote about “baseless smear campaigns,” etc., on Twitter, a brilliant friend of mine — Myroslava Luzina, a Ukrainian philologist — responded, “Some semes bear reinforcing. While ‘smear’ has the seme of falseness, someone may want to underscore it.”
Yeah, true. I have a colleague who dislikes the word “single,” as in “single worst play ever.” Only “worst play ever” is necessary, he points out. Yes. But I like the reinforcer, or intensifier, of “single.”
Have a cracking good weekend, my friends. Thank you for joining me.
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