City Upon a Hill: American Exceptionalism in U.S. History
“The great Bartholdi statue, Liberty enlightening the world,” Currier & Ives, 1885 (Library of Congress)
180 years after Alexis de Tocqueville posited that the U.S. was an exceptional case in the history of democratic societies, the idea of “American Exceptionalism” is alive and well. Almost every GOP candidate for president in 2012 has invoked the idea, each suggesting that President Obama doesn’t sufficiently embrace it. And so you might be surprised to learn that 90 years ago, it was American communists who were Exceptionalism’s biggest fans.
In this episode, the History Guys will look at the changing meanings of Exceptionalism. From the Puritan notion of a “city upon a hill” to the 19th century concept of manifest destiny, from Woodrow Wilson’s vision of the U.S. as a worldwide model to Ronald Reagan’s rejuvenation of the Puritans, why have Americans seen themselves as different? Is there something to the idea, do you think, or is it simply a dressed-up version of patriotism?
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Quote -- July 28, 2012 @ 1:15 pm
What did Woodrow Wilson say about the U.S. as a worldwide model?
QuoteOne recent pundit said that today’s EXCEPTIONALISM, as voiced by Republicans, gives credence to the fact that the U.S. is EXCEPTIONALLY low on virtually every social/educational/health indicator. We rank 27th to 32nd when compared with other modern nations of the world in almost all categories including the rate of rising in social class.
QuoteThe one characteristic people of other countries dislike about us is our bragging, our hubris. I found that the people who most hold to this EXCEPTIONALIST view are precisely those who have never traveled outside the U.S., never rode on high speed trains, or used inexpensive, efficient and high tech communication (cell phones, fiber optic connections, etc.) in Europe or Japan. Nor have they experienced the high tech, accescible, and affordable health care available in countries with universal medical care..
My question therefore is…”Were the principal believers in U.S. exceptionalism in the past (from the Jeffersonians to today) people who had experience with life abroad?
I think exceptionallism has been used to give us the “right” to march in and take over when things in other nations are not going to our liking. The Phillipines in 1898, and The Kingdom of Hawaii, Central America in the 1970s (and before), Korea, Vietnam, and now Afganistan and Iraq.
They have the idea that we are the most highly developed country in the world, despite our own poverty and lack of healthcare for all, and our dismal public education system.
Exceptionalism to them means they want the freedom to make as much money as they can, while saying it’s a free country and anyone can do likewise.
They have their heads in a bag.
QuotePauline Dyson – I don’t know about all the Founding Fathers, or everyone who donned the Exceptionalist mantle since, but I do know about Thomas Jefferson.
If I’m remembering my history correctly, Jefferson did not travel in Europe prior to his appointment as minister to France in 1785, where he remained until 1789. So, yes, he at least was exposed to a culture other than our own, and from what I’ve read, Jefferson was profoundly affected by the experience. He admired French culture and incorporated several things he especially liked into his life after his return.
Jefferson did not, however, admire French government. He sided with the revolutionaries in 1789 and thought the revolution’s violence was necessary. In that respect, he looked upon the American experience as a guiding light for France.
John Adams was another early historical figure who traveled, serving in France with Benjamin Franklin for a time as well as our first official ambassador to England. Adams didn’t care much for France, though his opinion might have been colored by his less than rosy relationship with Franklin at the time, but he liked England.
I believe America is exceptional, but I do not believe that gives us license to do what we want or to assume we know best for everyone. I also do not believe that being exceptional means we have nothing to learn from others in the world. Unfortunately, our national hubris often stands in the way of learning those lessons.
QuoteThis sounds like a hard topic, because it’s so tangled up in the left / right ideological split: lefties scoff at the idea, righties love it despite obvious evidence that the USA isn’t #1 at much anymore.
However, here’s what I wonder about … is exceptionalism as _possible_ in the Old World as it is here? It seems to me there’s a subtle (certainly unconscious) element going on. When you’re walking around a city like London or Paris, you’re walking in an environment filled with Roman ruins, buildings from the Dark Ages, right up to Renaissance palaces, places damaged by the English Civil War (1640s) or the French Revolution (1789), and so on up to WWII and modern buildings. You’re walking around _embedded in history_, inescapably so. Whether you think about it or not (and generally you don’t) you can never forget that history has been going on a long time before you, and by extension that it will be going on a long time after you.
That wasn’t the case for the settlers who landed in America. There was a civilization here, but it had recently suffered a population crash and didn’t have any major cities right on the Eastern coast anyway. What Europeans saw when they landed (especially compared to cities that were overcrowded at the time) was nothingness, a vast blank canvas. What they saw was a place without a history, and living perhaps at the end of history. They felt themselves in a land that had been cut out of the flow of history, and that in and of itself was exceptional. Thus, they began to think that America was something totally new, totally unprecedented on the face of the earth … let that notion percolate a few years and bam, American Exceptionalism.
What do you think? Perhaps not only an ideological position, but a psychological effect as well?
QuoteA second, related thought: does exceptionalism exist in more countries that are geographically isolated than those that are surrounded by other nations? Europe is clearly a small land mass with many countries, while America is bordered by only two, and even then we’re generally remarkably unfamiliar with our neighbors. This would be easy enough to test: there certainly is a notion that one could call “Japanese exceptionalism.” China thinks of itself as the Middle Kingdom, and it’s a large country. I would expect to find something like “Australian exceptionalism,” or “Indian exceptionalism,” but rather surprised to find, say “Luxembourg exceptionalism.”
QuoteHi
QuoteThanks for soliciting my suggestion. Historians and political scientist view the idea of American exceptionalism very differently. Political scientists actually think there is something to the idea, while historians tend to dismiss it.
I believe that both Tocqueville and Seymour Martin Lipset, the first and the most recent, exponents of the idea were political scientists. So I would urge you to invite James Ceaser from the Govt Dept at U of VA to discuss the idea from this perspective.
thanks
Joe
EDSITEment
David W. Noble rides again! (That’s the David Noble of “Historians against History,” not the late David Noble who was an iconoclastic historian of science and technology.)
A legitimate “exceptionalist” frame is to point out where key facets of our history really are unique: the early tie of primary schooling to citizenship and the length of race-based slavery both come to mind. But some things that are commonly held as exceptional traits really aren’t: other countries have a form of federalism, other countries have had less-than-fratricidal revolutions, other countries were major recipients of European migration flows 80-125 years ago, etc. So the obvious question is, how can we sort the myth from fact in claims of American exceptionalism?
Maybe two other questions might be fruitful:
1) What unique qualities of American history have been important in shaping our national history in a way that is truly exceptional? There are lots of things that are unique — every country has its own geography, for example, and while the Great Lakes certainly influenced both population and economic growth in the Northwest (sorry, the Old Northwest, which we now call the Midwest), lots of countries have watersheds and river systems that shape national development — I bet the Chinese would laugh at claims that our geography is particularly unique without some recognition of the role of the Yangtze River.
2) Isn’t the whole frame of “American exceptionalism” ahistorical, by assuming some unchanging or at least incredibly persistent trait? I would think that if we are going to imbue some meaning in the term, we should also ask what CHANGES and DEVELOPMENTS have been unique in some way in the U.S.
QuoteNewt Gingrich defined American Exceptionalism to mean that our country was the first (perhaps still the only) to say that rights are given to the people their Creator and not by the government.
This seems to contradict Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission because corporations are created by people, and by governments, not by any deity. How can we let unnatural persons share in on our rights under the US Constitution? Surely this will dilute our natural rights.
QuoteAs someone who claims to be an American exceptionalist believer, I offer a few of my reasons. Our belief that rights are given to us by a Creator and not by government is very important. Even though America’s growing religious diversity sometimes causes dispute over this belief, it can’t be argued that it is unique and a more citizen-friendly approach than most other countries. Equally important however is the belief that governments get power with the consent of the governed. When these two beliefs are combined, I think that America, at least philosophically, foments liberty better than perhaps anybody else. Many countries today are influenced by our philosophy when they draft their own constitutions and that, I believe makes us exceptional.
I also believe that our system of (relatively) free markets can help, but not in and of itself cause, us to become exceptional. While other countries have certainly caught up to us technologically, educationally, medically, etc. many of them have done so through the free market. Where we’ve gone wrong now is that I believe we’ve lost some ingenuity, become a little lazy, and lost some ambition to succeed. I do not believe, however that we are necessarily doomed to be where we are and that we have the system and ability to be as exceptional as we want, and I’m not sure other countries can always say that.
QuoteJust to play devil’s advocate on this exceptionalism discussion, I would say that American’s unique place in history, our shared rights guaranteed by the Constituition, and our prosperity in contrast to many other nations is the end result of geo-physical location, extraordinary natural resources and sheer size of our land.. Call me an economic-determinist if you will, but so much of our growth is only marginally due to our democratic-capitalist system, or indeed blessings of our Founder’s deistic God, the factors defended in previous posts.
QuoteI’m glad you bring up geography, natural resources, and land size, because there are really a combination of thing that needed to happen for America to get to where it is. I’d also argue that our military has been key in shaping America’s status in the world. I don’t believe, however, that those things ensure success though. When I look at some of the large oil producing countries of today or at the USSR in times of old I see countries that have the size and resources that should allow them to be world powers, but their influence in the world today doesn’t really reflect that. Now I don’t know or even really care why those places specifically are that way, but it strengthens my believe that citizens are what make a great country great and not necessarily land or resources even though they help.
QuoteI just knew once I brought up US resources and size as a factor in making us a great nation someone would compare us to the former USSR! The contrast between these two giants has become almost a cliche.
QuotePerhaps there is a missing cultural/historical ingredient here. Absent in the Russian experience (as well as in the oil rich Middle Eastern nations) is the Enlightenment , Protestant and Scientific Revolutions, our European heritage.
As for our citizens being the basis of our “exceptionalism”…I submit only to the degree that our multi-ethnic and multi-racial populations have contributed diversity of thought, talents and hard work in the building of America. The incentives were here with opportunities to both develop one’s creativity and to rise in social status in a society where work of all kinds was not only available but sought after. Sadly and somewhat predictably, in the 21st century, many of these values are in decline….no longer are so exceptional!
The question, though, isn’t what influence large countries have in the world. The question is do those countries also believe that they are unique in history and exceptional? In fact, they often do believe that. In Japan’s case, it has nothing to do with either size or influence, since they formed their exceptionalist beliefs while practicing a policy of full isolationism.
QuoteHere’s a lecture by Jim Ceaser of the Govt Dept of U Va on American Exceptionalism
Quotehttp://www.regent.edu/admin/media/fms/vod/singlePlayerFullURL.cfm?address=6000066
Believe or ideology has its effects, but I suppose the danger of exceptionalism, whether in Japan or China (a better example) is not just isolation, but also chauvinistic patriotism that leads to gingoism. Certainly that is true of Japan in the l930′s, the U.S. its Westward expansion and in the l890′s empire building, and England in its most imperial stages. It is an easy step from “we are special, i.e. different to “we are better” and our culture and beliefs are too…..so why not spread our “advantages” by exploiting other less advanced societies.
QuoteThe idea of American Exceptionalism is anchored in Manifest Destiny. What else would convince people to venture west, at all costs, than the idea that we were ‘meant’ to do it? The idea that America had an actual divine mandate to stretch from coast to coast became the answer to every argument against it, and has been ever since. But of course there are always more than one side to every story, even the story of American Exceptionalism. Here are two sides. http://soundcloud.com/historytunes/manifest-destiny
QuoteI think American Exceptionalism has caused us to be too proud to discuss and even acknowledge the condition of our nation. The current brand of exceptionalism that the media corporations portray is one of corporate success and national accomplishment. It doesn’t focus on individuals. One example is the unemployment rate being around 9.1%, but the real number is closer to 20% or more: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/16/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate. I feel like the 2 Americas: Rich and Poor are becoming more polarized, and the idea of exceptionalism may be terminal.
QuoteI feel that a discussion of American Exceptionalism would be incomplete without a nod to American Individualism and the persistence of the American Dream. No matter where we start, with determination and hard work, Americans believe in dreaming big and the possibility of achieving wild success. Conversations outside our borders have consistently shown that the feeling of “anything is possible for me” is not a part of the national psyche in other countries.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/23/the-problem-of-american-exceptionalism
The concluding paragraphs, under Problems, You Say? get to the heart of explaining how contemporary American thought is exceptional: self-reliance and optimism.
It seems that while American Exceptionalism is the term that politicians are wielding to add historic weight their rally cries, what is actually resonating with American people is not “we’re better” but rather “we can do anything.”
I would like to hear the History Guys reflect on whether or not Exceptionalism and Individualism have always been so intertwined. Or is this just the 21st century’s take?
QuoteI’m going to take a different angle from many of the other posts I’ve been reading. Considering that “exceptionalism” takes root from the word “exception,” I see many examples where the US prides itself on doing things differently from the rest of the world. We are proud to be the exceptions, and I can say this having lived abroad for several years before returning. In being proud exceptionalists, we also seem to cling to a notion that the world should conform around our quirks. How can we hold the notion that all living in America must learn English upon arrival, using the “language of success” argument, but reject the adoption of the metric system, arguably the language of science? When it comes to athletics, we prefer our own unique leagues and games rather than embrace the sports that dominate the world’s attention. When did the United States become so willing to reject the world’s contributions, only to favor our own?
QuoteThe previous post states a different approach to “exceptionalism” which is not the usual political/economic/ideological/cultural notion of the term. The examples mentioned show that over time the U.S. has favored certain practices (i.e.) rejection of metric system, national sports -i.e. baseball, requiring English language, etc. and then questions how and when these attitudes were formed, and why we reject the contributions of other cultures and nations.
QuotePerhaps these attitudes and practices were formed in periods of our history when NATIONALISM was particularly strong. ISOLATION of the North American continent in the l8th and l9th centuries must have played a role in defining our sense of uniqueness.
I submit that territorial distance is a factor in this unique idea in other countries as well.
A geographical island – as England, for example, also emphasizes its particular uniqueness (i.e. driving on the “wrong” side of the road, cricket as a sport, refusal to join the Euro money system, etc.). In the case of Great Britain, however, one can say that some of these traits or practices have spread to their former Commonwealth nations.
Canada and Australia have adapted some, but their uniqueness also reflects their
geographic locations.
In an article discussing historic and symbolic relevance of ground zero, Marita Sturken writes “The idea of ground zero as a blank slate thus enables a set of narratives about September 11… that it was a moment in which the United States lost its innocence. Throughout most of the nation’s history, U.S. self-image has remained firmly wedded to a kind of isolationist innocence, so that virtually every traumatic event of the 20th century U.S. history, from Pearl Harbor to the Vietnam War, has been characterized as the moment when that innocence was lost. As Mike Davis writes, New York, like the Unites States, had previously held a ‘messianic belief in its exemption from the bad side of history.’ This sense of historical exceptionalism… was transformed on September 11, 2001.”
Did September 11 permanently alter America’s sense of exceptionalism? Given all the current boasting of the United States’ exceptional status, was this “loss of innocence” a fleeting description of our collective consciousness that now, ten years later, we’ve already forgotten about?
Our country is so young. Compared to nations with histories reaching hundreds or thousands of years, I feel like we’re an impetuous teenager: brash, cavalier, and naive. With our youth comes a sense of unassailability that, apparently, has not yet been shattered. I would argue that American exceptionalism is a product of our national age (unchecked confidence in our own potential) that has been augmented by our surge in global leadership throughout the 20th century.
Reference Link:
QuoteMarita Sturken: https://files.nyu.edu/ms4331/public/aestheticsabsence.pdf
Thank you for taking on this topic and for the thoughtful discussion. I especially found Arlynda Boyer’s and Melanie Merz’s comments helpful. Ms. Merz’s post suggested to me the following train of thought: “By your fruits ye shall know them.” That is, an exceptional country should produce exceptional results. I am not thinking of the historical examples one can list of American firsts or successes, such as winning that war, inventing that machine, accumulating that amount of material wealth, landing on the moon, etc. There are many historical examples of civilizations that were preeminent in similar ways far longer than the US has been in existence, so being militarily or economically dominant I don’t think makes the US exceptional if one takes a long view of history.
The exceptionalism originally described in our colonial history was based on morality (we were to be the City on the Hill). The outcome of a truly exceptional society based on an enlightened morality ought to be a moral people, or that should be the goal, and there should at least be some signs of progress toward that goal. No doubt the US has made great strides toward a more just society, but so has the world in general, and the US certainly didn’t lead each advance (the US was not the first country to outlaw slavery or give women the right to vote, for example). And we use our morality to justify all our actions, to fight that war, to pass that law, etc. This is especially clear in international relations: if we believe in our exceptional morality, then whatever we do is right, and those who oppose us are by definition wrong, and their opposition justifies whatever means we decide is right to achieve our ends.
But it is certainly arguable which nation today is the most just. I think it’s a conversation we should seriously engage in. It might help to put our morality in a larger context.
There’s a case to be made our morality is for the most part unexceptional. The ultimate aims of our society at large seem to me to be the same ones that all great powers have had: the accumulation of material wealth and military superiority, even if it is to the detriment of other peoples. I think those two motivations alone could largely explain where most of our nation’s energies and resources are devoted. What would be exceptional would be a society where the well being of other peoples was taken into account, even if it would result in a significant material loss on our part.
QuoteRE: Melanie Merz’s thoughts on MORALITY being a sign of national greatness. While she points out that the well being of other peoples should be taken into account when rating a nation’s morality. Yet she does not mention the documented unequal distribution of wealth within the U.S.. How can a country, such as ours, pride itself as democratic and moral when almost all the wealth is in the hands of the very few. This is more true today than thirty or forty years ago, and since the trend is toward an every widening gap in income and opportunities, we cannot consider ourselves economically moral.
QuoteFurthermore, in studies on social mobility, the U.S. has lost the top spots to other nations with fewer resources and with histories of aristocracy and mores of social snobbery. Does social morality not include possibilities to rise in social class? We once were “exceptional” in this regard but no longer are so.
Pauline Dyson’s comment of 9/5/11 makes most sense if I read her as responding to my 9/5/11 comment (Paul Calzada’s), not Melanie Merz’s. My apologies if I’m mistaken on that point, Ms. Dyson. But no matter, it’s all part of a thoughtful discussion and I appreciate the comment. It made me look again at what I said and to read Melanie Merz’s Pew Research link (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/23/the-problem-of-american-exceptionalism), which is an excellent reference and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
I’m inclined to agree with the main point of Ms. Dyson’s comment, that our domestic morality is as unexceptional as our international morality, though to me the international case for that is clearer and less equivocal.
I found the conclusion of the Pew Research paper very illuminating: “…Americans’ strong sense of individual freedom combined with their overweening optimism leads many to think they can have it both ways. Energy is a prime case in point. Americans have long acknowledged the risk of dependence on foreign energy sources. Yet, even the September 11 attacks, carried out largely by nationals of Saudi Arabia, America’s largest oil provider, had minimal impact on attitudes toward the car culture.”
It seems to me the main consequence of our exceptionalist mentality leads us to believe that we can have our cake and eat it too; that we can disregard the impact of our behavior, or ignore the consequences of our actions, that somehow perhaps even natural laws can be superseded. Global warming is a prime example; this is again taken from the Pew Research paper:
“…surveys showed that a very strong majority of the U.S. public believed that global warming is a real and serious problem. Yet 21 percent of respondents stated that unless global warming is a certainty, no steps should be taken to deal with it, and another 42 percent said only gradual, low-cost steps should be taken. Just 34 percent of the public said it was necessary to deal with global warming right now. Moreover 66 percent thought that the United States was either doing more or about as much to limit greenhouse gases as other advanced nations.”
What I find most disturbing is that it seems to me most Americans have no idea how our nation as a whole is directly affecting other countries and future generations through its resistance to dealing with global warming. To do so would be to acknowledge that we are largely responsible for the problem, but that would imply that perhaps we aren’t as moral as we think, and that our national purpose and virtue are not as unquestionable as we’d like to believe. But if we are somehow exceptional — that there will be a technological solution, or our country will survive the worst of global warming — then you don’t have to face that responsibility, and other countries can fend for themselves.
BTW, I think Melanie Merz’s 8/25/11 comment makes a similar point. She compares the US to a teenager. I hope she doesn’t mind if I quote part of her comment here because it does put US exceptionalism in a historical context:
“Our country is so young. Compared to nations with histories reaching hundreds or thousands of years, I feel like we’re an impetuous teenager: brash, cavalier, and naive. With our youth comes a sense of unassailability that, apparently, has not yet been shattered. I would argue that American exceptionalism is a product of our national age (unchecked confidence in our own potential) that has been augmented by our surge in global leadership throughout the 20th century.”
QuoteAs I read many of these posts I find that some are equating “exceptional-ism” with “superiority”. Ghandi and Mother Teresa were not considered superior but they were certainly exceptional. Thus our claim to “Exceptional-ism” is through our fundamental belief that the source of our rights is our creator and not any man, government or organization and that gives us confidence in ourselves.
QuoteTo Gary: we may repeat that “rights from our creator” trope, but is there really any solid proof that:
a) the majority of Americans actually believe that our creator gave us _legal_ rights?
b) that nobody else in the world believes that their creator(s) gave them the same (extra-legal) “rights” that we believe “our” creator gave us?
c) that Americans do not believe, in fact, that these sorts of rights are simply general human rights and as such applicable all over the world?
d) that all other nations believe that their natural rights derive only from a man, a government, or some organization? [in other words, where exactly DO the Dutch think their right to be alive comes from?]
For the idea that our rights are endowed by our creator to be exceptional (instead of in fact quite prosaic), all four of those conditions would have to be true, and I would argue that it’s likely none of them are.
QuoteI think it’s significant that since Winthrop, the “City Upon A Hill” imagery (which comes directly from the Sermon on the Mount, by the way) has been used in American political rhetoric to look towards the ideal future. Winthrop used it to envision an ideal Christian society working together, JFK used it to look ahead to his administration before his nomination, and Reagan used it later on.
As far as “American Exceptionalism” goes, I’m not it is much more than dressed up nationalism. It’s a paradox, because on the one hand it seems to often stand for our unity against an opposing force, but on the other hand “American Exceptionalism” can also stand for our supposed openness, more along the lines of Tocqueville.
QuoteI’d like to briefly build on what DL Poff, Scott Baldwin and Pauline Dyson were saying back in July: I think that if there is a defensible case for the United States being an exceptional nation it has to be built on American’s relationship to our land.
Not to parrot Frederick Jackson Turner too closely, but I think it’s hard to dispute that America is what it is today because of the amount of land we have and how effectively it’s been developed. Our entire history up until the advent of legislated environmentalism in the 1970s was a relentless drive to obtain, develop and harness the power of the land through agriculture and extractive industry, and that drive is what brought us to the perception commanding position we enjoy in the world today.
That being said, perhaps more important than the material strength we’ve gained from our abundance of land has been the national perception that “there’s more than enough room (and resources) for everyone.”
This perception has been a part of American national identity from the very beginning- the puritans taming the ‘howling wilderness’, manifest destiny, Horatio Alger’s rags to riches stories, dust bowl farmers in Oklahoma assuming that moving to California would help, the dream of home ownership and the growth of the suburbs after World War II- finally even the son of an immigrant becoming President. The American Dream rests on the understanding that the pie is so big that there’s always going to be plenty left over for our neighbors and our kids, no matter how much we take. I think that’s a very prevalent attitude today, especially in amateur economics and perceptions of global warming.
Anyway, there’s my two cents! LOVE the show, hope Montana Public Radio picks it up weekly!
Couldn’t resist, but @ Scott- As for Russian eastward expansion as a parallel to American westward expansion- I think the difference isn’t lack of enlightenment or scientific principles (Peter I was a total Francophile and Katherine’s usually held up next to Frederick II as an ‘enlightened despot’) but because Russia’s culture of traditionalism had trouble figuring out an effective system of managing expansion when feudal landowners still had their hands full with the estates worked by thousands of serfs they already owned. Only a few people got to eat the pie in Russia, and they got full pretty quick… but that’s a topic for a different forum!
QuoteAs America faces its limitations in the 21st century, we are beginning to look at other nation’s governments, economies and cultures with admiration. I am very curious about when this has occured in the past. Who have we aspired to be, or who has at least inspired us, through our history?
QuoteJim Ceaser’s article on the History of the Idea of American Exceptionalism is finally available online http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664595
QuoteIts one of several essays by political scientists and historians about this topic from a new journal from U of Chicago Press
American Political Thought
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664008
I hope that you can add some of these perspectives to your program. And I hope that those who have engaged in this discussion will sample some of these thoughtful pieces as well.
Is the idea of “American exceptionalism” related to the idea of “English/British exceptionalism” that arose in the 18th century following the Revolution of 1688? (if I recall right, roughly the view that Britain’s legal/political institutions and traditions were special, e.g that it was protected from the found in 18th c. Continental Europe, and led to the rise of the British Empire). Is our concept of American exceptionalism derivative of this English viewpoint, insofar as we inherited it along with many of the English institutions/traditions it was based on (language, Common Law, a constitutional government, and the idea of the “rights of Englishmen”)? Or did it arise independently?
QuoteThis is a plausible hypothesis, especially since most societies tend to be egocentric, but what on earth do you mean by “protected from the found”.
QuoteListened to most of show. Did not hear anyone mention origin of “City on a Hill” from Matthew 5:14.
Quote