Exceptionalism Revisited Call me cynical, but Ive been watching the Sunday talk shows, and lately Ive noticed that, like those huge chunks of ice at the North Pole, a good deal of our mythology is crashing into the ocean and going south. This is alarming, because we need our myths and stories. Myths, stories, dreams-theyre the stuff that keeps us trucking down the highway. If you were an American in 1849, why else would you head out to the wilderness of California? Because newspapers said that with a shovel and a strong back and a little luck--you could be rich. If you were a hapless Irishman (or a Pole, or a Turk, or a Greek, whatever) in say 1890, why would you want to risk everything you knew and your whole lifes savings to board a leaky boat to the new world? For freedom, maybe, or for a chance to see those streets they swore were paved with gold, or just for once an opportunity to worship the God of your choice in peace. If you were Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers or Walt Disney or Jackie Robinson, why would you even bother to get out of bed in the morning if you didnt have a wild and crazy vision of a better tomorrow? All this stuff, it seems to me, is now at risk. And along with the American Dream, the notion of someday owning your own home and seeing your kids grow up to have a better life than you did, whats also fast disappearing is the myth of American exceptionalism. From the get-go we have thought of ourselves as special, a chosen people not unlike the Jews in the Bible. And with the possible exception of Australia, our history, our historical circumstance, has always been unique; you dont have to dig too deep into the past to see that all our leaders and thinkers believed that our best days were ahead of us and we were destined for greatness. But what is the source of our greatness? I would argue that America started out, not so much as a nation, but as an idea. This land was something of a tabula rasa, or at least a lightly inhabited place where you could start all over. If you worked hard and lived by the rules, you would likely succeed. In fact, anyone who did this would likely succeed, so it didnt much matter where you came from or what language you spoke or the shape of your nose. We were (maybe still are) a laboratory of progress. Our theories apply to everyone and therefore we like to think we welcome new Americans into the fold. We like to think we learn from them, and they learn from us, and that in the end our compassion pays off handsomely. Thats what makes us American. That, in a nutshell, is our grand idea. Now, however, the mood here is decidedly darker. One political party has taken the position that the scores of children arriving on our southern border from places like Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador have no right to live in the United States, even though sending them back to the gangs and narco-terrorists who roam those places is effectively a death sentence. Lets put aside, for a moment, the political back and forth, what the law was designed to do, who is responsible for protecting the border, etc. My question is this: What does this crisis say about us as a people? Where does this leave the grand idea? Andy
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 15:00:01 +0000
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