Anti-Exceptionalism
Anti-Exceptionalists (deniers) want to pretend that other countries ways are as good or better than the American way.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2022-07-01 |
| 🗒️ Note: |
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| Alexis de Tocqueville - A few of his observations were deep and insightful, many shallow and off-target, like he way under-estimated America in where we would go in Science, Arts and Literature. But even an arrogant Frenchman was able to see that America, and our democracy, was unique and unrivaled in the world. Unlike the rest of the world, you weren't stuck in your roles based on your birthright: it didn't matter what tribe/family you belonged to, there was far less interest in classes, it was a meritocracy where more than any other place in the world, your efforts could write the script of your life, instead of just your lineage and connections. But he didn't mean that as a compliment. He wasn't a fan of Individualism, and America was a society dedicated to individualism. He sort of looked down on that philosophical concept as as selfish and immature -- nearly as foreign to him as to a Confucianist or other collectivist philosophy. And he feared that our kind of democracy would collapse into something that closely resembled fascism. It seems he was right to fear what he warned was the "Tyranny of the Majority" -- it just seems it fit the mind-set of Europeans (Italians, Germans, Spanish, and French) more than Americans, as they keep falling for that, and we did not. |
American Exceptionalism is the belief that we've done things the rest of the world has not, and done things in a way that's Unique to America. It was first written about with Alexis de Tocqueville [1] writing his famous book, by the French and for the French, titled, "Democracy in America"[2]. During the 1830's he travelled around America, trying to understand how our Representative (Republican) Democracy was succeeding in the U.S., while it failed other places it was tried (like in France). He missed many reasons, but even in the 1830's he recognized our exceptionalism -- many can't even do that.
The AE's (Anti-exeptionalists) are often typified by the anti-American, anti-colonialist/anti-imperialists and what's taught in a lot of our universities and now even high schools under the guise of political correctness or Social Justice. Again, there's a variety of divergent views on this, but they have similar things in common: primarily in the moral relativism that all countries have done good and bad (including America), and least from those cultures position, so they're all loosely equivalent morally. The first might be true, but someone who jay-walks is not the moral equivalent of a tyrant or a rapist. Even when you look at our worst: Slavery (Blacks), genocide (Indians), Imperialism/Colonialism, Conquest (wars), income inequality, and so on, America has been better that most of the rest. So while the only exceptionalism they recognize is us being exceptionally bad, that's just their ignorance or bias.
| 💭 The Newsroom |
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| Anti-exceptionalism is sort of summed up in a speech made in the HBO propaganda series called The Newsroom. America now sucks. It was better when we were taxed more and listened blindly to the Press/progressives, but since we've learned from those mistakes, we suck! It's Sorkin fast speaking leftist-dogma colonic masquerading as bipartisan common sense. The reason it comes so fast, is so you don't have time to think about how insipidly wrong each of the points actually are. It tends to show only two things, (1) why the political left is right, (2) why the political right is wrong. The best statements are misleading, the worst are dishonest and wrong. But the audience is meant to be the shallow and feelers, not the deep and thinkers. |
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