Yesterday, I ended up re-reading George Orwell‘s famous essay on nationalism, which, although it was written more than fifty years ago, offers a more devastating response to the jingoistic vision of American Exceptionalism conservatives are always accusing President Obama of not adhering to than anyone else could possibly offer:
A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also — since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself — unshakeably certain of being in the right.
Read Orwell and then read Rich Lowry‘s declaration that “Our greatness is simply a fact. Only the churlish or malevolent can deny it, or even get irked at its assertion.” He latter adds that this is “not bumptious self-congratulation.” Lowry’s column, essentially a scorecard where he ranks other countries on an arbitrary scale of “greatness,” is cartoonish in how snugly it fits Orwell’s description.
I’m not sure there’s a more concise description of the Republican approach to foreign policy than their “thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.” For conservatives, almost every interaction in foreign affairs is evaluated the way children size each other up on the playground, every event provides the possibility for inevitable, victorious triumph or utter humiliation. In the case of Obama, the latter is always within reach and the former is the constant, inevitable result.
As for questions of morality, Orwell has the relativism of conservative proponents of “American Exceptionalism” pegged:
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.
This is the reason why most liberals don’t subscribe to “American Exceptionalism” as Lowry and others espouse it, because they suspect it isn’t so much about loving one’s country as it is about justifying the unjustifiable.
I don’t need for America to have bigger tits than Spain or whatever to be worth loving, and the kind of self-delusion required on the part of conservative “American Exceptionalism” doesn’t strike as love or patriotism at all, it reminds me of relatives who call your cell phone when they want to borrow some money.
Liberals see America as exceptional, they just try to avoid lying to themselves when we fail to live up to our ideals. In short, they’re aware of the potential moral dilemmas posed by blind nationalism, which many conservatives actually regard as a virture. Liberals aren’t going to buy into a view of “American Exceptionalism” that believes drone strikes in Pakistan explode into freedom rainbows and the problem with waterboarding in Cambodia was that Pol Pot didn’t get a legal memo first, and this country–and the world, is better for it.
One might observe from Orwell’s description the biggest irony of what conservatives espouse as “American Exceptionalism,” which is that it isn’t particularly exceptional as an idea. and there’s something particularly pathetic about that.
