Glenn Greenwald takes exception to my writing on American Exceptionalism:
The fact remains that declaring yourself special, superior and/or exceptional -- and believing that to be true, and, especially, acting on that belief -- has serious consequences. It can (and usually does) mean that the same standards of judgment aren't applied to your acts as are applied to everyone else's (when you do X, it's justified, but when they do, it isn't). It means that you're entitled (or obligated) to do things that nobody else is entitled or obligated to do (does anyone doubt that the self-perceived superiority and self-arrogated entitlements of Wall Street tycoons is what lead them to believe they can act without constraints?). It means that no matter how many bad things you do in the world, it doesn't ever reflect on who you are, because you're inherently exceptional and thus driven by good motives. And it probably means -- at least as it expresses itself in the American form -- that you'll find yourself in a posture of endless war, because your "unique power, responsibilities, and moral obligations" will always find causes and justifications for new conflicts.
On the specifics of the differences between neoconservatism and liberal internationalism, I don't think Greenwald and I really disagree. But what he describes here is American Exceptionalism as blind, dumb nationalism, which is not how I think of it. I find American Exceptionalism in the writings of a former slave who found the courage to act as a radical conscience fingering the basic inhumanity of one of its founding institutions. I see it in the bravery of patriots who gave their lives to ensure its destruction. I see it in the ability of a Georgia minister to reach back to the 18th century for an ideal of freedom never meant to apply to him to forge a path to equality under the law 200 years later. I hear it in the sad lilt of John Coltrane's tenor saxophone, and in the fantastic tale of integration and exile told by two Jewish boys from Cleveland about the last son of the planet Krypton. I've read about it in the journey of a suffragist whose verbal indictments of atrocities in the American South shook the implicit foundations of racism and patriarchy. I see it in a Democratic president who signed away the South for a generation, and a Republican one who prevented an imperfect nation for the people, of the people, and by the people, from perishing from the Earth. Courage and creativity are not exclusive or restricted to Americans, but to borrow a formulation from our current president, don't know where else in the world these stories are even possible. They are ours, and they are exceptional.
I don't subscribe to any ideal of American Exceptionalism that limits itself to America's military prowess or its ability to function as a factory for two-parent nuclear families that attend church regularly, or any that holds that America is sanctioned by divine right to interfere with other people's right to self-determination. America becomes great by adhering to its ideals; its greatness does not entitle us to ignore them. On the contrary, it is America's uncanny capacity for redemption, its ability to, through each successive generation, reach ever closer to the standards of freedom and justice outlined in its founding documents, that should inform our relations with others and our adherence to the rule of law at home. It is only by accepting when we fall short that we can ever hope to be what we want to be.
American Exceptionalism is a challenge, not a birthright, an obligation, not a mandate. What that means is that not all wars we choose to fight are wars of liberation; it is torture when we do it, and American tomahawk missiles do not detonate into peppermints when they strike civilians. It does mean that there will be times when America should use its power and influence to help others, though we should never be false to ourselves or others about our own interests and ambitions. We must, particularly when no one else will. Call it the Spider-Man theory of American Exceptionalism: With great power comes great responsibility.
UPDATE: Having gone back and read some of the comments here, I want to clarify a couple of things. (a) No, America is not the only country in the world where people do awesome things. That's why I wrote "Courage and creativity are not exclusive or restricted to Americans, but to borrow a formulation from our current president, don't know where else in the world these stories are even possible." They're "not possible" elsewhere because no one else has the same exact history we do. (b) America's history of freedom struggles and religious and ethnic pluralism does make it unique. (c) America's unprecedented power on the global stage means that when we do something or choose not to do something it matters. I don't even think Greenwald disagrees with me on this point, that, for example, had this administration chosen to hold members of the last administration accountable for the use of torture, it would have set a powerful global precedent. The failure to do so has done the same. That influence has to be used wisely, but there's no question as to whether it exists. The fact of American power is insurmountable, how we choose to use it (or not) should be guided by an honest understanding of our own failures and successes as a nation, not on an absurd belief in our own divine benevolence.
