American exceptionalizm?

[Jonathan Lighter]

If Commies feared it, it must be good, Also, since they were materialists,
it must be real.

QED.

Nuances ad lib.

I can recall grad-student lefties of the '80s denouncing the "myth of
American exceptionalism" in the current sense of "American moral,
intellectual, ideological, theological, cultural, and political superiority
to all." (I think that's when it became popular - "Shining City on the
Hill," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah....)

Historians, as I understand it, use the phrase to encapsulate the idea that
U.S. history (successful, long-shot revolution against the top world power,
democratic constitution framed by political philosophers, big
contradiction/hypocrisy/sin of chattel slavery, westward push, Civil War,
robber barons, business growth, world wars and superpower prominence)
really does make the U.S. different from, say, tiny Albania.

However, the historians' concept often subsumes the public faith in the
excellences listed above.

JL

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: American exceptionalizm?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 22, 2012, at 7:20 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
> > Essentially the phrase simply means "the uniqueness of America."
>
> well, yes, but ...
>
> some good discussion in the latest issue of Daedalus, "On the American
> Narrative", especially:
>
> New York University history Professor David Levering Lewis, in
> “Exceptionalism’s Exceptions: The Changing American Narrative,” traces the
> history of American exceptionalism “from high-flown political science
> theory…to ideological boilerplate”
>
> and in “The American Mythos,” by Jay Parini, Middlebury College
>
> arnold
>
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