American exceptionalizm?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Essentially the phrase simply means "the uniqueness of America."

When Stalin used it, it addressed the question of why there was relatively
so little  Marxist agitation in the United States. Could America be
"different"?  Could Marx have dropped the ball?

When that question became boring,  later generations, beginning I'd guess
around 1960, adopted the phrase in a more general, positive sense.

Context matters.

JL

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      American exceptionalizm?
>
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>
> What's the phrase "American exceptionalism" all about?
>
> I do not think it means what we think it means.
>
>
>
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/americanexceptionalism.htm
>
> The notion of "American exceptionalism" became widely applied in the
> context of efforts to account for the weakness of working-class radicalism
> in the United States. The major question subsumed in the concept became why
> the United States is the only industrialized country which does not have a
> significant socialist movement or Labor party. That riddle has bedeviled
> socialist theorists since the late nineteenth century.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
> See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk
>
>
>
>
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