American exceptionalizm?

[Dan Goncharoff]

Manifest destiny goes back well before Turner, to the Jacksonian era.

Tocqueville called America "exceptional", which gets going in the right
direction.

I seem to be mistaken about FJTurner's use of the term.

DanG


On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: American exceptionalizm?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think it's writers about Turner who use this phrase.  I don't
> believe he used "American exceptionalizm" (certainly not with the Z
> of Tom's Subject line), although he did use the adjective
> "exceptional". The phrase I associate with him is "manifest destiny",
> which does appear in his "The Frontier in American History", in a
> nice pithy form:  "The Western man believed in the manifest destiny
> of his country."
>
> Joel
>
> At 2/22/2012 12:02 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> >Doesn't the phrase go back to Frederick Turner? GB only gives an unclear
> >snippet, but I vaguely recall it.
> >DanG
> >
> >
> >On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> ><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
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> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: American exceptionalizm?
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > 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=
> > > :
> > >
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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
> > > > =93Exceptionalism=92s Exceptions: The Changing American Narrative,=94
> > > tra=
> > > ces the
> > > > history of American exceptionalism =93from high-flown political
> science
> > > > theory=85to ideological boilerplate=94
> > > >
> > > > and in =93The American Mythos,=94 by Jay Parini, Middlebury College
> > > >
> > > > arnold
> > > >
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