Argument of Validity of the Thesis of American Exceptionalism - Essay Example

IS THE THESIS OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM VALID? by Student’s name Code + course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date Argument of Validity of the Thesis of American Exceptionalism Every nation seems to view itself as exceptional. Both the United States and France deem themselves as exceptional due to - or they so allege - their values’ universality. However, it is only the U.S that has attempted to create distant policies which mirror such exceptionalism (Restad 2014). While France, and a majority of the European authorities, have inclined, or been compelled, to exercise power politics’ balance for their safeguard as well as for the formation of minimal command within the global jungle, the United States has possessed a bigger leeway of being original. The key element of its exceptionalism has for beyond a century following its self-rule, been its geographically advantaged position (Restad 2014). As such, the U.S is situated sufficiently far from Asia and Europe to be capable of being uninvolved and safe, yet able of extending into neighbouring countries effortlessly and with little or no competition. A second constituent was its organizations (Restad 2014). As such, it developed as being the largest representative democracy having more significant involvement of the law-making branch and public in overseas affairs than wherever else. Lastly, American principles changed institutions and geography into directives for manners. That was the dislike for the force's rule which typified European colonialism and diplomacy, the Constitution, the aristocracy's repudiation and its wiles, preserved within a holy text, which acted and still serves as the glue which integrates all the melting pot's items (Restad 2014). On the other hand, the contemporary historical literature stresses that American Exceptionalism never amount to the United States’ superiority in comparison to other industrialized states. However, such gradations never characterized the work of early scholars on which the theory is grounded. Early twentieth and late nineteenth-century intellectuals did propose that the comparatively young country was predetermined to ultimately take its position among the greatest empires and states of the earth (Jackson 2013). Dorothy Ross the historian in her ‘The Origins of American Social Science’ 1991 book, acknowledged three American Exceptionalism strains’ as has been explained for three centuries. The first strain is the providential elucidation. As such, God granted His divine grace on the U.S from its initial colonial moments. God had selected the country to act as the exemplar's utopian society’s for the entire planet. That is demonstrated most clearly within the revered “City upon a Hill” oration sermonized in 1630 by John Winthrop the Puritan leader, who envisaged a novel society to cleanse Christianity and demonstrate to the Old World the way of creating an orderly and godly society. Genetic interpretation is the second strain (Jackson 2013). As such, the U.S is believed to gain from an exceptional ethnicity, race’s diversity, and other populace’s physical characteristics. The other strain explained by Ross is that of environmental interpretation. As such, the resources, climate, and geography offered the U.S all the circumstances essential for its success. The entire three have a particular component of truth (Nayak and Malone 2009). However, none encircles the complete American Exceptionalism's thought. Indeed, this essay recognizes a fourth principal strain that is responsible for making of that country in totality. That fourth element is the cultural exposition. This paper demonstrates that one of the essential features of old Americans was their consistent mistrust of federal and central government which developed into a key feature of American culture and the society. That governments’ disbelieve was neither genetic or providential, nor environmental; instead, it was cultural-based in values and beliefs emanating from experience during the nation's formative years. However, that cultural American Exceptionalism strain showed a rapid change in the twentieth century's centre (Nayak and Malone 2009). At the start of Progressive Era and particularly the time of Great Recession, Americans began depending more on the federal government. The shift went on after Second World War, complicated by the smaller world’s effects and by geopolitics which appeared to validate rules of promoting American virtues and ideals towards other countries. The United States has shifted from the conventionally isolationist overseas policies of its initial 175 years and to a more preventative and hawkish approach, superseding (though naive) standpoint such as verbal declarations like the Monroe Doctrine having self-centered, belligerent interventions. After the Second World War, the U.S started increasing its world partaking, grounded on its self-given responsibility as global sole guardian of democracy and liberalism (Ceaser 2014). That duty is predicated upon the notion of American Exceptionalism, extended to comprise protecting the earth within the earth. Additionally, it was the United States duty to safeguard against authoritarian threats such as fascism and currently communism. Several smaller countries assented to the United States’ dominance under the stipulation of its safety. Therefore, until August 2001, American Exceptionalism stayed as the major facet of intercontinental associations from 1945. On the other hand, the primary objective of Alexis de Tocqueville within his Democracy in America was to describe to his European addressees a complete historical and background United States' analysis in the framework of international community (Ceaser, 2012). All through his journeys, he looked for the outstanding quality in the U.S. that would offer an enormous insight into the thing that made up American personality. However, in his search for the elements that his European aristocrats would comprehend within their inherent nature’s estimation, of the U.S, he discovered that he was incapable of finding one language that defined the United States suitably. As he explained, several states derived from a mutual culture and heritage that was as well tempered by external influences. That juxtaposition and combination according to him turn it impossible for a suitable forecast of future incidents. As the fundamental theory of his job, the essential heart of his dispute is to elucidate the logic behind the United States' democracy. Since democracy was an appearing type of independence, it required additional political and scientific criticism for the European states whose kind of government had been controlled by monarchical and feudalistic orders (Pease 2009). The objective of Tocqueville was to comprehend the ground and encompassing environment within which that thriving democracy materialized. He asserts two principal reasons for that occurrence. First, the creation of that country by immigrants was the describing characteristic's democracy. As such, it might be said that the moment the migrants left their fatherlands they possessed zero notion of whichever supremacy of some kind above others. Although not practicable as a covering generalization, several communities which rose in America subsequently were made of present migrants who were the subordinate classes' hierarchal societies within their deported countries. From1620, there was always existence of immigration in the nation, and it even developed for a long time. The other factor pointed out by Tocqueville is the ultimate rejection of territorial nobility that within his point created the ground of the European organization of dominance over the others. The direct possession of land permitted the control of others since land during that moment, was the most important income and employment's source. The dedication of America to creating an equal land distribution and suitable esteem of property rights offered chances to the poor and the rich to succeed and flourish. On the other hand, Tocqueville asserts a hidden allegation against the American thinking’s way. As such, he maintains a European superiority within this esteem, for he deems that Europeans can still provide a huge deal to the Americans. Through an increasing personalities' consolidation as Tocqueville witnesses, the state of minds can then develop into extraordinarily restrictive in tackling problem-solving (Restad 2009). He learned that (Americans) succeeds in solving unaided the entire hardships they come across in feasible dealings, and they effortlessly conclude that everything on earth is explainable and that nothing goes above the intelligence’s limits. Tocqueville draws the repercussion from such a statement through mapping a clear explanation between Americans and Europeans. While Europeans might follow the eighteenth century's Romanticism, the Americans support the Age of Reason and Enlightenment's principles. Such an American’s outlook exemplifies a disinclination to put unquestioned faith within unfounded allegations and fantastical ideas. American Exceptionalism stayed inactive when the U.S was being colonized by the British Kingdom. However, several American colonists admitted that the U.S colonies were dissimilar to their aristocrats within the Commonwealth, and therefore that ought to qualify them exceptional handling over the others. Americans analytically rebuffed paying taxes, although they were taxed for the U.S’s gain (Resnik, 2006). The revenues would be used by the British for protecting the colonies’ militaries, and those levies were not uncommon as compared to other colonies of the British within the New World. Also, the root and American Revolution's justification was the despondency that the founders sensed that their settlement was under the rule of a distant monarch on the ocean's other side (Rojecki 2008). The incredibly high authority, which appeared unaccountable to the interests and opinions of the colonists, was the compelling objection that several Americans possessed with the British Kingdom. Although they gained from the mercantilist economy which the British provided them, they never ignored their ideological protestations. Such an outlook existed in the first place due to the culture which was cultivated in the U.S. The British Kingdom permitted the making of several local resolutions in the continental U.S. That only further reared an individuality and independence's culture, while cultivating a great disregard for a Parliament where they possessed no depiction to air their views. On Bush’s election to office, the policy that appeared to be in accord was the resume to Realism. That was the contemplation on those clashes that would spoil the worldwide or imperative regional power balances’, a regress from participation in conflicts lacking such importance (like in Africa), or hopeless (for example the Palestine matter). However, that was not what existed. Already before the September attacks, a remarkable blend of "sovereignism'' and mistrust of other's opinions prevailed. The Kyoto Protocol, the ABM treaty withdrawal, the land-mine treaty scuttling and the general test ban accord rejection's, a majority of those U.N's defiance marks had emerged ahead of Bush coming to power, the moment the Republicans controlled the Congress. The exceptional vendetta performed against the International Criminal Court caused the paranoia of the Bush Administration about the manner a malicious Court and U.N would accuse guiltless American officers and soldiers, and how castigatory the U.S would become against nations disinclined to meet the U.S wishes. On the other hand, there are four major arguments of the novel exceptionalists. First, there is the notion that the U.S Constitution is the land's law, not including any superior law – like the global law- and whichever delegation, pooling or transfer of sovereignty. The other argument is the benevolent imperialism theme, mainly created by Robert Kagan, who refers the U.S as "the Behemoth possessing a conscience" (Brooks 2013). Within an article within which "Kantian" Europe's valid criticisms are blended with a lot of disdainful hubris, he articulates that the fresh feeling of the European's civilian mission is facilitated by the U.S's presence and military power and conveys only their individual weakness. The third argument offered by Michael Reisman asserts that the United States, by its power, in charge of world order, is warranted in discarding those international law parts' that would further harden the order. Lastly, there is the brute force argument. The U.S possesses it abundantly and is not possessed by the others, therefore, when friends fail to obey the U.S’s will, they are considered as unnecessary and as a nuisance. Global law and institutions are structures that the American power can reject any time they stand on its way. It is apparent that those disputes all concur on demoting limitations and conserving American predominance, although views on the nature of mission of America differ from an accountability of global order to pure egotism. Astonishingly, after the September 11 attacks, things altered. Ahead of the bad day, the new exceptionalism was the doctrine looking for a cause (or describing its cause as own state interest of America). The cause was founded after September 11, just like the after-Second World War discovered its cause within the Cold War. It was the battle on world terrorism, upon the terrorists and upon the countries that shielded them (Jackson 2013). That was to become the Bush presidency’s rationale, the big simplifier, the major new overseas policy dogma. It possessed the benefit of offering a force for home mobilization, provided the amazing invention of palpable susceptibility. It cajoled the exceptionalists of the total tendencies through stressing the imperative duty of the United States. As well, the U.S pleaded specifically to the more optimistic ones through emphasizing that the protection against terror, U.S's cause, was also the cause of the earth: morality and egotism, values and morality, the missionary and the sheriff, reunited. On the other hand, unilateralists assert that a superpower does not require having its hands roped by international accords and the United Nations. As such, they overlook the fact that a single country cannot achieve the battle on terrorism (Nagarajan 2007). In addition to this, it was the United States – the major power after 1945 – which possessed the acumen of comprehending that. An order discovered on American beliefs and force creates no legitimacy or assures efficiency, and it brings in anti-Americanism. Finally, American Exceptionalism bickers that the U.S is preeminent in everything. The following explanation tests that. The challenge with that formulation is the term's description. The term American Exceptionalism originated from the Hamilton and particularly Tocqueville, whose yardstick ‘Democracy in America' extracts the epitome of the young nation which the great French philosopher found so fascinating. As such, Tocqueville accentuated not the manner extraordinary the United States was - albeit he liked a lot about America and recognized its global-changing latent – but its uniqueness. America, in comparison to any other nation after or ahead of 1776 is (and was) an experiment. The beginning of its administration was more premeditated and more intrepid than whatever thing the planet had observed. Rather than the lengthy European countries’ pre-country-state history, it possessed an empty slate. It maintained a broad open border and a mercantile character ultimately split from religious and aristocratic institutions of the Old Earth (Nayak and Malone 2009). That exceptionalism (in the initial word's sense) has been continuous in spite of the history’s march and the birth of numerous new countries. The moderately non-exploitative and short colonial history of America can hardly be juxtaposed with the immigrant suffering of many of the developing countries. At turns, it has (and sporadically concurrently) been anti-imperialist and imperialist authority. It is a nation of settlers to a remarkable extent, and its economy avoided socialism. Few countries of the West possess, as tortured, an ethnic experience as the United States’ (Restad 2014). And, not immaterially, it has been the single superpower of the world and has persuaded worldwide relations and combined culture than whichever other countries. It is true that every history of a country is exceptional. Every state possesses its individual culture. But America regularly and vividly resists being compared with any other country. Therefore, America is exceptional partially as a result of being a huge test in democracy. Bibliography Brooks, S 2013, American Exceptionalism in the Age of Obama. New York: Routledge. Ceasar, JW 2014, The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism. A Journal of Ideas, Institutions and Culture, vol., 1, no. 12, 2-26. Ceaser, JW 2012, The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism, American Political Thought, vol., 1, no., 1, 3-28. Jackson, MM 2013, Ironic American Exceptionalism and the Myth of the Open Self. . Nagarajan, A 2007, The Final Frontier: The Middle East and the Challenge to America Exceptionalism in the Twenty-First Century. . Nayak, MV and Malone, C 2009, American Orientalism and American Exceptionalism: A Critical Rethinking of U.S Hegemony. International Studies Review, vol., 11, no., 2, 253-276. Pease, DE 2009, The New American Exceptionalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Resnik, J 2006, Law’s Migration: American Exceptionalism, Silent Dialogues, and Federalism’s Multiple Ports of Entry. The Yale Law Journal, vol., 115, no., 7, 1564-1670. Restad, HE 2014, American Exceptionalism: An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World. New York: Routledge. Rojecki, A 2008, Rhetorical Alchemy: American Exceptionalism and the War on Terror. Political Communication, vol., 25, no., 145, 67-88. Read More