I suspect that the ever more strident cries of the United States being unique and superior to all other nations ever come because of a growing realization that we are not.
There are a lot of things I love about my country, and many of our ideals are second to none. That said, a number of our vices and realities are stains upon what we claim to be, and belie the idea that we are somehow a paragon of nations, and that we can safely ignore what other countries do — because, of course, they are other countries.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest danger in our exceptionalism — not that we are too fond of the answers to the human condition we have come up with (or stumbled into), but that we are far too quick to ignore, dismiss, or ridicule the answers that others have. From little things like the metric system to greater things like how our citizens obtain health care, not only do we not pay attention to solutions that other countries — even the vast majority of other countries — have developed, but the fact that it is not home-grown is seen as at least two strikes, if not three, to accepting it. "Well, that's how they do it in Europe [eyes rolling]."
It's not just a silly and prideful attitude to take, but a self-destructive one. Someone who never took advice from anyone else — indeed, was a contrarian to any advice given — would be considered an eccentric dolt at best, a dangerous sociopath at worst. Yet that's how a lot of Americans feel about the rest of the world, justifying our preeminent position for the last seventy-odd years as God-given and well-deserved, ignoring the lessons of hubris, of empires past, and of ideological (not just geopolitical) isolationism.
Requiem for American Exceptionalism
If the United States no longer seems so different from other developed nations, and if perhaps it never did, then it has lessons to learn from them.
