{"id":49920,"date":"2015-03-23T03:54:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T09:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/23\/on-american-exceptionalism-and-eccentric-dolts.html"},"modified":"2015-05-10T14:26:22","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:26:22","slug":"on-american-exceptionalism-and-eccentric-dolts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/23\/on-american-exceptionalism-and-eccentric-dolts.html","title":{"rendered":"On American Exceptionalism and eccentric dolts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/i> countries.<\/p>\n

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<\/i> [eyes rolling]."<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nRequiem for American Exceptionalism<\/a><\/span>
\nIf 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.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “On American Exceptionalism and eccentric dolts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,100,380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-dolts","category-nationalism-exceptionalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/19\/refugees.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":0},"title":"Refugees","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Jul-14 10:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been aware of the current border brouhaha, but haven't done a deep dive into it for a lot of reasons, mostly because the way it instinctively turns into a nativist \"Keep those freeloading brown people out!\" orgy of rhetoric makes me sick.\ufeff Are the kids showing up at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41209,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/26\/rep-steve-king-is-a-dolt.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":1},"title":"Rep. Steve King is a Dolt","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Feb-14 10:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"I mean, really? We're not treating the Western Hemisphere enough as \"Western Christendom\" and, thus, we have Cuba and Venezuela? \u00a0And we really ought to do more to \"the values that Christopher Columbus brought here across the ocean\"?(Actually, I think that's part of the US problem in the Western Hemisphere:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42442,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/08\/political-platform-zaniness.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":2},"title":"Political Platform Zaniness","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 8-Jun-14 2:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Courtesy of the Texas GOP.Granted, political platforms tend to be, any more, fairly fringe ivory tower ideals that nobody thinks will happen (or even particular want to have happen). \u00a0But this bunch of proposals can essentially be summed up as \"we need to use our God-given guns to drive off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136144,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/23\/john-bolton-isnt-just-a-dolt-hes-a-danger.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":3},"title":"John Bolton isn’t just a dolt, he’s a danger","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Apr-18 7:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"At a time when we have no Secretary of State (and the State Dept. has been largely gutted and thrown to the curb anyway), this is the (hand-picked) person who's advising Trump on diplomacy and the dangers of the world. From 2013 until last month, Bolton was chairman of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/John-Bolton.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":136538,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/24\/dont-ask-dont-tell-on-anthem-protests-in-the-nfl.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":4},"title":"“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on Anthem Protests in the NFL","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-May-18 8:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Amid angry tweets from the President, loud shouting from some football fans, and declining ratings (which were declining even before the episode), the NFL has partially caved on the whole \"taking a knee during the national anthem\" thing.\u00a0Under the new rules, which basically go back to the status quo ante\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/trump-singing-national-anthem.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":39643,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/12\/rt-bassooncpa-america-except.html","url_meta":{"origin":49920,"position":5},"title":"RT @BassoonCPA: America except…","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Nov-13 5:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"RT @BassoonCPA: America exceptionalism. The rest of the world waits a month. RT @jeremyhobson Happy 11-12-13!","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50829,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49920\/revisions\/50829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}