The Evolution of American Exceptionalism Essay - 726 Words

The meaning of American exceptionalism has evolved, but the era of American exceptionalism as a providential mission is drawing to a close. The meaning of American exceptionalism has evolved from the two definitions of â€Å"unique† and â€Å"special† to include an appointed mission and has been used to justify action and consolidate people around ideas. The U.S. went from identifying itself as an exemplar nation for the world to emulate, to creating an interventionist mission of exceptionalism. Today â€Å"American exceptionalism† is a term of polarization that divides the right and the left in America. Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in 1831, and wrote of the uniqueness of American in relation to other nations to differentiate what was†¦show more content†¦He applied this principle to send American troops into Mexico twice, to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, and to intervene militarily twice in the Russian civil war. Intervention in World War I was framed as a just cause in idealistic terms consistent with the belief in American exceptionalism to counter the prevalent isolationism of the time. Even after the devastating military strike on Pearl Harbor silenced isolationist claims, President Franklin Roosevelt’s The Four Freedoms employed exceptionalsim rhetoric to justify the World War II war effort in the central ideas of American political culture. During the Cold War, capitalism was cast as American liberty engaged in a battle against the tyranny of communism and justifying international expansion. Peans of American greatness and appeals to Americas distinctive history were a direct and deliberate appeal to the public and a way to help silence opposition to American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. American exceptionalism today is an incarnation of national hubris, the idea that the U.S. has a right to act in the international sphere without regard to other countries. This sort of illusory nationalism worked during the Cold War, but America’s capacity to project power in the world is slipping in the wake of two expensive wars and a global crisis engineered by Wall Street. The mythology and ideology of American exceptionalism isShow MoreRelatedThe Museum Of Natural History1242 Words   |  5 Pagesincreases knowledge, and sparks interest in anthropic history. Yet for others, this exhibit sticks out like a sore thumb, due to the fact that an exhibit based on the premise of evolution goes entirely against what a large majority of Americans still hold to be true- creationism. The support for creationism and backlash against evolution has remained ever present despite years of knowledge accumulation within the scientific community. This plethora of discovery is laid out on the table as the sections ofRead MoreManifest Destiny Essay1346 Words   |  6 Pagesthat would evolve into the American ideology known today as Manifest Destiny. 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ThreeRead MoreImperialism In Frantz Fanons The Wretched Of The Earth1424 Words   |  6 Pages In his book Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said articulates on the hybrid nature of postcolonial identities: No one today is purely one thing. Labels like Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more than starting-points, which if followed into actual experience for only a moment are quickly left behind. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were onlyRead MoreThe Contemporary Foreign Policy Of The United States2001 Words   |  9 PagesThe contemporary foreign policy of the United States represents an evolving continuum of principles, conceptions and strategies that in part, derived from the particularistic American Cold War experience. As such, United States foreign policy is neither a static entity, nor is its intentions or direction uncontested. 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