Richard Cohen — Am exceptionalism is Am narcissism

And, not just a little, a LOT indeed.

The Washington Post columnist, in what has to be his best effort in years, totally "nails it" in talking about a bete noire of mine, American exceptionalism.

Regular readers of my blog know that I scold a fair amount of liberals as well as the great mass of conservatives on this issue.

Well, let's see what Cohen has to say, starting here:

It turns out, however, that some of those most inclined to exalt American exceptionalism are simply using the imaginary past to defend their cultural tics — conventional marriage or school prayer or, for some odd reason, a furious antipathy to the notion that mankind has contributed (just a bit) to global warming. Their enemy is what Gingrich calls “the secular left” — people who not only approve of gay marriage but also apparently don’t fly charter as he does.

Cohen seems to be talking about more than cranky conservative curmudgeonliness. Rather, this is the "our shit don't stink" part of American exceptionalism, in part, that he seems to be criticizing. It's certainly a large part of what I criticize in American exceptionalism.

Anyway, he next says:

The huge role of religion in American politics is nothing new but always a matter for concern nonetheless. In the years preceding the Civil War, both sides of the slavery issue claimed the endorsement of God. The 1856 Republican convention concluded with a song that ended like this: “We’ve truth on our side/ We’ve God for our guide.” Within five years, Americans were slaughtering one another on the battlefield.

I immediately thought of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. ... The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ... Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

I am of course not religious at all myself. Lincoln was some sort of fatalistic Deist and I am guessing Cohen is of more liberal Jewish beliefs to the degree he is religious. The religious angle of American exceptionalism comes off today as largely a fundamentalist Christian enterprise, but really, it's not totally so. More liberal Christians, of mainline denominations, can be not only exceptionalists but ground that in their religious belief. I say that President Obama, United Church of Christ attender in Chicago, exemplifies that. Certainly, some degree of belief in American exceptionalism comes from "holiness" bodies that were considered more liberal at one time.

That said, the religious angle reminds me that some of the first Anglo settlers in the U.S. tried to make American exceptionalism part of the narrative even before a United States existed. Who can forget John Winthrop's "shining city on a hill"? Ronald Reagan certainly wouldn't let us, and so, reinvigorated American exceptionalism.

Anyway, back to Cohen, for his last graf is the nut graf indeed:

Therein lies the danger of American exceptionalism. It discourages compromise, for what God has made exceptional, man must not alter. And yet clearly America must change fundamentally or continue to decline. It could begin by junking a phase that reeks of arrogance and discourages compromise. American exceptionalism ought to be called American narcissism. We look perfect only to ourselves.

BOOM! "American narcissism."

It's this, more than anything else, that I think led to the "we got him" celebrations or whatever you will call them after President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden.

But, that's just the latest in a long line.

• Sneering at French "surrender monkeys."
• Sneering at "old Europe."
• Belittling "gooks" in Vietnam and Korea.
• Laughing at "made in japan" long after it was high quality. ("Made in China" is still different.)
• Laughing at the mere idea of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Trying to bar the immigration door, with Anglo-Saxons first fearing Irish, then Germans, then East Europeans, Jews above all, and finally succeeding in barring Chinese, then restricting Japanese.

A common thread in much of that is, obviously racial and ethnic issues, one thing that Cohen only touched on in brief. I'm not saying the U.S. is more racially biased than other places and countries, but I am saying claims that it is less biased are certainly, based on our history, nothing more than another bit of the mythos of American exceptionalism.