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American Exceptionalism Reaffirmed
| Article
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17725 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1990 |
7,053 Words |
| Author
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Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset, former president of American Professors
for Peace in the Middle East, is Caroline S.G. Munro Professor
of Political Science and Sociology and senior fellow of the
Hoover Institution, Stanford University. |
The topic that concerns us, "American Exceptionalism," (the phrase is Tocqueville's) could have arisen in a comparative context. It basically means that America is unique, is different in crucial ways from most other countries. It has been argued by many that the United States has stood out, as distinct, from other Western countries.
In dealing with national characteristics, it is important to recognize that comparative evaluations are never absolutes. The statement that the United States is an egalitarian society obviously does imply that all Americans are equal in any way that can be defined. This generalization usually means - regardless of which aspect is under consideration, social relations, status, mobility, income distribution, and so forth - that the United States is more egalitarian than Europe.
An emphasis on American uniqueness raises the obvious question of unique in what respects? A large body of literature exists on the subject dating back at least to the eighteenth century - it goes back earlier in terms of Utopias located in America - trying to specify the special character of the United States in political and social terms. One of the most interesting examples, often overlooked, is Edmund Burke's speech to the House of Commons proposing reconciliation with the colonies, in which he sought to explain to his fellow members what the revolutionary Americans were like. He noted that they were different culturally, that they were not simply transplanted religion, a point on which I will elaborate. Crevecoeur, in his famous book Letters From An American Farmer, written in the late eighteenth century, explicitly raised the question "What is an American?" He pointed out that Americans behaved differently in their social relations and were much more egalitarian than other nationalities. He also noted that their dictionary was "short in words of dignity, and names of honor…" that is, in terms through which the lower strata expressed their subservience to the higher.
These eighteenth-century commentaries have been followed by thousands upon thousands of books and articles by foreign travelers, the overwhelming majority being educated Europeans. These writings are valuable because they emphasize cross-national variations in behavior and institutions. Alexis be Tocqueville's Democracy in America, of course, is the best known. He once noted that he never wrote anything about the United States without thinking of France. As he put it, in speaking of his need to contrast the same institutions and behavior in both countries, "without comparisons to make, the mind doesn't know how to proceed." Harriet Martineau, an
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