{"id":21248,"date":"2013-09-12T10:37:09","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=21248"},"modified":"2013-12-03T09:52:08","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T14:52:08","slug":"american-exceptionalism-your-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2013\/09\/american-exceptionalism-your-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"American Exceptionalism \u2013 Your Thoughts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Statute<\/a>By now I imagine most readers have read Vladimir Putin\u2019s New York<\/i> Times op-ed<\/a>, published yesterday. In the piece addressed to the American people and their political leaders, the Russian President argues against military intervention in Syria and urges adherence to the United Nations Charter to \u201cpreserv[e] law and order in today\u2019s complex and turbulent world \u2026 to keep international relations from sliding into chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting the debate on the morality and legality of a possible US strike against Syria to one side, I found the final paragraph of the op-ed most striking:<\/p>\n

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States\u2019 policy is \u201cwhat makes America different. It\u2019s what makes us exceptional.\u201d It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord\u2019s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.<\/i><\/p>\n

As a foreigner, relatively new to the United States, there are many things I have grown to love about this country. I have found Americans, on the whole, tend to approach life with an infectious enthusiasm and optimism, underpinned, it seems, by a cultural discourse of fixed (national) self-belief. For some, though by no means all<\/a>, this translates into a firm conviction that America is \u201cthe greatest country in the world\u201d (Pew Research Study 2011).<\/p>\n

I raise President Putin\u2019s remarks on American exceptionalism here because the American \u201cpresentation of self\u201d is a subject of great interest to me personally, as a relative newcomer to your shores. Moreover, America\u2019s global military presence, whether in Syria or Afghanistan or as recently \u201cpivoted to Asia\u201d, is presumably predicated on and influenced by domestic beliefs and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, about America\u2019s distinguishing characteristics, values and powers. And so I wonder how you responded to the respective remarks of Presidents Obama and Putin on American exceptionalism? Is it an \u201cessential truth\u201d that America is different, and what do we really mean by such a statement? Is it as President Putin argues, a dangerous rhetoric? Or is it a meaningful assessment, descriptively or normatively, of America\u2019s relative place in the global order?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By now I imagine most readers have read Vladimir Putin\u2019s New York Times op-ed, published yesterday. In the piece addressed to the American people and their political leaders, the Russian President argues against military intervention in Syria and urges adherence to the United Nations Charter to \u201cpreserv[e] law and order in today\u2019s complex and turbulent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":17435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,37,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-law","category-popular-culture-and-law","category-public","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}