Jul 15th 2010
THIS column wishes respectfully to propose a temporary ban on references in political debate to both American greatness and American exceptionalism. This is not because Lexington denies that America is great and exceptional. It is. The case for the ban is that both terms have been emptied of serious meaning, converted into slogans and pressed into service, especially by the right, as a club with which to bludgeon political opponents. They should be put aside at least until America emerges from its present economic crisis, and perhaps for longer.
Implementing this ban will not be easy. Greatness is part of America's birthright and lexicon. Its 18th-century founders had no doubt that they were embarking on a daring experiment inspired by the highest ideals of the Enlightenment. In the 19th century came Manifest Destiny, great migrations and the push to the West, civil war and the end of slavery. The 20th brought titanic struggles and famous victories against fascism and communism.
Even today, battered by recession, deep in debt, mired in war, Americans remain proud of their country, and justly so. America still towers over rivals in scientific virtuosity, military power, the vitality of democracy and much else. Polls show that Americans are still among the most patriotic people in the world. This summer 83% told Pew that they were "extremely" or "very" proud to be American.
But taking pride in one's country and wittering on about its greatness are different things. Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster, ended a recent interview thus: "Do you think this is a country of divine providence? A country of American exceptionalism? If you believe those two things to be true, that means God has a special purpose for this land and freedom."
Talk like this is tiresome. Mr Beck is not advocating piety so much as claiming a divine imprimatur for his own prejudice against big government. Just think what a relief it will be, once Lexington's ban comes into force, to be able to debate the role of government on its merits, without bringing providence into it.
The ban will also liberate America's politicians to speak like normal people. At present, failing to lard their speeches with God and greatness can get them into serious trouble.
When Barack Obama visited France last year a British reporter asked the president whether he believed in American exceptionalism. Mr Obama said he did"”"just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." You may think that an agreeably tactful answer. And yet some conservatives have turned it into a profane text, one that proves Mr Obama's unfitness for the great office he holds. More than a year after the event they are still banging on about it. In the Washington Post last week Charles Krauthammer wrote the latest of a stream of articles about the Perfidious Reply. With these words, say his detractors, Mr Obama showed his true colours as a man who does not believe genuinely in America's greatness and is secretly reconciled to its eventual decline.
What is going on? The simplest explanation for this tempest in a teapot is that Mr Obama's critics will seize on any perceived error. But it may be that those critics need to hear constant reaffirmations of American greatness because of the doubt planted in their own hearts by the country's present travails.
This would not be the first time American intellectuals have been troubled by the sense of greatness slipping away. Previous episodes have not always coincided with hardship at home or testing foreign wars. Times of ease and plenty can bring on the same longing. In the 1950s, that golden age, Arthur Schlesinger Jr wrote "The Decline of Greatness", lamenting the departure of great men and the nation's descent into bland conformity.
This is why the greatness talk is not only divisive and obfuscatory but also sometimes dangerous. One antidote to ennui is war. In a recent history of American foreign policy, "The Icarus Syndrome", Peter Beinart draws a comparison between the Kennedy administration and that of George W. Bush. Kennedy was ardent for glory and the cold war provided the arena. In the eyes of some American conservatives, the war against al-Qaeda offered a similar opportunity to answer the call of greatness. In both cases, Mr Beinart argues, the desire to do great deeds and not simply what was necessary led to episodes of overreach and disappointment.
Asking for the moon
When war loses its capacity to exhilarate, seekers after national greatness need something else. Re-enter Mr Krauthammer, fulminating this time against Mr Obama's sensible decision to downsize the plan he inherited from Mr Bush for America to return to the moon by 2020, and thence to Mars. Would returning to the moon and heading for Mars reconnect Americans with their greatness? Many might think the idea batty in present circumstances. But that, of course, is the whole trouble when greatness, undefined, is made into an objective in its own right.
In 1997 David Brooks, writing then for the Weekly Standard and now at the New York Times, wrote an essay called "A Return to National Greatness", complaining that America had abandoned high public aspiration and become preoccupied with "the narrower concerns of private life". It almost doesn't matter what great task government sets for itself, Mr Brooks said, "as long as it does some tangible thing with energy and effectiveness".
If that was ever good advice, it is rotten advice now. Americans are not unhappy because they lack an energetic government; many think Mr Obama's administration too energetic by half. The last thing the country needs is to be distracted from its practical problems by the quest for an elusive greatness. Put such language away, says Lexington. America is indeed a great and exceptional country. But it isn't talking about it that makes it so.
Economist.com/blogs/lexington
United States
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