It can safely be stated that second or third generation
Americans are no more exceptional than I am a builder of pyramids, being
removed by some 200 generations from my ancestors, the original builders of the
Giza pyramids.
In fact, I do not have to be that far removed from the original builders to
lose the designation. The children that did not participate with their parents
in the design or the construction of the gigantic monuments some 4,500 years
ago can no more be called builders of pyramids than I.
By the same token, if someone may be called exceptional
because they possess qualities that the rest of the crowd does not have, then
no American who is not an original immigrant to that country may claim to be exceptional.
This is because every survey and every study have shown that second generation
and later Americans, possess no qualities that differentiate them from the
average Joe.
In fact, these people are nowhere near being the same as
those who set foot in a strange land knowing little or nothing about it
beforehand. This would be the first and only generation of Americans that is
worthy of being designated exceptional. When its members vanish, the
designation vanishes with them.
It turns out that only the first generation which is born to
immigrant parents seem to inherit a little (only a little) of the qualities
that may have motivated the parents to sail to a new country. Those qualities
would be the inborn drive that the parents have, and the courage they must have
mustered to leave everything behind, and chase the dream of starting a new life
in a land where they knew that the language will be hard to learn, and the
culture difficult to get used to.
So why is it that a debate flares up periodically in America as to
whether or not the country is exceptional? You can see examples of this in two
articles that were published on February 12, 2014. One was written by David
Adesnik under the title: “Still Exceptional” and the subtitle: “Liberals want
to evade the responsibilities of American exceptionalism.” It was published in
National Review Online. The other was written by Bob Garfield under the title:
“What is America All About?” and published in the New York Times.
As to the above question, the answer is that there could be
a number of reasons why the debate about American exceptionalism flares up
every once in a while. In fact, there could be as many reasons as the number of
people who dwell on the subject. To be sure this is not a large number of people
because the signs are that the majority yawns at the notion that someone would
waste their time ruminating over such matters. The truth is that the average
Joe could not care less if he, she or the country were exceptional because they
have a ton of other preoccupations consuming their time and their mental
energy.
Standing in contrast to these people are those who delight
in thinking up reasons to call the country exceptional. They are the ones who
feel so insecure about their ability to hold on to the success they currently
enjoy, they attribute that success not to the talent they are not sure they
have, but to the fact that they belong in America, the exceptional nation that
will never lose its status. And as long as the nation maintains that status, they
believe they will remain safe.
This being the case, each of these people seeks to define
the word exceptionalism in terms that will legitimize his or her hold on the
success they enjoy. They also define the word in terms they hope will give
permanence to the status quo they love so much. And so, each of them having a
different ax to grind, they spawn a profusion of definitions to explain what is
meant by the word exceptionalism.
The Bob Garfield article shows the cornucopia of definitions
that were given to the word. The David Adesnik article shows how steadfastly
some people latch on to the idea that America is still exceptional.