Non-Fiction
Exceptionalism
The first time I came across the word exceptionalism was in a history textbook, in fifth or sixth grade, in the phrase American exceptionalism. I knew the word exceptional, because if one’s work was especially good, the teacher might mark it as exceptional. Still, the concept of American exceptionalism was a little hard to grasp. I understood it enough to answer questions on tests about it, and eventually, even to discuss it, but there was something about it that bothered me. The term was used reverentially, as if it had a deep philosophical basis, and in tones that had an almost religious flavor, suggesting that God favored America over other countries and made it special, just as He made Jews the Chosen People.
Manifest destiny, another phrase from history class with a similar pseudo-religious air to it, can be seen as an outgrowth of the concept American exceptionalism, even though it predated it. In the course of writing this post, I learned that the term manifest destiny was reputedly coined by a journalist in 1845 arguing in favor of expansionism and annexing new territories, although that kind of thing had been going on from the start of the American project, with wars against and the displacement of the indigenous population long before independence was declared. The phrase American exceptionalism, interestingly, dates from the 1920s, when German Marxists used it to explain why America hadn’t developed according to Marxist principles, as Europe did, but Alexis de Tocqueville, who is the one most closely associated with the phrase, had already used the word exceptional almost a century earlier to describe American democracy.
Behind the lofty-sounding phrase manifest destiny is the tawdry reality of a more powerful country taking what belongs to a less powerful one. In the past, the doctrine was invoked to justify the acquisition of new territories, and is used now as licence to exert our control over places from Venezuela and Cuba to Iran and Greenland. We defend our actions, however vile, as fulfilling our special role bequeathed by our exceptionalism. I find the phrases American exceptionalism and manifest destiny as disturbing now as when I was as a child, realizing there is no deep philosophical meaning underlying them, but only the embarrassingly crude ideas of we are special and we can do whatever we please. These painfully puerile attitudes are cloaked in grand language that allows statesmen and scholars to pretend they’re discussing things of substance when, in fact, there’s nothing there but naked greed. The arrogance of American exceptionalism is revealed in the way many of us unquestioningly accept the idea of attacking other nations whenever it suits us, as Peter Beinart explains.
For Americans to think that America is exceptional, that it can’t be judged or measured like other countries and is in a class of its own, is not exceptional. It would be more remarkable for a nation not to think of itself as exceptional and superior in the most important respects to all others. In Patterns of Culture, anthropologist Ruth Benedict notes:
A great number of the tribal names in common use, Zuni, Dene, Kiowa, and the rest, are names by which primitive peoples know themselves, and are only their native terms for “the human beings”, that is, themselves. Outside of the closed group there are no human beings. And this is in spite of the fact that from an objective point of view each tribe is surrounded by peoples sharing in its arts and material inventions, in elaborate practices that have grown up by a mutual give-and-take of behaviour from one people to another.
Just as nations regard themselves as exceptional, so do other groups organized around race, ethnicity, gender, religion, vocation, age, political affiliation, or any other granfalloon (to use Kurt Vonnegut’s terminology for a community we feel connected to even if there’s no basis for it). When we belong to something, whether it’s an identity we’re born with or a group we choose to join, we’re likely to esteem it above others, because we’re part of it, and we are, to ourselves, the most important entities in existence. How could we not be? The world as we perceive it exists within us, and when we cease to be, it ceases to exist. Sure, some semblance of the world continues to exist for others, but that’s of no consequence to us. We are each the creator and center of our own universe and have primacy in it, and that is the source of our personal exceptionalism. We may not exist or have much importance in someone else’s world, but in our own, we’re of supreme importance. Our unyielding belief in our own exceptionalism is wonderfully illustrated by Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, as the protagonist tries to come to terms with the prospect of his imminent yet inconceivable death.
The syllogism he had learned from Kiesewetter’s Logic: “Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,” had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mama and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? “Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible.
The exceptionalism underlying Ivan Ilyich’s feelings doesn’t suggest an attitude of superiority, only wonder that what applies to mankind in general also applies to the specific, unique being that he is. Often, though, exceptionalism is accompanied by or indicative of feelings of superiority. We are social animals who cannot live alone and need to interact with others, but that interaction isn’t always easy and comfortable, because it entails Others who may look very different from us and behave in ways we find incomprehensible. Due to ignorance or insecurity, Otherness often translates to lesser than us, which, in turn may lead to intolerance, war, and even genocide.
Exceptionalism is a tribalistic doctrine designed to make us feel better about ourselves, provide the illusion of immunity from the fates of others because we are not like them, and allow us to act without accountability and consider ourselves above the law. Listening to reports this morning about our unprovoked attack on another country, I noticed that commentators expressed concern that American lives may be lost, exposing a tacit exceptionalism which ignores morality and places a higher value on members of our tribe than on innocent victims of our aggression.
In her brilliant book How to Be Animal, Melanie Challenger discusses the ultimate form of exceptionalism we beguile ourselves with—human exceptionalism, based on a misguided attempt to deny that humans are animals. In this endeavor, religion invests us with an immortal soul and informs us that we are made in God’s image, science places us at the apex of life forms and the culminating glory of the evolutionary process, and secular humanism elevates us to person-hood because we are endowed with intellect, culture, and consciousness. Yet, in this too, as in every other form of exceptionalism we indulge in, we are only deceiving ourselves and letting ourselves be lulled by fine words into believing what isn’t worthy of belief.
February, 2026