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vincentML -> RE: The evolution of the USA ? (12/31/2009 7:59:05 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: submittous
Too big to fail.... hahahahah tell that to the roman empire
The US has grown large and powerful but not evolved as fast. It has the military and had the economic power to lead but doesn't have the moral position to lead anyone but dictators. Slow to outlaw slavery, slow to give women the right to vote, slower to actually allow blacks to vote, only country to us atomic weapons.... and on and on.
We have this inflated view of our being the good guys that really doesn't hold up to examination. If we continue to be a world power in this century I hope we start to 'evolve' and grow into our power with some actual integrity and less blatant greed.
The term is American Exceptionalism. There is a long history of this inflated view. There is some opposition to it as you have written and with which I sympathise. It seems a jingism that leads us into one thoughtless military action after another. Here is a discussion from Wiki. I won't give the site. Anyone interested can google it.
American exceptionalism (def. "exceptionalism") refers to the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world[1] in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The first description of the belief is attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville,[2][3] who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.
In 1927 Jay Lovestone, leader of the Communist Party in America, defined American exceptionalism as the increasing strength of American capitalism, a strength which he said prevented Communist revolution.[4] In 1929, Joseph Stalin, unwilling to believe that America was so resistant to revolution, called Lovestone's ideas "the heresy of American exceptionalism."[5] In the 1930s, academicians in the U.S. redefined American exceptionalism as befitting a nation that was to lead the world, with the U.S. to serve the older European societies as an example of a liberated future free from Marxism and socialism.[5] More recently, socialists and other writers have tried to discover or describe this exceptionalism of the U.S. within and outside its borders.[6]
The theory of American exceptionalism has a number of opponents, especially from the Left.[7][8][9][10] They argue that the belief is "self-serving and jingoistic" (see slavery, civil rights and social welfare issues, Western betrayal, and the failure to aid Jews fleeing the Nazis),[1] that it is based on a myth,[11] and that "[t]here is a growing refusal to accept" the idea of exceptionalism both nationally and internationally.[12] See also the section Opposing viewpoints.
I think it is a pretty short sighted and arrogant view of ourselves.
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