Should Americans Believe in a Unique American "Mission"? by Miller
15
Selected, Edited, and with Issue Framing Material by:
William J. Miller, Flagler College
George McKenna, City College, City University of New York
and
Stanley Feingold, City College, City University of New York
ISSUE
Should Americans Believe in a Unique
American “Mission”?
YES: Wilfred M. McClay, from “The Founding of Nations,” First Things (March 2006)
NO: Howard Zinn, from “The Power and the Glory: Myths of American Exceptionalism," Boston Review
(Summer 2005)
Learning Outcomes
After reading this issue, you will be able to:
• Explain the idea of American exceptionalism.
• Explain the idea of America's myth.
• Describe how America reminds itself of its past sins.
Explain the significance of the term "city on a hill.
• Describe what makes America unique compared to other nations.
1
ISSUE SUMMARY
YES: Humanities Professor Wilfred M. McClay argues that America's “myth," its founding narrative, helps to
sustain and hold together a diverse people.
NO: Historian Howard Zinn is convinced that America's myth of “exceptionalism" has served as a justification
for lawlessness, brutality, and imperialism.
Take a dollar from your wallet and look at the back tinguished by some token of providential agency." Even
.
" Even
of it. On the left side, above an unfinished pyramid with the most secular-minded founders thought of their nation
a detached eye on top, are the words "Annuit Coeptis," in providential terms. Thomas Jefferson paid homage to
Latin for "He has favored our endeavors." The "He" is God.
the "Being who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from
Since the time of the Puritans, Americans have their native land and planted them in a country flowing
often thought of themselves collectively as a people with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has cov-
whose endeavors are favored by God. "We shall be as a ered our infancy with His providence and our riper years
city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us," said with his wisdom and power.” At the Constitutional Con-
Puritan leader John Winthrop aboard the Arbella, the Puri- vention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin declared that
tans' flagship, as it left for the New World in 1630. Later “God governs in the affairs of men,” adding: “And if a
in that century another Puritan, the Rev. Samuel Dan- sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it
forth, famously spoke of New England's divinely assigned probable that an empire cannot rise without his aid?"
"errand into the wilderness." By the eighteenth century, Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
the role of New England had become the role of America: ries, this notion of America as "a people set apart" was a
God had led his people to establish a new social order, perennial feature of American public discourse. Its most
a light to the nations. "Your forefathers," John Jay told eloquent expression came in the speeches of Abraham
New Yorkers in 1776, "came to America under the auspices Lincoln. Perhaps in deference to biblical literalists, Lin-
of Divine Providence." For Patrick Henry, the American coln did not call Americans a "chosen people" (a name
Revolution "was the grand operation, which seemed to be limited to the Jews in the Bible), but he came close: he said
assigned by the Deity to the men of this age in our coun- Americans were God's "almost chosen people." In other
try." In his First Inaugural Address, George Washington speeches, particularly in his Second Inaugural Address,
saw an "invisible hand" directing the people of the United he stressed the role of Divine Providence in directing the
sents as a double-edged sword.
and trading with interest." Perhaps most pointedly, bin
Laden directly states how America's perceived uniqueness
not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality
directly led to his targeting the country for attack: "Let us
in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners
and principles. All manners, principles and values have
two scales: one for you and one for the others." This dual-
ity is American uniqueness and exceptionalism and pre-
Even more recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin
invoking exceptionalism as a justification for unilaterally
King, in his prophetic "I Have a Dream" speech identified publicly lambasted American President Barack Obama for
chemical weapons against his own citizens. American citi-
ceived slight. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair
zens responded negatively and rallied against Putin's per-
Robert Menendez (D-NJ) went as far as to say that Putin
made him want to vomit. Yet was Putin incorrect in his
disapproval of America's view of itself? After all this is no
course of American history. Frederick Douglass, the black
abolitionist leader, called the Second Inaugural “more like
a sermon than a state paper.
So it has gone, down through the nation's history.
Herbert Croly, the influential Progressive writer in the
early twentieth century, called on Americans to realize
“the promise of American life." In 1936 Franklin Roosevelt
told a newer generation of Americans that they had a
“rendezvous with destiny.” John F. Kennedy proclaimed
that “God's work must truly be our own." Martin Luther
his dream with the God-given promises of America. Ron-
ald Reagan, paraphrasing John Winthrop's speech of 1630, striking against Syria when Assad was accused of using
saw America as a “shining city on a hill."
All of
inspire many worthy reforms, from the abolition of slav-
ery in the 1860s to the landmark civil rights laws a century
later. But is there a darker side to it? To its critics, American
“exceptionalism" is a dangerous notion. They remind us
that other nations, too, such as the ancient Romans, the longer World War II or the Cold War
, in which the United
States is fighting to protect a repressed group or save off
Dutch, the Spanish, the British, and the Germans, have
at various times boasted of themselves as an exceptional nuclear war. Since that time, battles in various countries
and alleged bullying in diplomatic relationships have tar-
people, and that this has led them down the path to chau-
nished the American image abroad. Much like the gen-
vinism, imperialism, and even genocide. To them, the
eration of trophy children who struggle to accept Cs in
invocation "God bless America" sounds like hubris, as if
God is being asked to bless whatever it is that America college after being given trophies for the most basic level
of participation throughout life, the United States is now
decides to do. Such a spirit lay behind “Manifest Destiny,
a slogan from the mid-nineteenth century that was used facing pushback on its own vision of itself for perhaps the
to justify American expansion into territory claimed by first time in its existence.
Mexico, and in the 1890s American imperialists justified By no means are Americans the first to view them-
American expansion into Cuba and the Philippines in selves as exceptional. The Greeks and Romans both held
nearly similar language. From Indian removal at home to themselves as being unique from the rest of the world.
imperial adventures abroad, there have been few dark epi- At a time, British imperialism clearly demonstrated a ten-
sodes in American history that have not found defenders dency to inflate internal assessments. During the height of
ready to put them in terms of American exceptionalism. Marxist-Leninist ideology the Soviets spoke of becoming
Yet America's perceived exceptionalism has not the new Rome. In all of these examples, exceptionalism
always been viewed positively across the globe. If we think relied on two things: ideology and myth. Yet each of these
back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many civilizations was ultimately forced to face the downside
of the reasons cited by Osama bin Laden for his desire to of perceived exceptionalism and uniqueness. And now, it
tear down the United States centered on perceived unique- appears Americans are being forced to do the same. While
ness. In bin Laden's letter to America (delivered two September 11 appeared to be a wake-up call for a short
months after the collapse of the World Trade Center), he period among the American public, our political actions
first cites American aggression toward Muslims in Palestine and public persona has not necessarily continued to recog-
to attack Muslims daily and continually causes economic
and Somalia before noting that America tells other nations nize the fact that to many in the international community,
hardship by exerting influence to lower oil prices. While
the American mission reeks of unwarranted arrogance.
In the selections that follow, humanities professor
Wilfred M. McClay looks at the brighter side of American
argues that
most of the early argument centers on policy concerns,
bin Laden then turns toward attacking American culture. providentialism, while historian Howard Zinn
He calls on Americans to stop their “oppression, lies
, what he calls “American exceptionalism" is a dangerous
acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, brutality, and imperialism.
immorality, and debauchery" and to "reject the immoral idea because it has served as a justification for lawlessness,
Should Americans Believe in a Unique American
Wilfred M. McClay
YES
The Founding of Nations
of the United States Capitol building—the inside of the
Did the United States really have a beginning that can
dome which, in its external aspect, is arguably the sin-
be called its “Founding"? Can any society, for that matter, gle most recognizable symbol of American democracy,
be said to have a founding moment in its past that ought there is painted a fresco called "The Apotheosis of George
to be regarded as a source of guidance and support? Washington." It is as if the Sistine Chapel were transposed
Much of the intellectual culture of our time stands into an American key. The first president sits in glory,
resolutely opposed to the idea of a founding as a unique flanked by the Goddess of Liberty and the winged figure
moment in secular time that has a certain magisterial Fame sounding a victorious trumpet and holding aloft a
authority over what comes after it. The cult of ancestors, palm frond. The thirteen female figures in a semi-circle
in its many forms, is always one of the chief objects of around Washington represent the thirteen original states.
modernity's deconstructive energies. Kant's famous com- On the outer ring stand six allegorical groups represent-
mand, Sapere Aude—“Dare to Reason,” the battle cry of the ing classical images of agriculture, arts and sciences, com-
Enlightenment—always ends up being deployed against merce, war, mechanics, and seafaring. This figure of a
arguments claiming traditional authority.
deified Washington, painted significantly enough in the
Foundings, in this view, are fairy tales that cannot year 1865, reflects a vision that appealed powerfully to
be taken seriously-indeed, that it is dangerous to take the American public. But it is actually a rather disturbing
seriously, since modern nation-states have used them as image, and it cries out for debunking.
tools of cultural hegemony. One has a moral obligation to Still, debunking is a blunt instrument of limited
peek behind the curtain, and one ought to have a strong value, despite the modern prejudice in its favor. To the
presupposition about what one will find there. There is question “What is a man?” André Malraux once gave the
a settled assumption in the West, particularly among the quintessential modern debunking answer: “A miserable
educated, that every founding was in reality a blood- little pile of secrets." That answer is too true to dismiss-
soaked moment, involving the enslavement or exploita- but not quite true enough to embrace. And it is, in its
tion of some for the benefit of others. Foundational myths way, the exact opposite number to the saccharin image
are merely attempts to prettify this horror. Our ancestors of a deified and perfected George Washington dwelling in
were not the noble heroes of epic. They were the pri- the clouds atop the Capitol dome. Such a conflict between
mal horde or the Oedipal usurpers, and their authority grand moral oversimplications impoverishes our thinking
derived ultimately from their successful monopolization and sets us a false standard of greatness-one that is too
of violence—and then their subsequent monopolization easily debunked and leaves us too easily defrauded.
of the way the story would be told.
When we speak of American national identity, one of
The perfect expression of this view is Theodor the chief points at issue arises out of the tension between
Adorno's dictum, “There is no monument of civilization creed and culture. This is a tension between, on the one
that is not at the same time a monument of barbarism." hand, the idea of the United States as a nation built on
Every achievement of culture involves an elaborate conceal- the foundation of self-evident, rational, and universally
ment of the less-than-licit means that went into its mak- applicable propositions about human nature and human
ing. Property is theft, in Proudhon's famous phrase, which society; and, on the other hand, the idea of the United
means that legitimacy is nothing more than the preeminent States as a very unusual, historically specific and contin-
force, and our systems of law are the ways that the stolen gent entity, underwritten by a long, intricately evolved,
money is laundered and turned into Carnegie libraries and and very particular legacy of English law, language, and
Vanderbilt universities and other carved Corinthian pillars customs, Greco-Roman cultural antecedents, and Judeo-
of society. From this point of view, the credulous souls who Christian sacred texts and theological and moral teach-
speak of the American founding are merely trying to retell a ings, without whose presences the nation's flourishing
heroic myth about the Founding Fathers, a group of youth would not be possible.
ful and idealistic patriarchs who somehow reached up into All this makes a profound tension, with much to
the heavens and pulled down a Constitution for all time.
be said for both sides. And the side one comes down on
Admittedly, American filiopietism about the Found- will say a lot about one's stance on an immense number
ing can get out of hand. On the ceiling of the rotunda of issues, such as immigration, education, citizenship,
From First Things, March 2006, pp. 33–39. Copyright © 2006 by Institute on Religion and Public Life. Reprinted by permission.
with their initiating vision.
to adjust and renew themselves through a fresh encounter
A constitutional republic like the United States is
Yet any understanding of American identity that uniquely grounded in its foundational moment, its time of
creation. And a founding is not merely the instant that the
ball started rolling. Instead, it is a moment that presumes
a certain authority over all the moments that will follow-
and to speak of a founding is to presume that such moments
in time are possible. It most closely resembles the moment
that one takes an oath or makes a promise. One could even
say that a constitutional founding is a kind of covenant, a
meta-promise entered into with the understanding that it
would chart progress or regress in our individual lives by
cultural assimilation, multiculturalism, pluralism, the role
of religion in public life, the prospects for democratizing
the Middle East, and on and on.
entirely excluded either creed or culture would be seri-
ously deficient. Any view of American life that failed to
acknowledge its powerful strains of universalism, ideal-
ism, and crusading zeal would be describing a different
country from the America that happens to exist. And any
view of America as simply a bundle of abstract normative
cal soil, including a multilingual, post-religious, or post- has a uniquely powerful claim on the future. It requires of
us a willingness to be constantly looking back to our initi
.
national one, takes too much for granted and will be in for
ating promises and goals, in much the same way that we
a rude awakening.
reference to a master list of resolutions.
Republicanism means self-government, and so
republican liberty does not mean living without restraint.
It means, rather, living in accordance with a law that you
The antagonism of creed and culture is better understood
have dictated to yourself. Hence the especially strong need
not as a statement of alternatives but as an antinomy, one
of those perpetual oppositions that can never be resolved. of republics to recur to their founding principles and their
In fact, the two halves of the opposition often reinforce founding narratives, is a never-ending process of self-
each other. The creed needs the support of the culture—and adjustment. There should be a constant interplay between
the culture, in turn, is imbued with respect for the creed. founding ideals and current realities, a tennis ball bounc-
For the creed to be successful, it must be able to presume ing back and forth between the two.
the presence of all kinds of cultural inducements—toward And for that to happen, there needs to be two things
civility, restraint, deferred gratification, nonviolence, in place. First, founding principles must be sufficiently
loyalty, procedural fairness, impersonal neutrality, com- fixed to give us genuine guidance, to teach us something.
passion, respect for elders, and the like. These traits are Of course, we celebrate the fact that our Constitution was
not magically called into being by the mere invocation created with a built-in openness to amendment. But the
of the Declaration of Independence. Nor are they sustain- fact that such ideals are open to amendment is perhaps
able for long without the support of strong and deeply the least valuable thing about them. A founding, like a
rooted social and cultural institutions that are devoted to promise or a vow, means nothing if its chief glory is its
the formation of character, most notably the traditional adaptability. The analogy of a successful marriage, which
family and traditional religious institutions. But by the is also, in a sense, a res publica that must periodically recur
same token, the American culture is unimaginable apart to first principles, and whose flourishing
from the influence of the American creed: from the sense
depends upon
of pride and moral responsibility Americans derive from
the ability to distinguish first principles from passing cir-
being, as Walter Berns has argued, a carrier of universal
cumstances, is actually a fairly good guide to these things.
values—a vanguard people.
a sophisticated understanding of the past's particularities
Second, there needs to be a sense of connection to the past,
a reflex for looking backward, and cultivating that ought
Forcing a choice between creed and culture is not the way to be one of the chief uses of the formal study of history.
to resolve the problem of cultural restoration. Clearly both Unfortunately, the fostering of a vital sense of connection
can plausibly claim a place in the American Founding.
to the past is not one of the goals of historical study as it is
What seems more urgent is the repair of some background now taught and practiced in this country. The meticulous
assumptions about our relation to the past. It is a natural contextualization of past events and ideas, arising out of
enough impulse to look back in times of turbulence and
uncertainty. And it is especially natural, even obligatory, and discontinuities with the present, is one of the great
for a republican form of government to do so, since repub- achievements of modern historiography. But we need to
-.
philosophers from Aristotle on have insisted that repub- past completely unavailable to us, separated from us by ar
lics must periodically recur to their first principles, in order impassable chasm of contextual difference.
recognize that this achievement comes at a high cost when
it emphasizes the pastness of the past-when it makes the
In the case of the American Founding, a century-long darkness of life's many perils and unanswerable questions
assault has taken place among historians, and the sense of by providing us with what Plato called a “likely story."
To be sure, there are good things to be said of a criti-
connection is even more tenuous. The standard scholarly
cal approach to history, and there are myths aplenty that
accounts insist this heated series of eighteenth-century
debates—among flawed, unheroic, and self-interested richly deserve to be punctured. I am glad, for example, that
we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Washington,
white men-offers nothing to which we should grant any
D.C., in the Kennedy years had very little in common with
abiding authority. That was then, and this is now.
the legendary Camelot, aside from the ubiquity of adulter-
The insistence on the pastness of the past imprisons
us in the present. It makes our present antiseptically cut ous liaisons in both places. That kind of ground-clearing
is important, and we are better off without that kind of
off from anything that might really nourish, surprise, or
propagandistic myth. We might even be better off with-
challenge it. It erodes our sense of being part of a common
enterprise with humankind. An emphasis on scholarly out the Apotheosis of George Washington sitting atop the
precision has dovetailed effortlessly with what might be Capitol dome.
called the debunking imperative, which generally aims to
But ground-clearing by itself is not enough. And to
discredit any use of the past to justify or support some- think otherwise is to mistake an ancillary activity for the
thing in the present, and is therefore one of the few main thing itself—as if agriculture were nothing more
gestures likely to win universal approbation among histo- than the application of insecticides and weedkillers.
rians. It is professionally safest to be a critic and extremely History as debunking is ultimately an empty and fruit-
dangerous to be too affirmative.
less undertaking, which fails to address the reasons we
Scholarly responsibility thus seems to demand the humans try to narrate and understand our pasts. It fails
deconstruction of the American Founding into its con- to take into account the ways in which a nation's morale,
stituent elements, thereby divesting it of any claim to cohesion, and strength derive from a sense of connec-
unity or any heroic or mythic dimensions, deserving of tion to its past. And it fails to acknowledge how much a
our admiration or reverence. There was no coherence to healthy sense of the future—including the economic and
what they did, and looking backward to divine what they cultural preconditions for a critical historiography to ply
meant by what they were doing makes no sense.
its trade-depends on a mythic sense of the nation. The
The Founders and Framers, after all, fought among human need to encompass life within the framework of
themselves. They produced a document that was a com- myth is not merely a longing for pleasing illusion. Myths
promise, that waffled on important issues, that remains reflect a fundamental human need for a larger shape to
hopelessly bound to the eighteenth century and inad- our collective aspirations. And it is an illusion to think
equate to our contemporary problems, etc. And so-in that we can so ignore that need, and so cauterize our souls,
much the same manner as the source criticism of the that we will never again be troubled by it.
Bible, which challenges the authority of Scripture by Indeed, the debunking imperative operates on
understanding the text as a compilation of haphazardly the basis of its own myth. It presumes the existence of
generated redactions—the Constitution is seen as a con- a solid and orderly substratum, a rock-solid reality lying
catenation of disparate elements, a mere political deal just beneath the illusory surfaces, waiting to be revealed
meant to be superseded by other political deals, and withal in all its direct and unfeigned honesty when the facades
an instrument of the powerful. The last thing in the world and artifices and false divisions are all stripped away. There
you would want to do is treat it as a document with any is a remarkable complacency and naiveté about such a
intrinsic moral authority. Every text is merely a pretext. view. The near-universal presumption that the demise of
This is the kind of explanation one has learned to expect the nation-state and the rise of international governance
from the historical guild.
would be very good things has everything, except a shred
of evidence, to support it. And as for the debunking of
bourgeois morality that still passes for sophistication in
some quarters and has been the stock-in-trade of Western
intellectuals for almost two centuries now—well, this has
In this connection, it is amusing to see the extent to which always been a form of moral free-riding, like the radical
historians, who are pleased to regard the Constitution as posturing of adolescents who always know they can call
a hopelessly outdated relic of a bygone era, are themselves Mom when they get into trouble.
still crude nineteenth-century positivists at heart. They
still pride themselves on their ability to puncture myths,
relying on a shallow positivistic understanding of a myth
as a more or less organized form of falsehood, rather than
seeing myth as a structure of meaning, a manner of giving One residue of the debunking heritage is the curious
a manageable shape to the cosmos, and to one's own expe- assumption that narratives of foundings are mere fairy
rience of the world, a shape that expresses cultural ideals tales-prettified, antiseptic flights of fancy, or wish-
and shared sentiments, and that guides us through the fulfillment fantasies, telling of superlative heroes and
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