There are a couple of billion people in the world, and most of them are NOT trying to come here, although by all rights they SHOULD, given that we're the greatest country, and an obvious magnet ... and once we've established ourselves as greatest, it wouldn't be hospitable not to welcome everyone. But it doesn't work like that. Why?
The writer Bromwich offers a variant of something I've always maintained: If a guy stands up in a tavern and begins boasting about his greatness, it is regarded as an impolite imposition. Do it in a stadium, and we're all supposed to stand, chant and sing.
It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism, by David Bromwich (TomDispatch.com, via The Nation)
To believe that our nation has always been exceptional requires a suppression of ordinary skepticism and a belief that calls for extraordinary arrogance.
... On the whole, is American exceptionalism a force for good? The question shouldn’t be hard to answer. To make an exception of yourself is as immoral a proceeding for a nation as it is for an individual. When we say of a person (usually someone who has gone off the rails), “He thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” we mean that he is a danger to others and perhaps to himself. People who act on such a belief don’t as a rule examine themselves deeply or write a history of the self to justify their understanding that they are unique. Very little effort is involved in their willfulness. Such exceptionalism, indeed, comes from an excess of will unaccompanied by awareness of the necessity for self-restraint.
And then there's this:
Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.
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