Celebrate the 4th and American Exceptionalism

American Exceptionalism has been used by many people without really defining what it is.  Sure, there are many ways that America is exceptional, but when I think of American Exceptionalism, I think of our founding, its context, and its legacy, though threatened, that remains with us today.

The American Revolution and our country's founding unleashed the individual, which previously was only discussed and argued in philosophical texts and never realized. The words of Englishmen John Locke were not just echoed, but codified by the American Jefferson as an official declaration of a citizenry and not simply a treatise.  Madison's Virginia Plan evolved into the United States Constitution.  It was built upon an ancient idea of Separation of Powers, but with a Montesquieuan balance, and wove together disparate colonies under a republic.  Concepts from the English, French, Greek, and Roman were adopted, but the Founders weren't satisfied, and the individual colonies, governed by individuals, remained unpersuaded. The Constitution structured the government and defined how it was to work; and the Declaration of Independence put forth the American ideal and answered who we are and why we are. Still, there was something missing, and two of the most important colonies, Virginia and New York, the former being the most important, would not ratify the Constitution as it was.  Out came the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights sanctified the individual and placed it above the state out of harm from the arbitrary, coercive king or government. It did so by recognizing the Hobbesian State of Nature so, as Thomas Jefferson said, "In questions of power...let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."  The individual is to be protected from the governing class and popular will, not subject to it or subservient to it.  The Bill guarantees individual liberty from the king, state, or government (popular or otherwise).

Ok, so what?  So where's the exceptionalism? Well, one can argue that many of the ideas just stated were all tried in many parts of the world and still didn't work quite right with respect to the sovereignty of the individual.  For example, the English Magna Carta, meant to secure liberty for the English, dissolved, and people were still "subjects" to the king.  But more dramatically were the other revolutions claiming independence from an oppressor.  The first of these after the American Revolution was across the sea. 

The French Revolution was seeking something similar for its people: to free the people from the clutches of the aristocracy and to pursue Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood) for all.   However, their guidance was not found in ideas by Locke or Hume, putting the individual above the state, but mostly by Rousseau and, to some extent, Condorcet, which emphasized the General Will (the popular will of all over the individual), and the results are remarkably different.  The French Revolution's Reign of Terror produced some of the bloodiest and most horrifying episodes in human history.  It foreshadowed oddities that today we classify as Orwellian, such as The Committee for Public Safety.  The Committee, sounding benign and nice enough, had a responsibility to protect the republic from external and internal forces.  What could be the harm in that?  Well, if the state or popular will is above the individual, and the individual is to serve that society, then many internal miscreants can easily be defined as such at the behest of the Definers seated in the Committee, State, or Government, and Jefferson's chains are not in place to restrain them.  Those who couldn't adhere to the shifting, popular rules of the day were brutishly killed. Think of the Committee like a colonial-era EPA, but instead of leveling massive fines based on arbitrary, opaque rules (like the Sacketts have been on the receiving end of), you only know you're not in compliance when you hear the guillotine race towards your neck. Over 40,000 people were executed--depending on the source--during the Reign of Terror because they were not in compliance.  (One of the all-time best examples of Karma comes out of this.  Maximilien Robespierre was one of the brutal heads of the Committee, and when it fell, so did his head.  Usually, the victim is face down, unable to see the blade, however, in his case, he saw its gleam ‘til the end.)

So why is America exceptional?  It's the only place in the world where the individual is sovereign and held above popular will and the state--well until recently, hopefully we can fix that.  The General Will is for Europe, not America. The Arab Spring is being claimed by many to be the Middle Eastern version of the American Revolution. They may be right, but it's too early to tell.  Revolution is not always a good thing.  It's only determined as such by what follows, and many revolutions have been followed with tyranny. 

Let's hope that either America remains exceptional or America loses this exceptionalism due to more countries joining us in valuing and ensuring the individual is inviolable.

Happy 4th of July!