Obama, Putin and the necessary demise of American exceptionalism

The debate is getting heated. Is America exceptional? Russian President Vladimir Putin certainly doesn’t think so. In fact, he stated in a New York Times op-ed published on Sept. 11 that, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”

President Barack Obama, on the other hand, repeatedly reaffirms the notion of American exceptionalism — first in the speech that instigated Putin’s remarks, and then again at his United Nations address last week. At the United Nations, Obama jabbed back at Putin, “Some may disagree, but I believe that America is exceptional.”

Unfortunately, these Presidents were talking past each other entirely.

Obama is defending the not-so-farfetched idea that American willingness to cautiously involve itself in foreign conflicts for the betterment of those people makes the nation somehow special or exceptional. By and large this is true; there are not that many nations willing to take such action in today’s world.

Putin claims it is dangerous for America to claim to be exceptional. He has a point, too, but I don’t think it’s a counterpoint to Obama’s cautious willingness to argue in favor of American exceptionalism. We can argue about semantics, but I think Putin should be — though he isn’t — pressing back against another, more prevalent concept in the national dialogue.

The idea that America is the greatest nation on earth can only hold up in an antirealist framework. Before even considering veracity, one has to grapple with the fact that “great” is so nebulous a term that the Merriam-Webster online dictionary gives 11 definitions for it.

One of these definitions calls it “remarkable in magnitude, degree or effectiveness.” I think many people who would want to call the United States the greatest nation would hesitate to say it is the most effective nation.

But this worldview is so ingrained in the political and cultural atmosphere that it is a prerequisite to even holding national office. But are these claims justified?

By the standard of living of the average citizen, I think not. A claim of being “a great nation on earth” or “the freest nation on earth” would be worth arguing for and worth maintaining.

But this faceless notion of American greatness can even get in the way of real progress. For example, the constitutional literalist factions argue that we must return to the roots given to us by the framers of the constitutions — but who wants to return to principles embodied in the 18th century?

We live in the here and now and need to take on the principles of the here and now. We don’t have the greatest constitution. In fact, the constitution is full of idiosyncrasies, vestigial government functions and now-defunct ways of viewing the world.

Yet the greatest charge that can be levied against a law is that it is unconstitutional, not that it is immoral, unfair or unjust. Part of this comes from the idea that the Constitution does a near-perfect job of protecting our freedoms.

An argument can be made that we live in a nation that grants exceptional personal freedoms and that this should garner respect for the institutions that perpetuate those freedoms, including the Constitution in which they originated. But this misses the point: The lack of harmful actions, namely the restriction of core freedoms, does not guarantee that all or even a majority of virtuous actions are being taken.

Ultimately, the wheels of capitalism and corruption have broken down our system of governance and reduced it to a series of shouting matches over whose fault it is that the government is indiscriminately downsizing and constantly on the brink of disaster.

In a lesser country, this might lead to a discussion about how to fix the system that went somewhere, but here in the greatest nation on earth, we are left to listen to CNN’s “predictions” and pray that someday our government will magically regain the ability to govern.

So Putin was right: It is dangerous to tell people that the United States of American is exceptional. Not because we are a nation of warmongers, but rather because we, as a nation, need the ability to move forward — and who wants to fix what is already the best?

Write Rohith at rop33@pitt.edu.