IN THE NEWS
Sometimes, accepted ideas so saturate a society that its citizens don't even need to talk about them anymore. These fundamental principles have seeped deep into the psychic soil, so that wherever you go, and however deep a particular issue may dig into the current national experience, the principle is always there. It also has become so intermixed with the cultural matter that you might not even notice its presence.
Such is the case with American exceptionalism. Two items in the news in the last several days have touched upon this fundamental notion that Americans have of themselves: first, the death of former president Ronald Reagan; and second, the Supreme Court's decision not to decide on the Pledge of Allegiance case. Not surprisingly, given the thrust of this blog, there's a third issue lurking in the wings: the current war in Iraq.
The man often given credit for the idea of American exceptionalism is the historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Like many people in the history of ideas, Turner isn't responsible for inventing a concept out of whole cloth, something that people of his age had never before used to dress up their own perceptions of the world. While other efforts may have been tailored without the skill and precision Turner demonstrated, he was following a mental blueprint that was already familiar to Americans. Americans might not have found his ideas as fashionable as they did had they not some familiar cut to them 
already.
The inspiration for Turner's famous 1893 lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," was the Census Bureau's announcement that the frontier was officially closed. Turner's speech, therefore, consciously marked the ending of an age--a somewhat melancholy moment in which he and his audience were eager to find traces that the great achievements of "the first new nation" would continue. Turner re-assured his audience that they would, since the spirit of the frontier was very much alive. Turner came not to bury the frontier, but to praise it.
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" argued, more or less, that Americans were the luckiest people on earth. They were also smart, because they didn't throw away the advantages that fate handed them. The unique opportunity consisted of the following elements:
- The Protestant ethic, brought by the first colonists, which became the basis of a restless national culture, particularly in commercial affairs.
- The frontier, a vast landscape of resources, opportunity, and experimentation that also gave an escape even from the great mistakes of the early republic, such as slavery.
- The political legacy of the American Revolution, including ideas and institutions that fit and expanded with the frontier.
The individualist, self-reliant, hyperkinetic, and ultimately democratic "frontier spirit" was the result. Even if the good old days of the frontier were gone, stifling the frontier spirit somewhat, it would continue to burn strongly enough to be the beacon for American democracy:
He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier.
But again, Turner did not argue that we were a chosen people, anointed by God for a sacred mission. Instead, we were extraordinarily fortunate. We used that good luck to our advantage, and like the ancient Greeks, we could inspire the rest of the world with our example. Alexis de Tocqueville made a similar argument in Democracy in America, though his terms of discussion were different than Turner's in many ways.
Usually, when someone does think of the United States as a blessed nation, they're reminded of the phrase "a citty on a hill"--which, of course, brings us to President Reagan. What electrified many of Reagan's supporters was his confidence. After Watergate, the Vietnam War, stagflation, inflation, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis, and Carter's infamous "malaise" speech, many Americans craved a shot of confidence. Reagan's rhetoric--simple, clear, and as a spokesperson for American achievements, unashamedly self-congratulatory--provided that immediate rush of psychic renewal. The ultimate encapsulation of Reagan's rhetoric, for many, was his invocation of the phrase "citty on a hill," invoking a special, almost sacred locale, not just a modern Athens, but the City of God.
As you might guess from the archaic spelling, the phrase "citty on a hill" comes from a 17th-century work, a sermon by the Puritan leader John Winthrop. Since this address is, like Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," a seminal statement of early American history, it's worth reproducing (and reading) here in its entirety:
Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes, gentlenes, patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;
Therefore lett us choose life,
that wee, and our Seede,
may live; by obeyeing his
voyce, and cleaveing to him,
for hee is our life, and
our prosperity.
What's striking about this sermon is its very Christian humility. This is not a thundering call to crusade, like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is, instead, another echo of Turner's speech, centuries later: Americans are blessed by extraordinary luck. At the same time, they bear an important historical responsibility to use wisely these precious advantages (God gets the credit here for bestowing them, not blind historical forces, but the sentiment is the same as 
Turner's).
In many respects, then, Reagan misused--or his audience misinterpreted--the "citty on a hill" sermon. The colonists may have been blessed, but they're not given special liberties. In fact, the more you might think the colonists are held especially dear by God, Winthrop says, the more you should feel the burdens of God's commandments to be compassionate, charitable, and humble.
Winthrop, Edwards, and other early Americans set the tone for invoking God in political language, setting the stage for confusion. Should Americans feel chosen or lucky? Righteous or humble? Which leads, then, to the Pledge of Allegiance case before the Supreme Court.
A personal confession is necessary here. I'm not comfortable with the "under God" language in the Pledge. I don't think people should be forced to mouth words that they may not believe, and schoolchildren are under some measure of compulsion when reciting the Pledge. When I was in high school, I decided to test the level of compulsion by not reciting the Pledge--in fact, by not rising when everyone was required to stand for it in my homeroom class. If you want to know exactly how compulsory the Pledge, with its "under God" lanugage, can be, I'll bend your ear more outside this already-long posting about how upset the school was with my quiet non-conformity.
The Supreme Court last week did not, despite some misleading headlines to the contrary, "decide" to keep the under God clause in the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead, they declared that the complainant, Michael Newdow, did not have standing to bring the case before them, given the custody arrangement with his daughter, the person arguably harmed by any undue compulsion to declare a belief in God. The case is, effectively, still open, if the Newdow's custody arrangements change, or another family asks to bring its case before the Court.
People like Newdow object to the "under God" clause usually for two reasons:
- Under the First Amendment, no one should be forced to declare their religious beliefs, or say words that are contrary to their deeply-felt ideas about the existence or non-existence of God.
- The "under God" clause feeds a sense of American exceptionalism that can lead to dangerous American excesses. If you believe God's hand rests on your shoulder, you may be capable of anything. Your sense of righteousness can easily blind you to the evils you inflict--or be the inspiration for these evils.
Fear of religious zealotry, of course, is nothing new in American history. In fact, it's a fundamental part of the Constitution. For example, it's part of the reason why the Framers explicitly rejected a religious test for public office. The Establishment Clause is therefore designed to keep Americans safe from themselves--from the inherent wickedness that Madison felt lurked in the hearts of even the best of us.
Which, of course, brings us to Iraq. Back in 2001, when I put a new set of bookmarks in my browser to better keep track of the post-9/11 news, I created the categories you might have expected: terrorism, Afghanistan, US foreign policy, intelligence, and the like. What I did not include, however, was a placeholder for articles about torture. I still don't have one, even though the number of torture-related articles I've bookmarked is in the dozens. (I file all these references under terrorism.) I never thought I'd need that category, and it feels as though I'd be helping extinguish some part of the American spirit to create it. Maybe it's irrational of me to think this way, but it's based in a visceral reaction. My gut has been usually a faithful guide, so I'll keep following it on this point.
Many not quite as outraged as I am about the torture stories have made statements like those of Bush himself: people have to understand, Bush impored, that Americans aren't like the torturers in the Abu Ghraib photos. We're better people than that. We're the residents of the "citty on the hill," is what I believe he was trying to say. How could anyone think that Americans writ large deserve the outrage directed against us because of the torture photos (and videos, and written accounts, and verbal re-tellings)? Clearly, we wouldn't be blessed enough to occupy "the citty on a hill" if we weren't better people, or somehow blessed by higher powers in a special way. Either way you look at it, according to this point of view, we don't deserve the outrage.
But, perhaps, we do. As the people who oppose the "under God" clause say, these two words can help blind us to our own hidden wickedness. The Framers didn't write the Constitution for a nation of saints and heroes; instead, they assumed Americans were like any other human beings, capable of great wrongs under the right circumstances. Which, of course, is why they feared situations beyond the law and public scrutiny, behind a curtain of executive privilege or fears of some national threat. The Framers were living barely a century and a half past the Thirty Years War, in which every Catholic and Protestant felt he was doing God's bidding by putting his fellow man, woman, or child to the sword.
My wife and I talk so often about these issues that her words have sunk deeply into my own. (Perhaps I don't give her the credit she deserves here, both for these words and her support. For that, my apologies). Among other contributions to this discussion, today she cleverly cited the following lyric from a Bob Dylan song:
Nobody has to guess/That Baby can't be blessed/Till she finally sees that she's like all the rest
Not quite what Dylan intended with the song, "Just Like a Woman," but the words fit--perhaps better than Winthrop's "citty on a hill," when taken out of context.
Iraqis.
Other songs are honest in ways that feel like a punch in the solar plexus--they take your breath away, and not very gently. His best songs are dark, funny, and uplifting at the same time. Some of my favorites include 
Hague.