The
concept of “American exceptionalism” has almost as many definitions as there
are commentators on it. I have long been
fascinated by the term, whether its first best use was by Alexis de Tocqueville
or Josef Stalin, both of whom are candidates for credit. Some would assert that the only exceptional
aspect of our country is that it is ours,
which is thus the same thing that makes any country exceptional. While I could not endorse any particular
theory, it seems sufficiently commonsense to acknowledge that there is
something authentically exceptional about our nation.
My first
candidate for the ground of exceptionality would be our form of government, the
Constitution, and that this form of government is the first and defining characteristic
of the country. Ethnicity, culture, and
geography all contributed to our nation’s earliest self-understanding and
establishment, but did not even then, much less do they now, define what makes
the United States of America, the United States of America.
Lest
anyone think that the USA was simply the first of a historical generation of
nations to be born of revolution and coalesce by constitution, one need examine
the suggested “other examples.” The
French staged a revolution with the express intention of emulating what they
saw in our society, but “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality” quickly descended
into tyranny and bloodshed by committee.
We are all aware of how the Russian and other so-called “revolutions”
played out, pursued as they were in the names of ideologies that led to
domination by ideologues. Many Latin American nations claim their own “George
Washingtons” who nonetheless failed to manifest not only his executive virtues,
but also and especially his virtuous relinquishing of executive power. Anybody familiar with the European Union’s huge
phonebook-size assemblage of regulations knows it is a “Constitution” in name
alone.
I think
what lies at the root of the current mocking of American exceptionalism is a rejection
of the possibility that anything can be an exception. There is a desire to subordinate the
character of USA to a rule, and by that rule to take away any privilege or
responsibility that would belong to a truly exceptional nation.
Both
privilege and responsibility are eliminated by the tyranny of false equality,
which refuses to admit not only any exception, but also the possibility of
authentic difference. The reality of
difference is manifest in the differences between and among human beings and
all the creatures of the earth. Good and evil, true and false, reality and
fiction, beauty and disorder are truly and clearly different. The only way to deny or suppress these
differences is to erect a false equality through authority and power. That authority and power is necessarily in
opposition to the author of all these differences, our Creator.
My
willingness to accept that the United States is exceptional among nations is
rooted in my belief that among human beings there are lives that are
exceptional. That belief is founded on
my acquaintance with the perfectly exceptional man who is God, Jesus Christ. His immaculately conceived mother, the Virgin
Mary, is not only an exception to the rule of original sin, but also a model of
and invitation to acceptance of the privilege and responsibility that comes
with freedom from the rule, with being an exception.
The
inherent difference among human lives is reflected in the differences of the
societies they erect. The true
differences between good and evil, true and false, between God and everything
else, undergird a world where every human soul is called to be exceptional in a
way that he or she is uniquely capable of being. This is the foundational freedom that can be
suppressed but not eliminated, as it inheres in our very souls. Better than anywhere else or in any other
time, this is the freedom that has until now been both provided and protected
in our exceptional nation’s exceptional Constitution.
God bless
America, and God bless you.
Monsignor Smith
