American Exceptionalism?

A week or so ago the Pew Global Attitudes Project released a study titled “The Pulse of Europe 2009: 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall” that centered on the attitudes in Eastern Europe and Russia about the collapse of Communism. The results are fascinating and led me to consider something after reading this short op-ed piece by Karlyn Bowman.

The report describes the “long-existing transatlantic divide,” a divide that suggests what? Well let’s look at the data. The study revealed that “fewer people [in eastern Europe] today than in 1991 think that people should be free to pursue their life’s goals without interference from the state.” This is of course a pretty clear difference to what is typical of an American belief system, and one that some suggest is “exceptional” in its individualism and freedoms. Indeed, as the study clearly found, “Americans remain far more individualistic than Europeans.”

Interesting data indeed. We can just say that the survey tells us nothing more than we are different, big deal, being different does not suggest exceptionalism. But is it more than that, do the values that we uphold on individualism and freedoms make us exceptional? I hope so. Do we always live up to those ideals, of course not, our history is right there and reveals our failures. However, failure at times to always follow by those values does not mean there is nothing there to celebrate, that there is nothing there exceptional.

Follow up: President Obama feels the same way according to this quote: “that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our beliefs in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.” [source]