Perhaps we’re really not all that exceptional

After World War II, the U.S. was at a cultural apex. We had participated in the defeat of empires that aspired to world dominance. We helped usher in an era of peace. We were world leaders. American Exceptionalism was a real, positive influence for good. We encouraged countries to adopt democratic ideals that valued all human beings and tolerated all varieties of political and religious thought.

Over the past several years, now, we’ve heard a lot of crowing about modern American Exceptionalism, which I find a bit puzzling, because try as I might, I don’t see much that is exceptional about us now, aside from our ability to delude ourselves. We reject proven science (global warming, ocean acidification, etc.) that is inconvenient for us in terms of our resourceconsuming lifestyle. We also excel at deluding ourselves about the existence of invisible supernatural deities who are unable to stop wars, climate disasters, and devastating earthquakes. At the same time, we reject as mythology the deities of our ancient predecessors, who were as certain that their gods were real as we are about ours.

We also excel at convincing ourselves that racial differences are significant while ignoring the fact that the DNA of every human alive is the same; as evidenced by the fact that any fertile female human alive, could potentially produce offspring with any other male human. We are, indeed, exceptional. Exceptional at rejecting facts that don’t square with our deluded concepts about how our world should be.

— Michael Herman, Chico