1 Even where there is no explicit contrast being made with other nation-states, this implicit claim that the United States is a society more respectful of the moral value of all of its inhabitants dominates the public-sphere discourse. superiority is asserted inconsistently, and usually without any sign of awareness that it is inconsistent, as a commitment to hyper-individualism and as a commitment to greater inclusion of all people on the grounds of their social value and a deeply-rooted tradition of communitarianism. When explaining the sense in which the United States is exceptional as an advanced economy, however, the other states – European nations in particular – are depicted as less committed to values the articulator of exceptionalism assumes to be necessary conditions of human flourishing. In the case of contrasts with developing nations, exceptionalist pretensions often cast these other societies as less capable of constituting and maintaining effective forms of social organization. 2 For example, in a commencement address given to graduates at Barnard College, President Barack Obam (.)ġ The rhetoric of American exceptionalism typically functions to exalt the United States by casting all other societies as “Other,” that is, as lesser.
1 “America is a great place because there’s a fantastic fusion of two forces: individualism and commu (.).
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