American Exceptionalism 7/24/08

The whole idea that America and Americans are somehow "exceptional" (I would never disagree that we have been and are extremely fortunate ("blessed" in the secular connotation of the word) and that our indisputable success has been a combination of energy, ability, and geography) strikes me as an extension of the whole "superman" theory investigated (in far more intellectual depth than I care to dig) by the likes of Nietzsche, Shaw and Dostoyevsky, that somehow we get to make up our own rules. I wonder if the proponents of American Exceptionalism would support taking the philosophy backward for individuals, with all the implications of that. Didn't work out so well for our boy Raskolnikov, did it? And if it works out for the "superman," almost by definition those of us who are less than "super" deserve our fate. Really, wasn't social Darwinism (oh, my, I don't think the AE supporters want to go there, do they?) pretty much discredited almost 100 years ago?