Here is Yue Stella Yu at the Nashville Tennessean:
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee wants schools to teach “unapologetic American exceptionalism” — an idea that American values are intrinsically different from those of other countries.
Touting Tennessee’s education standards, Lee made the comment on Wednesday when he announced 53 schools and three school districts as recipients of the governor’s Civics Seal — a program established in 2019 recognizing the teaching of “the nation’s history and civic values.”
“Tennessee is invested in providing all of our students with a high-quality civics education,” Lee said in a statement. “We are raising a generation of young people who are knowledgeable in American history and confident in navigating their civic responsibilities. In Tennessee, our students will be taught unapologetic American exceptionalism.”
Read the rest here.
“Exceptional” can mean “superior,” but it can also mean “rare” or “unique.” Blind and uninformed patriots cling to the first definition. Historians and history teachers use the second definition.
It is hard to argue with the idea that the United States had an exceptional founding when compared to other eighteenth-century nations. But this claim needs nuance. Most, if not all, of the ideas that drove the American Revolution were not unique to the colonies. The ideas in the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, for example, were British ideas. Jefferson did not say anything new in those paragraphs and he knew it. But I would also argue that the colonies applied these ideas in an exceptional way. The United States was the first Enlightenment nation. This made it exceptional.
The United States was also exceptional in a lot of other ways. It was the first nation built on ideas of liberty and freedom that relied heavily on slavery for its economic livelihood. Other nations had slavery, but no other slave nation celebrated the values of freedom and liberty like the United States. This paradox makes the country, sadly, exceptional.
Let’s also recognize that the United States in the early 19th-century was one of the most democratic countries in the world. It was so democratic that slaveholders believed it had the right to own slaves and spread slavery within its borders. This, of course, led to a bloody Civil War in which 750,000 died. This definitely makes the United State exceptional.
The United States was exceptional in the way it dislocated millions of indigenous people to provide more freedom for white people.
The United States was exceptional in its growth as an industrial power in the 20th century. It has been exceptional in the way that it has spread freedom, individualism, and American-style consumerism around the world. The reach of the United States has certainly been exceptional in this regard.
The United States during the Cold War was exceptional in the way it policed the world and sought to turn back communism. No other country had the might to do this. And no other country used its power to interfere in and disrupt the everyday lives of so many people in the world. Vietnam comes directly to mind, but there are many others.
So yes, America has been an exceptional nation, but in the history classroom, “exceptionalism” is not a moral category.
