The Deadly Fraud of “American Exceptionalism”
Doubtless you have heard more than once the term “American Exceptionalism.” It implies, in short, that we are somehow special, different, superior. We are the “city upon a hill” whose freedoms and accomplishments set us apart. Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase midway through the 19th century, and it has enjoyed constant deployment by politicians and pundits ever since, because it lights a warm bulb of self-satisfaction in many bellies … and people feeling good about themselves are easier to convince. Salesmen thrived on this axiom before Babylon’s bricks were laid.
Curmudgeon at Work 