Michael PS: I think you are absolutely correct. The U.S. has no ethnic identity and no dynastic loyalty, so a lot of patriotic emotion adheres to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution. In theory, one might favor the “ancient regime”of the articles of confederation that preceded the constitution but I am not sure if there is anyone, aside, perhaps from isolated individuals or fringe groups, who seriously hold to that position.

Benighted Savage: Actually I opined in the last paragraph of my essay that American exceptionalism is a form of political romanticism. As for why I regard that as dangerous it is because it tends to make hubris and killing too easily indulged. (I am no pacifist by the way.) C.S. Lewis in his The Four Loves deals well, I think with this issue:

“Patriotism has, then, many faces. Those who would reject it entirely do not seem to have considered what will certainly step–has already begun to step–into its place. For a long time yet, or perhaps forever, nations will live in danger. Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them, or at least to prepare for their defense. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for ‘their country’ they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice, of civilization, or humanity. This is a step down, not up. Patriotic sentiment did not of course need to disregard ethics. Good men needed to be convinced that their country’s cause was just; but it was still their country’s cause, not the cause of justice as such. The difference seems to me important. I may without self-righteousness or hypocrisy think it just to defend my house by force against a burglar; but if I start pretending that I blacked his eye purely on moral grounds–wholly indifferent to the fact that the house in question was mine–I become insufferable. The pretense that when England’s cause is just we are on England’s side–as some neutral Don Quixote might be–for that reason alone, is equally spurious. And nonsense draws evil after it. If our country’s cause is the cause of God, wars must be wars of annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things that are very much of this world.”

I prefer the view of history that sees structural formations as cyclical.

Empires break up, creating lots of little states. Little states grow into empires. I view this as a spiral path – we go around in circles, but “upward” when we learn things that make us more “civilized” (this is my definition of what it means to be civilized).

The “concert of Europe” struggled to find better ways to wage war and peace, and it has to be recognized: they did learn a few things. Unfortunately they also “learned” that propping up an artificial peace can be like covering the hole that vents steam from a cooker.

That does not mean that seeking peace is a waste of time, or “bad”, or counterproductive. What it suggests to me is that we have to try to learn what we can and apply that learning toward living a better way.

By way of contrast, I have known French people, for example, patriotic to the point of chauvinism, who detested the French Revolution and all its works, referred to the national symbol of Marianne as « la gueuse » [The beggar woman/Slut] and attended the annual Mass of Reparation on 21 January at the Chapelle Expiatoire for the “parricide” of Louis XVI. Love of the nation and hatred of the republic can co-exist quite happily together.

It would, I would imagine, be impossible for an American to distinguish his loyalty to the nation and his loyalty to its form of government in a way that seems natural to a European, even, perhaps especially, to a “nationalist.”

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I’m not sure, but if I were to write that Shmuel Ben-Gad’s notion of “political romanticism” may be connected with Carl Schmitt’s, would I have made a reductio ad Weimarum?

The above was perhaps not a very useful statement. A symptom of my frustration, no doubt: I’m still in the dark as to what Mr. Ben-Gad’s position precisely is, especially after learning – as late as post #10 – that his beef is more with “political romanticism” (PR) than with “American exceptionalism.”

May I ask, which version of PR is he referring to here? Carl Schmitt’s? Frank Capra’s?

Also, why does Mr. Ben-Gad believe that his version of PR, whatever it is, “is a dangerous thing”? Is it more or less dangerous than, say, his expressed desire that Conservatives and other people of good will should possess “a keener sense of human limitations and a general sober-mindedness that does not consider any human being or human institution as either the hope or the curse of the world” (my emphasis)? One wonders:

1.) Are people engaged in a dangerous activity if they claim that political movements like communism or the several fascisms, or human beings like Stalin, Mao, Franco, Saddam Hussein or Him-Who-Is-Not-to-be Named, are the curse of the world?

2.) If a Mr. Jones were to argue that men such as Hirohito or Tojo were the curse of the world back in the 30s and 40s, would that entail that Mr. Jones argument is lacking in keeness and general sober-mindedness?

Unfortunately, we have “achieved a level of discourse” here that is as unenlightening as it is polite. One wishes that Mr. Ben-Gad would be more forthcoming about which soapbox he’s speaking from.

I stand by my statement that if America loses or abdicates its position as hegemon, another will eventually arise to take its place and is not likely to be as benign. I guess my point is that exceptionalism is not necessarily political romanticism as long as one realizes that exceptionalism is relative and, while no hegemonic power will ever be perfect or perfectly benevolent, some are more so than others. A nation with America’s institutions and values is much more likely to be much more benign as a hegemon than one without those institutions and values, and no other nation in the past or that currently exists combines those institutions and values with economic, military, and political might in the same way as the United States.

You may put me in the box that has this verse as its heading: “Put not your trust in princes, in men in whom there is no salvation.”

By the way, I am neither on the left nor the isolationist right. I simply think American (or any other) exceptionalism is political romanticism and that political romanticism is a dangerous thing. Call me an anti-Babelian (as in the Tower of).

Others, particularly on the political right, believe (or pretend to) that our exceptional institutions and values uniquely qualify us to be the global hegemon, that our power is a net gain for the freedom of others, and that the world is a better place than it would otherwise be for our exercise of political, military, economic, and cultural power.

In my view, many of the “exceptionalists” are naive or cynics exploiting American public sentiment for their own purposes. Nonetheless, the world _will_ have a hegemon. It has since ancient Sumer. If we lose, or abdicate, that position there will not suddenly be an era of international equality and cooperation. There will simply be another hegemon. To an extrordinary degree, we _are_ exceptional, especially compared to past hegemons like Rome, Spain, or even Britain or to any potential hegemon currently existing. For all our flaws, I’m very hard-pressed to imagine the world better off with Russia, China, or some Islamist Caliphate as hegemon.