This is the first part in a three-part piece about the idea of American exceptionalism. I will post parts II and III later this week.
The American Dream. Rags-to-riches. Pulling yourself up by
your bootstraps. The “arsenal of democracy.” A global force for good. The world’s
policeman. ‘Murica. The land of opportunity. All of these ideas stem from one
persistent myth: American exceptionalism.[i] American
exceptionalism is, self-explanatorily, the idea that the United States of
America is exceptional. While America is generally a good country to live in
(more so for white people), I believe the myth of American exceptionalism often
goes too far, leaving people who buy into it unable to see the ills we face as
a country, and, therefore, unable to strive to actually make this country
exceptional.
I think there are a couple of reasons why propagation of
this myth continues. The first is simply that it is much easier to ignore
deep-rooted problems than it is to confront them. There definitely are good
aspects of America’s history, but these have been exaggerated within the myth
of American exceptionalism through the second reason for its perpetuation:
propaganda. When people hear about propaganda, they usually think about Nazi
Germany or maybe North Korea, but American history has seen its fair share of
propaganda, too. While much of the obvious propaganda appeared during the two
World Wars, propaganda is much more prevalent than most people realize.
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| Nazi propaganda poster |
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| American WWII propaganda poster |
Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley recently published a
book called How Propaganda Works. In
an interview about this book with the New Books Network, Stanley gave an
overview of his findings about propaganda in democratic societies.[ii]
He said he divided propaganda into two types: “supporting” propaganda, which “increases
an ideal without a good reason,” and “undermining” propaganda, which is “when
you appeal to an ideal in the service of a goal that tends to erode that very
ideal.” Supporting propaganda seems to be everywhere in America. It simply adds
to ideas and feelings already in existence, such as patriotism. An example
Stanley gives of supporting propaganda is “waving the flag to increase
patriotism.” While supporting propaganda is dangerous on its own, as it is not
backed up by reason, evidence, or reality, it is even more dangerous when
paired with undermining propaganda.
Stanley’s definition of undermining propaganda, while
confusing on the surface, makes sense through looking at examples. One such
example Stanley gives is the Bush administration’s “appeal to stability in
invading Iraq, when invading Iraq made us less stable.” This is undermining
propaganda at work: claiming that stability is the reason for invasion, while
that invasion simultaneously erodes stability. Another example is that of the
War on Drugs, which appealed to law and order, while in practice it was
actually incredibly racist, undermining the ideal of equality under law, and
also the ideal of safety and order. The War on Drugs was supposed to keep
streets safer, but inequitable laws and unfair enforcement ended up tearing
apart the families they were supposed to protect. Stanley shows the danger of
undermining propaganda through the example of the Iraq War:
Ideology comes in to lead us to fail to see the conflict
between the ideal and the goal. So why did the Iraq War work? Why did saying
that 69% of Americans in February 2003 believed that Saddam Hussein was
involved in 9/11? Well because of the ideology that Muslims or Arabs are terrorists,
so people just found it very plausible that he was involved. That blinded them
to the conflict between stability and invading Iraq.... The reason we don’t see
the contradiction is because we have an ideology.... The idea is that flawed
ideological belief, flawed conceptual schemes, will bar you from seeing social
reality.
When propaganda becomes so ingrained in both public and
individual consciousness, it becomes impossible to distinguish fictitious ideas
from reality. It is even more dangerous because people do not even have to know
that they have bought in to propaganda in order to perpetuate it: “You can be
sincere and not think you’re doing propaganda, and still be delivering
propaganda because you’re under the grips of a flawed ideology.” While
democratic societies find it hard to maintain a dedicated ministry of propaganda
like those of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, or George Orwell’s 1984 “Big Brother” government, once the
ball gets rolling on a certain narrative on propaganda, a dedicated ministry is
really no longer necessary.[iii]
In Part II I will return to the myth of American
exceptionalism and some of the controversy surrounding it.
[i]
There is a book on the topic: The Myth of
American Exceptionalism by Godfrey Hodgson. I have not read it yet, but it
is currently in the mail from Amazon.
[ii]
New Books Network (NBN) is a series of podcasts in which hosts interview
authors of recent books in various scholarly disciplines. I have found them to
be excellently done and very informative. All of the following quotes are from
Stanley’s interview with NBN, not from his book itself. The entire network’s
website is http://newbooksnetwork.com/,
and Stanley’s particular interview is at http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2015/05/01/jason-stanley-how-propaganda-works-princeton-up-2015/.
NBN podcasts can also be downloaded on iTunes and other media.
[iii]
The United States has had dedicated government departments for propaganda in
the past, although without the word “propaganda” explicitly in the title. In
addition, while Wikipedia is far from the most reliable source, the Wikipedia
page for “Ministry of Propaganda” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_propaganda)
lists the current Broadcasting Board of Governors alongside the more notorious
Joseph Goebbels and the other totalitarian regimes I listed as an example of a
ministry of propaganda. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, also accuses the
American mass media of propaganda.
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