Universidad de Santiago de ChileFacultad de HumanidadesDepartamento de LingüísticaLicenciatura en Educación en Inglés

American Exceptionalism

The United States of America is a country placed in north america, just between Canada and Mexico. This country has its bases on the British Puritans settlement in 1620 and, since they where a religious group that thought they were selected by god and America was the promised land, they started an expansion process which hasn’t fished yet. First just to get the territory they have in america (the 52 states), and second to spread their economic, religious and political way of doing things. This expansion process had its purpose on the believe that the unitedstatian were special (different from the rest of the world). It means that they where superior so they had the right and the divine obligation to look after other “weak” countries, even by force if it was necessary. For example, with the excuse of being ordered by God they expanded all over what U.S. is now, by means of killing and massacring native american indians and mexican people without thinking if they were violating their culture or just breaking their systems (in order to get the Napoleon´s territory separated from the colonies by the Mississippi River and what now Texas is respectively). Another good example is what George Bush II did to some middle-east countries during his government period, all supported by what God had told to him (as in the case of president McKinley and the taking of the Philippines). Apart of this, as they are special (because they still believe that), they are not judged in the same way other countries are. They have refused to sign many international treaties because “the U.S. goverment considers itself exempt from legal and moral standars accepted by other nations in the world.”

The fact that americans were selected by God, that some U.S. presidents have been told to take control over other countries and communities by him, that they are the most perfect and powerful country and that they think everything they do is right becouse it is its own product, reflects the american exceptionalism. In other words it has to do with a strong nationalism and the pride of being american. On the other hand, there are two concepts, “The American Way of Life” and “The Amercian Dream”, that resume only the “internal” exceptionalism of the U.S. They are related to the way Americans have built their country on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which says that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." However both of them have a stronger period in the U.S. history. For exmaple, “The American Dream” was strongly developed on the recovering from the economic crysis of 1929. This concept has to do with development of capitalism (low prices, job opportunities, low-cost land, mass production and individualistic happiness.)

In my opinion, I think it is good for them to be one of the head of the developed countries and to have one of the most powerful army in the world. But since they decided to expand their way of doing things (in the they have

been doing this), I disagree with U.S. I think this is just a dummy image of a greedy empire which wants to control the whole world in order to get benefits from poor and weak countries. I storngly disagree with american exceptionalism in the way that being special and chosen by God does not necessarily mean that the rest of the world must be similar or to follow them. On the other hand, I think we all have the same rights so nobody is better than others and everybody have to be equal in front of the law.

Name: Marco Bravo Rojas