American exceptionalism

[Undertoad]

There's no more insulting phrase to Europeans!

I think I've got it though. Why did America become so powerful from 1935-2000?

Was it the rules, or was it the people?

It was the combination. A culture of fiercely independent, highly diverse, motivated dreamers combines with a market-oriented system to produce very high levels of productivity.

This in turn created a system wherein everyone was motivated to maximize human output

Now, many times I hear from my fellow Merkins that the country is somehow "broken" and will not return to its greatness

I think partly we are adjusting from a world where everyone is poor, to a world where everyone is middle class

It was nice having to only compete with 50 million office workers. I'm not sure how I will compete with 1 billion office workers

It seems like this is true of Japan as well. But what we are seeing is our cultures come to a pinnacle in an era when the rest of the world is coming online, with the advances of a century, combined with the marvelous advantage of general world wide peace.

How much we might achieve, when we do not have to stop every 20-30 years to destroy each other.

[infinite monkey]

This might be relevant. It's a fictional show but it has many moments where I feel it means something. This is the opening scene. Stick with it. Will McAvoy, the character, caught a lot of flack for this 'outburst.' But it paved the way for the show to show real news, based on real news, despite objections over ratings.

Jeff Daniels. Not just Dumb or Dumber anymore.

And if you like what it has to say, I recommend The Newsroom. I've only bought Season 1, but I found it to be quite brilliant. I can't speak for the subsequent seasons, yet.

[infinite monkey]

Oh, sorry, it'll make you go to the real youtube to watch it. Do or don't. I think it's a great scene.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

How much we might achieve, when we do not have to stop every 20-30 years to destroy each other.

Don't be so quick to discard the R&D and manufacturing capacity created by the World Wars, which certainly spurred growth, wealth, and brought women into the work force.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I think partly we are adjusting from a world where everyone is poor, to a world where everyone is middle class.

Everyone?

[Undertoad]

Yeah there were like 5 billion ppl a few decades back and like 4 billion were poor

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...general world wide peace...

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. - Tacitus

The rules or the people? I go with the general willingness to do violence while blinding ourselves to the human cost.

[lumberjim]

I don't know, man. You gotta figure there is always some one fucking over a populous somewhere in the world at all times. Nowadays, our information travels so fast and far that if you really want to know who what and where, you can find it.

Just 20 years ago, that wasn't really true.

So, generally speaking, there has been a relative peace here these last 5 to 10? years.

I don't know that it call it peace... But yeah

[Undertoad]

Because of news and headlines and whatnot, you all may not be aware that the numbers of wars and the numbers of deaths per person from wars is WAY off from the previous 5 CENTURIES.

And that there hasn't been any war between major world powers in over 60 years and this is an extremely unlikely turn of events. Major world powers in a state of war has been normal up until recently.

Kristof / NY Times:

“Today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence,” [Steven] Pinker writes, and he describes this decline in violence as possibly “the most important thing that has ever happened in human history.”

He acknowledges: “In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.”

Still, even in a 20th century notorious for world war and genocide, only around 3 percent of humans died from such man-made catastrophes. In contrast, a study of Native-American skeletons from hunter-gather societies found that some 13 percent had died of trauma. And in the 17th century, the Thirty Years’ War reduced Germany’s population by as much as one-third.

[glatt]

Fascinating.

I hate how the media never gives any perspective on this stuff as they breathlessly report the latest carnage.

[Undertoad]

Yeah and most deaths now are happening in civil wars, not inter-state wars. 180,000 dead in Syria.

[DanaC]

here's no more insulting phrase to Europeans!

Really? I've never thought of it as an insulting phrase. I don't know many people who do.

[Clodfobble]

That's surprising, Dana. I mean, is it that the idea doesn't bother you, or that you've never heard it as a phrase?

Over here, it doesn't just mean "exceptionalism that happens to be done by an American," is the idea that we as a country are inherently exceptional, due to the circumstances of our founding and the ideals of our society. It's a very arrogant concept, that most Americans would nonetheless agree with.

[DanaC]

Oh I've heard it. But it isn't a phrase that people find 'insulting'. There's more of a tendency to roll our eyes at it :p

The concept of Americans believing themselves and their nation to be superior and somehow chosen by God can be insulting - insasmuch as it has been used to justify some fairly shitty stuff - but most empires have their equivalent. We did when we were a 'great power'.

I think most Europeans are more concerned with what the US does, than they are with how Americans refer to themselves. Especially given tat most Europeans also have a fairly inflated sense of their nation's specialness and quite a lot look down on the US as brash and a bit full of its own importance.

but no -

There's no more insulting phrase to Europeans!

not even close.