The Delusion of American Exceptionalism

On occasion, when we have argued about such things as the collapse of the United States, we have been presented with an interesting rebuttal. It typically runs along the lines of "that can't happen here." When we press for why the United States won't someday fall apart, we hear merely a repetition: "This is America, that can't happen in America."

Well, we beg to differ. No country, or society, in all of history has ever proven immune to disruptive events. Never has a society forever improved without downfall. Great debates can erupt over, say, the nature of the peak of the Roman Empire, or the British Empire, or the Russian Empire... the list goes on, but each has an eerie similarity. One could argue a nation's development follows a bell-shaped curve: a nation starts from obscurity, rockets to its height of power, and then falls again to obscurity.

That's not to say a country's trajectory downwards is a one-way trip. Some countries have reached a hight of power, gotten trashed, pulled themselves out of near or utter ruin, and went on to best their previous peak. Places like Germany and Japan come to mind. These two societies have been through more than one peak-and-bust cycle, and today are considered some of the most stable and industrious countries on the planet.

The United States is a country, a society like any other. It is subject to the same possibilities of decay and collapse as any other country. It is also the longest-running experiment in democratic government, and experiments do not always result as one expects. The United States, one way or the other, will eventually end and become something else. To declare otherwise is tantamount to hubris, which was a favourite plot device of Ancient Greek tragedy. Those plays always had messy ends.