Ending his April 5th House floor presentation of the largest
proposed cutback of government spending in history, Congressman
Paul Ryan declared, “It is now up to all of us to keep America
exceptional.” It was the third time Ryan invoked American
exceptionalism in his speech. The idea of exceptionalism has
surfaced with some energy recently. President Obama, for
example, was chastised for not thinking of America as
exceptional and he seemed later to take pains to claim that he,
too, believes it is exceptional. Exceptionalism has (again)
become a buzzword. (A conservative columnist even cited my book
as proof that a liberal sociologist acknowledges America’s
exceptionalism.) There are at least two different ways the term
exceptionalism is used and it is worth sorting those out.
Congressman Ryan’s use of the term is quite appropriate and
worth close attention. The exceptionalism he means may, however,
go deeper than he imagines. “Exceptional” can mean the very
best; we’d love our kids to have teachers describe t