Exceptionalism, Cont'd
In a post on President Obama and American exceptionalism, Victor Davis Hanson explains why he thinks our nation is different from all the others:
Perhaps it would be better, when speaking of an early rural society, to talk of an absence of peasantry: We had no concept of a large underclass of only quasi-free people attached to barons as serfs; instead, yeomen agrarians were the Jeffersonian ideal, a nation of independent farmers rather than peasants.
Odd that a historian should forget about American slavery!
In the same post, he writes:
A gun-owning society, unlike Europe — On the theory that an armed citizenry would fight any federal effort to overturn individual liberties: That tradition later made our citizenry more comfortable with firearms, with obvious advantages for our military.
As a military historian, Professor Hanson would benefit from familiarizing himself with Switzerland. Its citizenry is armed, with obvious advantages of its military:
The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.
This is in a very large part due to Switzerland’s unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries.
Instead of a standing, full-time army, the country requires every man to undergo some form of military training for a few days or weeks a year throughout most of their lives.
John McPhee’s book on this subject is exceptional.
This is a military nation.
— 被リンクサービス · Mar 1, 12:59 AM · #
Professor Hansen has never thought Switzerland, that federal republic that has remained aloof from the EU and has no overweening central control, and which just banned minerets in a rebuke to Islamicists is part of the european problem. He is well aware of slavery but except a few states that group did not make up the mass of men. Moreover, slavery was not thought by most of America as necessary to it.
— jjv · Mar 1, 02:44 AM · #
“Except a few states that group did not make up the mass of men.”
Fail. At this nation’s founding, nearly 20 percent of the population were enslaved Africans. By the Civil War, that figure was down to “only” 14 percent.
Furthermore, it really doesn’t matter what excuse you give about the size — the fact is, his assertion that “We had no concept of a large underclass of only quasi-free people” is patently untrue. Of course we had that concept, except it was of a large underclass of not-even-quasi-free people.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Mar 1, 05:07 AM · #
“>A gun-owning society, unlike Europe — On the theory that an armed citizenry would fight any federal effort to overturn individual liberties”
This is even dumber than missing slavery. American citizens were armed because they used muskets for hunting, or because they were required to be armed as members of the state militia. I defy Mr. Hanson to provide any documentation demonstrating that Americans owned guns in case they had to fight the Federal government.
— Alex Knapp · Mar 1, 07:01 AM · #
Can anyone pinpoint exactly when conservative intellectuals started getting dumber? I don’t mean allowing stupid rightwingers into the commentariat. That’s largely the product of the enormous expansion of outlets for the public discourse. I mean when did folks like VDH, who’ve demonstrated both intellect and education in other areas, start offering up primitively flawed arguments as a matter of course when it comes to politics. Did 9/11 just knock 75 IQ points out of all their heads?
Mike
— MBunge · Mar 1, 04:50 PM · #
Alex Knapp wrote:
This is even dumber than missing slavery. American citizens were armed because they used muskets for hunting, or because they were required to be armed as members of the state militia. I defy Mr. Hanson to provide any documentation demonstrating that Americans owned guns in case they had to fight the Federal government.
Umm…the Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War? I’m not condoning either of these revolts, but their participants certainly understood their actions as justified armed resistance to the federal government in the spirit of ’76.
Mike Bunge wrote:
I mean when did folks like VDH, who’ve demonstrated both intellect and education in other areas, start offering up primitively flawed arguments as a matter of course when it comes to politics.
Hanson is a good author and historian, but a remarkably bad columnist. It’s amazing how utterly tone-deaf he can be and how consistently assumes that anyone who disagrees with him must be an Amurka-hatin’-lefty.
— Tom · Mar 1, 05:10 PM · #
This country was founded upon slavery, indentured servitude, and sharecropping (the latter two affecting many of the poor whites who came to the Colonies in the late 17th and 18th centuries). To say nothing of the history of the Chinese, or the Irish, the Poles, and so on, when they began coming in waves; it’s like he’s never read an essay on the Industrial Revolution and westward expansion. What kind of dope is Professor Hanson smoking?
— Erik Vanderhoff · Mar 1, 05:24 PM · #
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, exceptional claims require exceptional proof.
— Bob · Mar 1, 06:17 PM · #
I agree that VDH is has gotten way dumber. He was aways pretty dumb but when OBama got elected he must have had a stroke or something. Reading the things he has written about Obama, it’s really easy to think stroke induced demitia.
But what is more interesting ot me is why is patriotism so important to conservatives. What is it about conservatives that make fealty to the group so important? Fealty to the group, fealty to authority, fealty to tradition…. They just love the feeling of fealty.
Why give a crap if america is exceptional or not? ANd by exceptional they mean “better,” as in America is better than France. As in Kobe is better than Labron. It’s stupid. It’s not productive thinking. Operating with the idea that America is better than France and that this is really important makes me dumber.
I have always said that ideology is really personality and the conservative obsession with patriotism is one of the best indicators of this.— ol' one eye · Mar 1, 07:56 PM · #
Another piece of conventional wisdom from Conor. Hey Conor, remember me? I’m the guy you were arguing with at Culture 11 over the impending Obama presidency. Specifically, I took issue with your often-repeated claim that Obama would govern from the center, be “pragmatic,” “moderate,” and so forth. I said that he had no reason to do so, since he was bound to win overwhelming majorities in Congress, along with the presidency.
Again, I took issue with your insistence on the then-future Obama administration mounting investigations against Bush administration officials involved in the enhanced interrogation program (among other things).
Now that more than a year has gone by, and it’s obvious to anyone that Obama is not “governing from the center,” and John Yoo has been vindicated, I ask you, do you think you had it wrong back then? If so, then what was your mistake?
The existence of slavery, sharecropping, or indentured servitude does not contradict VDH’s statement that there was no peasantry, as in Europe. Slaves, sharecroppers or indentured servants are not peasants. For example, in Europe, there were all four classes of people at one time or another.
All the historians here should note the role firearm possession has played in the development of democracy. They are not called the great equalizers for nothing: they effectively equalized the status of the peasant and the noble, who, before firearms, had the monopoly on ownership of arms. More that that, only the nobles had the time to train properly in the use of arms. This training—with swords, shields, horses, etc—effectively took a lifetime. The peasant was simply outclassed and had to watch in impotence as the nobles burned his house and raped his wife and daughters. With a firearm in his possession, the stakes are raise unacceptably for the nobles.
— Roque Nuevo · Mar 1, 10:45 PM · #
In answer to the questions about VDH’s dumbness: It’s not really a question of intelligence, but one of honesty and authenticity. VDH has an agenda which motives him to exclude information that opposes his ideology. Fortunately for him (and unfortunately for the profession of History), his audience as a columnist consists of idiots. In other words, he’s a smart man taking advantage of the stupid. He knows that he can lie to them, so he does so in order to fool them into supporting his agenda.
This practice has indeed become his defining characteristic of late, making him utterly inessential reading. Countering his material is about as productive and effective as arguing with Rush Limbaugh’s audience of morons. It’s so exhausting that one hungers for better things to do with one’s time.
— Ray Butlers · Mar 1, 11:01 PM · #
“In other words, he’s a smart man taking advantage of the stupid.”
It may start out that way, but you eventually are what you do. If you persist in making stupid and/or irrational arguments, those will become the only arguments you can understand.
Mike
— MBunge · Mar 2, 12:43 AM · #
“Hey Conor, remember me? I’m the guy you were arguing with at Culture 11 over the impending Obama presidency.”
Surely since you state this in every comment you leave here, Conor must remember you. Odds are, like the rest of us, he doesn’t care. Take your mental illness elsewhere, man.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Mar 2, 05:13 PM · #
It’s also amazing the knee jerk opposition that anyone who holds to the concept of American Exceptionalism provokes. The US was a podunk backwater to Europe up until the 20th century and morphed into the world power it is today. Whatever the case was that caused it, it still remains that the US is unique in the world today and potentially throughout history.
Quit pickin’ nits guys.
— m00se · Mar 2, 05:48 PM · #
How would this person not qualify as a quasi-free one:
This INDENTURE Witnesseth that James Best a Laborer doth Voluntarily put himself Servant to Captain Stephen Jones Master of the Snow Sally to serve the said Stephen Jones and his Assigns, for and during the full Space, Time and Term of three Years from the first Day of the said James’ arrival in Philadelphia in AMERICA, during which Time or Term the said Master or his Assigns shall and will find and supply the said James with sufficient Meat, Drink, Apparel, Lodging and all other necessaries befitting such a Servant, and at the end and expiration of said Term, the said James to be made Free, and receive according to the Custom of the Country. Provided nevertheless, and these Presents are on this Condition, that if the said James shall pay the said Stephen Jones or his Assigns 15 Pounds British in twenty one Days after his arrival he shall be Free, and the above Indenture and every Clause therein, absolutely Void and of no Effect. In Witness whereof the said Parties have hereunto interchangeably put their Hands and Seals the 6th Day of July in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Three in the Presence of the Right Worshipful Mayor of the City of London.
Upon his arrival at the port of Philadelphia Jones then sold Best and some of his other indentured servants at auction:
Just imported, on board the Snow Sally, Captain Stephen Jones, Master, from England, A number of healthy, stout English and Welsh Servants and Redemptioners, and a few Palatines [Germans], amongst whom are the following tradesmen, viz. Blacksmiths, watch-makers, coppersmiths, taylors, shoemakers, ship-carpenters and caulkers, weavers, cabinet-makers, ship-joiners, nailers, engravers, copperplate printers, plasterers, bricklayers, sawyers and painters. Also schoolmasters, clerks and book-keepers, farmers and labourers, and some lively smart boys, fit for various other employments, whose times are to be disposed of. Enquire of the Captain on board the vessel, off Walnut-street wharff, or of MEASE and CALDWELL.
And the legal announcement that David Rittenhouse had purchased the rights to Best:
James Best. Who was under Indenture of Redemption to Captain Stephen Jones now cancelled in consideration of £ 15, paid for his Passage from London bound a servant to David Rittenhouse of the City of Philadelphia & assigns three years to befound all necessaries.
Considering that historical estimates figure that 50% of all immigrants to the colonies and post-revolution America from the British Isles and continental Europe were indentured I would say America has had a well understood concept of a quasi-free underclass since its inception.
— RIRedinPA · Mar 2, 08:00 PM · #
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