By Chloe Baker, Senior Opinions Editor
“India is my motherland, Israel is my fatherland, America is my dream land — and China and Pakistan are my hate land.”
This is what a member of the Jewish community in India said to me this summer upon learning that I was from the United States. While our conversation obviously consisted of more than this excellent one-liner, his description of America as his “dream land” nevertheless stuck with me. That simple phrase captures how so many people across the world think of America: as a dream.
His words reminded me of something that Americans are fortunate enough to lose sight of on a regular basis: our privilege. Maybe it’s because the grass is always greener on the other side, or perhaps we simply lack an awareness of how our country is spoken about in admiration by many abroad. We are the richest country in the world, a country where literacy, clean water and air conditioning are the norm, a country that enshrined the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. No, this country is not perfect. But if America is a “dream land” for so many, why don’t its own people see it that way anymore?
The official definition of American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is a “unique and even morally superior country for historical, ideological, or religious reasons.” Many who believe in this idea are also of the opinion that the United States should play a special role in global politics. The term “American exceptionalism” strikes a different chord in everyone. Some revile it as the worst of colonial self-delusions, as an idea which is both destructive and more than a little arrogant. Others wholeheartedly embrace it as a badge of pride, happily brushing America’s faults under the rug.
I offer an alternate perspective. I see American exceptionalism not as an unfounded sense of superiority amongst others, nor as a self-aggrandizing narrative of American faultlessness. Rather, it is a keen sense of responsibility.
It’s no secret that many young Americans no longer believe in the exceptional nature of the United States. The decay of national pride has been aggravated by the concerning rise in identity politics and polarization in recent years. “Americanness” has been politicized to the point where some associate patriotism with a specific party or politician, rather than equating it with principles of opportunity, liberty or democracy. For much of Gen Z, the “American Ideal” has become a smirk-inducing phrase, turning pride into embarrassment, or worse — guilt. White guilt, Western guilt, colonial guilt. Instead of recognizing American privilege as a feature of our liberal democracy and as a calling for moral responsibility, many see it as something they should be ashamed of. The result? A generation that, instead of aspiring toward the principles of the founding — which are the very thing that enshrined their right to express disaffection in the first place — often dismisses those principles entirely. A generation that fails to remember that exceptionalism doesn’t mean dominance, it means responsibility. Of course, much work remains to bridge the gap between the ideal and the real. But giving up on the aspiration, either due to self-satisfaction or despair, does everybody a disservice. What we can — and ought to — do is take what we have been blessed with and use it to make ourselves more well-rounded, compassionate, globally aware individuals.
Traveling abroad this summer, I was struck by how often America came up, and how it was often described with such admiration and love. I met children in the informal urban settlements of India who told me it was their dream to go to America. In Romania, on the Fourth of July, I saw locals waving American flags, and telling me how much they admire my country. It was striking to see patriotism alive and well overseas, far away from the land of the free and home of the brave. The narrative of decline we often hear at home is not necessarily true. The world still sees something in America that we as Americans may not always see in ourselves.
America is not a perfect country. It never has been, nor will it ever be. Criticism is valid, and even more so, welcomed. However, I often feel we forget that even being able to criticize and protest is due to our privilege of being a democracy. This begs the question of whether our ability to criticize blinds us to the freedoms we do have. Are we too comfortable with criticism, and not often reminded enough of what we are so blessed to be? Do we take privilege for granted because we have never had to dream of it?
These questions about privilege and responsibility became personal to me in India this summer. In both rural areas and cities, I found myself in a unique position. I became an object of fascination. I quite literally had strangers on the streets come up to me and ask for photos, I had people ask if they could touch my hair, I was flirted with and told that I was beautiful more times than I can count. At first, it was lighthearted, and even fun. I felt like a movie star. But suddenly, I thought about it in a completely different way. In Mumbai, in the midst of the most extreme poverty I have ever witnessed, strangers would approach me on the street, and instead of asking for photos, would beg me for food. I’ll never forget two young kids who followed my friends and me from a market all the way back to our hotel begging us for something to eat. I will never know if it was because of how we looked, because they heard us speaking English, or simply because we were outsiders, but in those moments, we were perceived as people who could help. Whether or not they knew anything about me, they saw me as someone with resources. Someone with privilege.
This is not about “white saviorism,” and I do not claim to have ever solved anyone’s problems, but what it did give me was a profound sense of responsibility. If I could be seen as someone who has the power to help others — based only on external factors like being American — then I want to always make sure that who I am on the inside matches, and even exceeds, that perception. To me, that’s what American exceptionalism means today. Not superiority, identity politics or political ideology, but a responsibility to use our privilege for good.
American exceptionalism is an idea that can be revived, and thought of in a completely different way. For too long and for too many it has been misunderstood and forgotten. We as young Americans would do better to reclaim it not as blind nationalism, but as a worthwhile challenge: to prove we are worthy of the privilege it gave us.
To those who cringe at the idea of American exceptionalism, I ask this: How can we take our privilege and, instead of feeling guilty for it, channel it into making positive change? Not in spite of being American, but because we are American, and because whether we realize it or not, the world is watching.
Photo Caption: House in a village in India.
Photo Credit: Chloe Baker