A short piece by Paul Starobin in this month’s Atlantic Monthly caught my attention. It’s about American exceptionalism — do we have, anymore, any rational basis on which to claim that the United States is unique? Starobin says yes, at least in one aspect. Because the article may not be available to non-subscribers, I’ll reproduce in its entirety the point that struck me:
So is America still an exceptional country? The answer is yes. Our remaining exceptionalism resides in our culture’s striking combination of deep religious faith and nearly libertarian social permissiveness. These qualities don’t rub elbows easily, and their twinned presence separates the United States from nearly all other countries, rich or poor.
It is well known that Americans are more deeply religious than the citizens of just about any other affluent post-industrial society. In a typical assessment the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 59 percent of respondents in America answered the question "How important is religion in your life?" with "Very important," compared with 33 percent in the United Kingdom, 30 percent in Canada, 27 percent in Italy, 21 percent in Germany, 12 percent in Japan, and 11 percent in France. Across the past several decades religiosity has fallen steeply in all these places except America. And although Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that religion is very important to them, religious belief is still far more intense in the blue states than in the rich, modern patches of ground outside the United States.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the United States is unique in its religious character—just that it is unique among rich nations. In this regard America is more like, say, Chile and Turkey. We are also like those countries, and unlike Europe, in our attachment to certain conservative social values that tend to be associated with traditional religious conviction. Thus America, Chile, and Turkey—but generally not the countries of Western Europe—score high in surveys of such values as patriotism and the importance of family. These aspects of our culture are not vestigial; they are active and self-renewing.
Of course, America is culturally quite different from Chile and Turkey in other core respects. Unlike the inhabitants of those relatively poor countries, or of Egypt and Pakistan, most Americans are not preoccupied with economic survival. An emphasis on survival, economic or physical, tends to draw societies inward and make them fearful of outsiders and of change. Cultural conformity is often valued, and duty to family and community preferred over individual pursuits. Survivalist societies also tend to welcome state ownership of industry, and tend not to value educating women or protecting the environment. America has had survivalist periods, but since World War II survivalist values have held little sway.
Rather, Americans—like the Swedes, the French, the Australians, and other rich peoples—focus on the infinite variety of leisure and educational activities that our wealth permits us to pursue. The ascendant value in this domain is one that has always been dear to the American character: personal autonomy, the ability to do one’s own thing.
Having a foot in both fixed traditionalism and permissive modernism makes us still something of an outlier nation—astride both camps and at home in neither.
I think he’s right on. Reflecting on the seeming paradox of American values — that we value freedom to the point of permissiveness (especially in the area of freedom of expression, which is actually declining in other post-industrial democracies) but at the same time are, like it or not, largely made up of people of faith, many with strong traditionalist tendencies — gives me a flush of pride that I might, embarrassingly, have to call patriotism.
I love truth and charity; but I’m glad that we can, for the most part, spew many kinds of falsehoods and hatred without fear of legal retribution. I am a traditionalist with regard to sexual morality (and a bit of a federalist — I think states, not the feds, have the right to regulate extramarital sexual behavior); but really, I’m glad that sodomy laws are falling out of favor. I’m displeased with a great deal of what goes on in public schools and I think religious education is a great thing, but I object to religious content (as well as anti-religious content) in public-school speech, even religious content that I agree with.
I think it’s fair to say that most of the "hot-button" issues in American politics have to do with drawing a precise line where our so-called traditional values and freedom, or permissiveness, intersect. These tend to have openly religious people and non-religious people lining up on both sides.
And it’s not always clear which way lies liberty. Partly because, as Margaret Atwood wrote in The Handmaid’s Tale, there are two kinds of freedom, "freedom to" and "freedom from." Take, for example, speech-that-can-be-perceived-as-denigrating: The law can support one or the other. Either people can be free from hearing it directing it at them, or people can be free to speak it. Some countries have, in general or in specific cases, chosen the path of "freedom from;" Germany comes to mind (anti-semitic speech is expressly illegal there), and Canada (religious leaders and others have been fined and for speaking about religious beliefs relative to homosexual contact). But for the most part, here, we have gone the way of "freedom to."
Not everyone likes this, of course, and there are always attempts to silence the other side or at least confusion about it — Why are THEY allowed to speak their minds about this? Both left and right are guilty of this error from time to time. Wishing that one’s opponents would shut up is natural; I submit that wishing the government would shut one’s opponents up is, well, un-American.
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