In our century, a major fault line in US politics has been the question of “American exceptionalism,” meaning the unique excellence or mission of the USA–“the notion that America is freer and more democratic than any other nation, and for that reason, a model, vindicator, and at times the chief defender of ordered liberty and self-government in the world” (Stanley Kurtz).

As I observed in 2010, “Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum agree: the president and his allies in Washington deny ‘American exceptionalism’ in a way that is unprecedented (Huckabee), ‘truly alarming’ (Gingrich), or ‘misguided and bankrupt’ (Romney).”

This was ironic, since Barack Obama had come to national attention with a riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in defense of nothing other than … American exceptionalism. “Tonight,” Senator Obama had said, “we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation.” Throughout his presidency, he often spoke on the same theme. In 2014, he said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.” And yet accusing him of failing to understand–or of actively undermining–America’s unique excellence became a competitive sport on the right.

But there is an important group that doesn’t really believe in American exceptionalism: the American public. Here is a result from this week’s Wall Street Journal/NBC poll:

It looks as if most Americans think the US is above average as a place to live (I agree, by the way), but that just over a quarter think it’s the single best place in the world. Asked to rate the “national character,” the median respondent gives us a score of 5 out of 10, down from 6 out of 10 in 1998. This survey question makes no explicit mention of other countries, and it’s possible that people would rate every other nation’s character lower than ours–but that seems unlikely for the people who rate us 5 or lower.

The claim that America is “is freer and more democratic than any other nation” is empirical. It begs for comparative statistics. Freedom House rates the US 89 on freedom, a good score but 11 points below Sweden’s perfect 100. Maybe they’re wrong, but ranking the US number one in the world certainly requires evidence. It’s not a test of patriotism but a hypothesis about the world.

One might focus instead on prosperity and economic dynamism. But the enormous comparative advantages that we held as result of the Second World War have faded away, and we now represent just 4% of the population of a competitive world in which lots of nations, small and large, inevitably score economic successes.

This gap between a rhetoric of unique superiority and the facts seems to cause profound anxiety. In 2016, Trump positioned himself as the candidate who believed that the US should be better than every other nation but had lost that status due to feckless politicians. He often asserts that we are worse off today than anyone else–for example, that our tax rates are uniquely high, as if we were the socialist exception in a neoliberal world. Clinton took the view that we were “already great.”

Both positions could be seen as responses to anxiety. Valid criticisms of the American past (slavery and segregation, especially) have perhaps fueled this anxiety by suggesting that we were never exceptionally great to start with. That’s a raw point for people who think that our exceptionalism is threatened.

Three issues to think about:

• To what extent is the US actually “exceptional”–not in the sense of better, but different? We are unusual (but not actually unique) in our degree of racial diversity. We have the oldest constitution in the world. We have no way to call an early election to end a failing administration. We have never had a socialist government, but our left has a robust alternative tradition of pluralist populism. We are the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement and its philosophy of politics. We fought a civil war over the question of slavery in which 750,000 died. We tend to think of ourselves as a commercial republic instead of, for example, a social democracy, a social market economy, or a consensus model. We may once have had a high degree of economic mobility, but now we do not. We once had a very strong voluntary sector, but it, too, is now probably weaker than those in other nations. We are a Petri dish for new religions, some messianic in nature; and we are more religious than other advanced economies. These are just examples of ways that we are, or once were, unusual.
• Underlying most claims of exceptionalism are normative positions: assertions that some aspects of our society are not just unusual, but valuable. What values that are plausibly associated with the US are worthy of praise? Should we be proud because we have a tradition of laissez-faire economic policies? Or because of the New Deal and its legacies?
• What attitude should an American citizen hold toward the US Republic? Favoritism over other countries? An even-handed and detached stance toward the US as just one of many countries? For myself, I would say: a special, focused responsibility for awakening the better angels of our nature.

See also: the new history wars; American exceptionalism; British exceptionalism: how the UK is different from Europe; should we teach patriotism?; and a palindrome (a poem on America).

I read Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell a decade ago (blog post here) and recently watched the BBC adaptation. I’d agree with Kate Nepveu that the miniseries is worth watching even though the changes in plot make it less compelling and less politically trenchant than the book. The two main women and the major character of color, Stephen Black, become more passive and less impressive in the miniseries than they are in the novel.

I still have’t seen anyone else draw the parallel that struck me as obvious when I read the book in 2007. I shouldn’t have called it an “allegory” of the Industrial Revolution because that would imply a mechanical, one-to-one correspondence between magic in Jonathan Strange and industrialization in Britain ca. 1800. But I think that Clarke is playing with the similarities.

Essential components of the industrial economy, such as the spinning jenny (1770), the modern steam engine (1778), iron-rolling (1783), and the manufacture of sodium carbonate (1791) were typically invented by gentlemen-amateurs in Northern England or Lowland Scotland. These men won patents and drew attention for their small miracles of automation: making devices that moved on their own. They often formed clubs and societies. The Napoleonic Wars promoted industrialization: the first mass-produced components were pulley blocks for Royal Navy ships. But it was only as these wars ended that many small inventions came together to transform the world. Latent power was unleashed from under the earth, blackening the skies. New roads (made of iron rails) suddenly crisscrossed the land, allowing rapid movement. The people who understood and controlled these new powers and resources became the rulers of Britain, supplanting the old owners of ordinary land. And it all depended ultimately on the slave trade and the labor of Africans.

I won’t give away the plot, but it seems to me that magic follows the same trajectory in the world of Jonathan Strange. Northern gentlemen experimenters, the revelation of powers dormant underground, the influence of the Napoleonic Wars, rapid movement on the king’s new roads, a key role for a former slave, and the resulting social upheaval all resemble the Industrial Revolution. The main contrast is that magic in Clarke’s world is a medieval power rediscovered or revived by Mr Strange and Mr Norrell. Notwithstanding a scattered heritage of cottage industries and Cornish mining, industrial manufacturing was something truly new after 1770. The medieval background gives Clarke’s world an appealing spookiness, but I still think that industrial history is what interests her.