The American perspective has aspects which are typically ethnic in nature, and like with all ethnic groups, tend to be more forgiving of the self and less forgiving of the other. The general claim by any country that it is somehow a utopia, or otherwise free of illogical or unjust bias, is natually a part of the bias itself. There can be some honest debate as to whether an ethnocentrist view arises naturally from all cultures, or whether certain cultures more actively foster a self-image for self-serving reasons.

"American Exceptionalism"

The phrase is thought to have originated by Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book Democracy in America. Believers in "American exceptionalism" claim that it's a principle, inline with patriotism, which both prescribes and describes an image of America as the prime beacon for hope and opportunity in the world.

While the claim has its populist resonance, it is nevertheless a rather thinly disguised polemic. Contrarians to "American exceptionalism" claim it is little more than crude nationalist propaganda.

The notion of "American exceptionalism," like its precedents, also has lore attached to it, claiming it's "roots" trace back to an origin of righteousness and hardship, with a religious foundation that defined a path of success for the American development over the next few centuries. While the notion of an "American character" and American spirit" are inflated, facts like enormous, easy-to-grab land-resources are ignored in "American exceptionalism." A factual look at early American history shows plainly the reasons for America's founding and continued growth—reasons such as the incentive of land grants to (white) settlers, and the divisive protocols which exploited the use of this land to generate labor and soon economic wealth. The view of "American exceptionalism," again, chooses to ignore this basic series of facts in favor of a mythology centered around divine destiny, though unlike earlier mythology, with the addition of the Protestant ethic:

"...Puritans embraced a middle ground between strict predestination and looser theology. They believed that God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to lead the other nations of the earth. One Puritan leader, John Winthrop, expressed this idea with the metaphor of a "City on a Hill" - that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world.

The mythos above tends to describe a point in Protestant Christian history, where the importance of the human will rose to find a place within what had previously been only "decided by God." This was actually a radical departure from previous view, as before, the mythology of times was mythology without history. With the advent of Western expansionalism came the recording of a new and detailed kind of history, one which for generations immediately following would have considerably more resonance than the earlier lore. Just as television news today has the perception of being more authoritative or "real" than newspapers or history books, so too did the difference between middle-age lore and expansionalist reports have different impact.

The inclusion of religion in the current record (of the time) was the simply continuity of the desired and unburdensome elements of old-world religion. The role of the Protestant ethic in shaping American culture was no doubt significantly more pronounced from its role in Europe, simply because there was no vocal opposition, and the opposition by Native Americans in self-defense would prove to be unable to hold back the onslaught of European settlers.

The American Revolutionary War is claimed by "Exceptionalists" . The intellectuals of the Revolution, such as Thomas Paine, for the first time expressed the belief that America was not just an extension of Europe but a new land, a country of nearly unlimited potential and opportunity that was being abused by the British mother country they had outgrown. Although few common Americans would have agreed with them at the time, they laid the intellectual foundations for the Revolutionary concept of American Exceptionalism.

Other examples of Nationalist Myth

Support for the "American exceptionalism" doctrine

Those who believe in American Exceptionalism argue that there are many ways that the United States clearly differs from the European world that it emerged from.

One claim is that while much of European history was wracked with religious wars and conflicts, with tension between Protestants and Catholics ran high, and often erupted into bloody conflicts like the French Wars of Religion, the Spanish Inquisition, the persecution of Protestants under Mary I of England, and the Thirty Years War, the United States has been a religiously pluralistic country since its founding, with no experience of large-scale religious wars. This argument is weakened by a reliance on comparing events from 16th and 17th century European history with later American history, and by a history of small-scale religious persecution ranging from attacks on the followers of Anne Hutchinson by the Puritans to the Utah War of the late 19th century, but it does reflect an important aspect of America's self-image that is not shared by many nations.

Marxist Theory of American exceptionalism

Proponents of American exceptionalism