American Exceptionalism

J.H. Beall

St. John’s College

Annapolis, Maryland

A somewhat truncated version of this essay was published in the Proceedings of Statistics, Science, and Public Policy, Queens University, October 2023. The author is grateful to Dr. Agnes Herzberg for her encouragement and editorial advice.

I became aware of the idea of “American Exceptionalism” some decades ago and in a remarkable way. I was working with colleagues who were becoming friends over the course of developing a theoretical understanding of astrophysical jets, those remarkable structures that show themselves as connecting the cores of active galaxies and quasars with even larger structures called giant radio galaxies. I had been invited to lecture and collaborate with two senior professors at a university behind what was then called the “Iron Curtain”.

I had spent a couple of weeks at their university (which shall remain nameless here) and besides engaging in some rather esoteric physics, we had begun to become friends. Of course there were limits. We were in the middle of a not-so-cold war, and certain customaries had to be observed. In addition to the two professors, there was a young graduate student, a soon to be minted Ph.D. in Physics. He was my guide to various places and helped me use the public transport then available.

At one point, after observing my method of dealing with a hotel clerk, he said that no one in his country would ever be able to resolve that situation. I was surprised at his comment, and I asked him why.

His response was shocking. He thought his people and mine were different. His people were the ones who stayed behind on the European continent. Mine had loaded themselves into ships and sailed to settle a new world. He thought his people were genetically different from mine.

You recognize that this young man was an accomplished scientist, even at that time, and that he has continued that career. And I of course as an American, I believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings. My proselytizing instincts kicked into overddrive. We had some great conversations, but I don’t think I ever converted him to my equalizing and capitalist ways.

So what did he see in us? What was exceptional to him about the American experiment. Perhaps the most direct way of addressing this is as follows: what is American Exceptionalism?

The phrase “American Exceptionalism” has some controversy associated with it, even among Americans. Perhaps I should explain.

On one hand, we hear the phrase from so-called “coastal elites”, friends who describe themselves as exemplars of aristocratic (some would say oligarchical) virtues or excellencies.

A recent example from a couple of Unites States election cycles ago will suffice. The candidate, then in California, opined that “we are the ones we have been waiting for”. In this particular example, the speaker was of a Democratic bent, but the same sensibilities can be found with individuals of any political stripe. And I can verify that this actually happened, despite the breathtaking arrogance of such a statement.

It is quite true that the general theme of these feelings of self-admiration can be embarrassing to most sensible people, even though self-love (amour propre) can be a positive aspect of Pascal’s aphorisms.

But not all exceptionalism comes at California’s $1000+ a plate political dinners. Some species of exceptionalism can come from common folk, people living in the middle of Ohio or Kansas or South-East Washington, DC, who will go miles out of their way to help a complete stranger. These same people will go a good deal further to help a friend.

This reminds me of a recent picture I came across of Sam Clemens and John T. Lewis in their later years. The photograph shows both men lounging on a bench in summer in suits with vests but with jackets set aside. The posture is of two old friends well past trying to impress anyone, and comfortable in their own circumstances, both free in a way only friends can be. They know one another and know one another well. Seeing this photograph, one cannot help but be reminded of another friendship, drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In making this extension of the story in Clenens’ yarn, I do take singular risks. The author claims that anyone trying to draw any meanings from the text will be “shot”.

But it is not too much to say that Clemens (aka Twain) took his admiration for Lewes and drew it into the portrayal of Jim, a runaway slave who joined Huck on a raft trip down the Mississippi. In the flow of that inexorable river, we move toward Huck and Jim’s growing friendship and some deep and abiding revelations about the nature of the American spirit.

Pairing Huck and Jim in an essay is not original. The two characters are a taproot of academic essays, and have been since Huckleberry Finn was published in the mid-1800s. This is not without controversy, however. Even the sculpture of Huck and Jim portrayed in Charles Ray’s masterpiece, which draws together these two characters, has offended some delicate sensibilities.

So how can this be related to American Excetionalism?

The exceptionalism I have in mind is not that of the academic (or otherwise) elites. It is not a creature of either coast of the United States of America. It is from a long, snake-like river that threads through the heart of America. And it comes from no high citadel or ivory tower. It draws its inspiration from a terribly moral young man (Huck) who slowly realizes that Jim is his friend.

Curiously, that friendship is not from a Tom-Sawyer-like intellectual remove. Huck and Jim become friends on that raft, floating down the Mississippi.

On that raft exactly at the waterline, the true equality of the American spirit is born. At that level, Huck and Jim become friends. When that happens, Huck, a very moral young man, becomes aware that he is not going to turn Jim in, even though he “knows” that to not do so is “wrong”. What he says to himself is critical. It doesn’t matter to Huck that he’s going to Hell. He’ll help Jim stay free.

That is the real American Exceptionalism.

Of course, much like the Mississippi River, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has everything in it: even the bodies of our long-suffering elites. In the novel, they are represented (not very sympathetically) by the Duke and Dauphin, pretend aristocrats who are out to cheat widows and bereaved children and spinsters out of every penny they have managed to glean from a hard-scrabble lifetime.

But they are found out. And unceremoniously they are tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a literal rail. Given their moral compass, one cannot help but cheer them on their way.

Less of a comeuppence is dealt to Huck’s old friend, Tom Sawyer. But he is even more inhuman in the portrayal he is given, wherein (even though he already knowd Jim has been given his freedom, Tom witholds this information in order to arrange a sensless episode ln which Jim is held captive for Tom’s banal games. One thinks of our East and West Coast elites, who for their own comfort allow the Charybdis of poverty to swallow whole families and communities like those portrayed in J.D. Vance's “Hillbilly Elegy”.

Yet somehow, Jim manages to survive and become free, as do residents in the hills and rolling fields of West Virginia and Ohio and further on across the great mid-west.

Of course the Tom Sawyers of our own epoch do need America’s sons and daughters to fight their wars and work in their factories. And it is remarkable, or should I say exceptional, that year after year, generation after generation, these truly exceptional people recognize what they do in fact manifest: a brave and noble people whose exceptionalism begins at the equality of the waterline, drifting down a slow and magnificent river toward a destiny that while not yet realized is nevertheless as inevitable as the time when the Mississippi allows itself to flow into the sea.

J.H. Beall

Davidsonville, Maryland