Theorized

The idea of "the American Experiment" is a way of invoking the idea of the United States as being somehow exceptional, and I've already noted my general discomfort with the whole concept. But if it's taken seriously for a moment, that raises, at least for me, a question: What is, or was, "the American Hypothesis?"

American patriotism (and perhaps this is true of patriotism everywhere else, for that matter) tends towards the idealistic; it sees the United States as an ideal place, and views invocations of the reality of the situation as a form of slander. For many self-styled patriots, the idea that they have the same incentives, good and bad, as people anywhere else in the world may as well be blasphemy. And this lends itself towards a hypothesis that Americans are, or should be, simply better than everyone else. And that this state if being better translates into be more deserving.

The general problem with hypotheses of virtue is that it's difficult to cast them as aspirational; if I see myself as aspiring to, say, honesty, I first have to concede that I am not an honest person, even if I must necessarily think that I can get there. And so I think that to the degree that "the American Hypothesis" is one that a nation can ensure that strength, unity, self-reliance and virtue occur naturally in its people, it has to already have come about. And so "the American Experiment" is, more than anything else, simply the proof of that.

Which, as I noted, often means treating the messy reality of humanity as either fabricated or a characteristic of an unworthy other in the midst of the "real Americans." Election cycles have become times when those segments of the American populace with the most distrust of one another make their presence known. In part, because this how elections are won. Here in Washington State, the top-two primary system means that it's possible to have two candidates of the same party face off in a general election. And so I've been receiving mailers from backers of one Democratic office-seeker accusing the other Democratic candidate of being in league with the forces of conservatism and "special interests," because it's their candidate's only real chance of winning the contest. Still, however, the effect is to call upon people to see themselves as one of the "good ones," and to cast others as "bad people," over what are likely very minor differences in policy.

With this general election cycle coming to a close (and maybe there being a breather before the next one) the current set of arguments over what the nation is attempting to prove, to itself and/or the rest of the world, are winding down. But there still won't be a consensus on what the overall hypothesis is, and whether it's still current. So it will simply be fought out again in the run-up to the next time the polls open.