By David K. Shipler
It’s not our fault. We can’t help
it that others are less worthy, with flawed values, weak currencies, lame
economies, oppressive politics, and anemic militaries. We Americans can hardly
be held responsible for being “exceptional,” a relative term, after all. It’s
no badge of honor to be exceptional in such a world, I’ll tell you.
If you want to blame us, blame us
for being too good. Blame us for being the land of opportunity and justice and
unbridled freedom, for being a frontier on which the humblest masses can carve
prosperous futures. Blame us for doing battle for human rights and personal
dignity around the globe. Blame us for thinking up solutions and then putting
them into action. Blame us for winning all those Nobel Prizes every year.
And if you believe all that—if you
see our Nobel brilliance and don’t recognize our political ignorance—it's not
our fault. It’s the fault of those who imagine an America too beautiful to
exist. It’s the fault of those who think—or who once thought—that everything
that we have said about ourselves is true. It’s the fault of those around the
world who desperately yearn for us to be a perfect beacon, and who feel lost
and frightened when the light dims and flickers. People hate us when we fail to
be what they want us to be. They need heroes.
