Every time you flip on a light switch, you are literally unleashing evidence the idea of American exceptionalism, at least in its traditionally accepted form, is false.
Thomas Edison, though we still credit him in history books with being the father of modern electricity, actually lost the race to bring reliable electric power to American businesses and households. Despite being innovative, native born and well-funded, Edison surrendered what might well have been his place in American culture to the Croatian immigrant Nikola Tesla.
This happened primarily because Edison didn’t adapt to new information to build on his idea. Instead, he became entrenched in thinking his idea was best because it was first. And when challenged, he used scare tactics to defame his competition in the public square — resorting even to electrocuting an elephant before a live audience using Tesla’s method to “prove” it was unsafe.
But, to this day, the technology we use to power our world is based on Tesla’s alternating current, not Edison’s direct current. May the executed elephant rest in peace, all the same.
This example is one of many cautionary tales in our country’s history of how American exceptionalism isn’t achieved by birthright. What we’ve seen recently with the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, is another — albeit much darker — example.
American exceptionalism is real, but it doesn’t belong to a certain race, gender, religion, nativity or socio-economic status. It doesn’t have room for a master race, a state religion or any ideology that sets the comfort and traditions of one group over the safety, education and equality of another.
The idea, and practice, of true American exceptionalism is born from accepting the tired, poor and hungry from every corner of the world. It’s reared in the practice of learning from our mistakes — things like slavery, segregation, Prohibition, the handling of the Vietnam War — and growing because of them, rather than dooming ourselves to repeat them. It’s fed by asking questions, not shouting answers. And it rests in the dreams of a melting pot of people and cultures continuing to move our still young democratic experiment toward another sunrise.
If American exceptionalism dies, it won’t be because of bad hombres coming from the south or terrorism from the Middle East. It won’t be because white public schools “took prayer out” and let black children in. It won’t be because of Obama and the “Liberal Left” or Trump and the “Radical Right.” It will be because we abandoned a much greater ideal I believe the Founding Fathers held closest to their heart — that each generation of Americans leave this nation better than they found it.
We stand ever more precariously on the edge of allowing a morphed view of the past, and a convenient definition of “American tradition,” to drag us to a place that’s not all that exceptional. How we meet this challenge, especially the level of tolerance and inclusiveness we apply while doing so, may very well define what it means to be American for generations to come.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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