As a years-long assiduous follower of American academia and thinkers I was somehow misled into believing that the United States is a nation driven by nobility; my mind was blinded to the widespread cruelty in American society. I credit President Donald Trump’s nasty behavior during his presidential tenure for overcoming my obliviousness, allowing me, finally, to notice that the U.S. even declines to employ the remedy of knowledge and noble values that it prescribes to the rest of the world!
American Universities and the knowledge they generate are “heaven on earth”! They are designed to nurture and fulfill their students mentally, physically, and spiritually with the aim of stimulating them to produce ideas and innovations to make this world a better place, result in having 40 percent of all Nobel Prize winners in diversified fields. Yet American executives and lawmakers don’t turn to Academia’s substance and values when shaping their policies or handling crises; U.S. decisions are formulated based on interests, practicalities and leverage – with the option of having them aggrandized by well-educated citizens.
“American Exceptionalism”, which refers to the belief that the U.S. has a destiny and responsibility towards the rest of the world, is the ultimate American society fairytale! The fact that a nation that abides by the values of individual liberty, entrepreneurship and a strong economy is a superpower does not necessarily mean that these attributes are designed to better serve the world. In fact, they could be America’s means to economic growth and world domination!
The myth of “American Exceptionalism” is often countered with the “World Reality” concept that holds that the U.S. must deal with the world as it is, which necessitates compromising American values; a proposition that overlooks the possibility that the United States might be shaping, or at least contributing to form, the development of world cruelty to better suit American interests, as best exemplified by American arms sales. The argument is that refraining from exporting weapons to nations engaged in warfare will only lead to expanding arms sales by America’s rivals – in other words, people are better off fighting and dying with American weapons than with those of U.S. adversaries.
Moreover, although consecutive United States administrations have worked to charm the world with American knowledge and innovation supremacy, U.S. interests have usually surpassed any kind of noble motivation. The USAID budget allocation is a clear example; it has been providing my country, Egypt, with a steady military assistance of USD 1.3 billion annually for over four decades. However, the amount of U.S. economic aid to Egypt, which used to be quite close to the amount of military assistance, has been declining regularly, dropping to under USD 150 million yearly–an indication of the United States’ value to each field!
In any given industry, respective executives naturally tend to produce products that capitalize on the latest industrial knowledge and technology. Politics is an exception here; politicians tend to use their political leverage to serve their narrow self-interests –going so far as to mislead their citizens by spreading false information. The United States’ invasion of Iraq is a clear example of political manipulation that only served President George W. Bush’s desire for war, at the expense of the entire Iraqi population.
The liberties that American citizens enjoy, and their ability to fulfill individual interests while living in their own isolated bubble, have mentally distanced Americans from thinking of the true mission of their nation! The U.S. enables academics to advocate for peace and prosperity in their books, while allowing arms manufacturers to produce and export their lethal products. Americans are living in a hypocritical, harmonized society, accepting their supremacy, both in the area of noble values and the field of arms proliferation, but unaware of the negative impact the later has on the rest of the world.
President Trump’s naturally impulsive ruling behavior, his failure to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the recent pardons he granted to a number of his lawbreaker allies, his entertainment of the possibility of applying martial law and finally inciting his supporters to invade the Capitol to prevent the Congress from certifying the election results – all these acts that consequently happened after losing the presidential election have not yet produced a critical mass that recognizes the deficiency of the American political structure. Ironically, seventy-four million Americans recently voted for Trump to stay on for another presidential term.
Noble American ambitions are an optional blessing offered to whoever wants to exploit them; American realism, however, is imposed on universal citizens. The United States’ supremacy in many fields and its dominant position in the world have failed to produce constructive policies that could make this world a better place. That said, there is some progress in the American scholarly field, where some have begun to use the term “invading Iraq” to define the U.S.’s intervention in Iraq – a sign of progress, but one that has not yet led to the development of a desperately needed new American mission that includes a more productive foreign policy.
