The Importance Of American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is known as the idea that America is superior and the United States is the best country (“American exceptionalism,” Wikipedia). In the United States, patriotic pride is important to citizens. On the Fourth of July or America’s birthday, citizens set off fireworks and celebrate the birthday of their beloved country. Some citizens in the United States believe that the United States is superior to all the other country. This American exceptionalism influences how Americans perceive American history because they think that the United States is superior to everyone else. In the colonial era there are many versions of the same experience. For example there were different accounts of Christopher Columbus and his exploration, …show more content…
As reported by advocates of American exceptionalism, America is the best country because this country gives its citizen’s freedom and independence that others countries do not give. It is important to have freedom, but it came at a cost of killing natives and slaves who did not have rights that other people did have. America exceptionalism is important when we celebrate the Fourth of July because we should feel proud of our country on our birthday, but it clouds judgement when it comes to history and what has happened in this country’s past. We have treated citizens poorly because of our American exceptionalism. A sense of entitlement is associated with American exceptionalism because American citizens believe that they are the best at everything that they do which obscures their views of the history of the United States. America exceptionalism is influencing how citizens see the American …show more content…
American exceptionalism can distort how Americans see history from the Colonial Era. Many Americans do not know that Christopher Columbus and his explorers’ tortured and committed genocide against the Natives. Many citizens did not understand that Christopher Columbus committed such awful crime, his crimes were almost as bad as Hitler in World War II. Christopher Columbus was killing off a group of people and Hitler would make this same mistake years later. Many Americans in the Colonial Era did not understand what was wrong with slavery because of American exceptionalism. Settlers then did not understand that everyone should have rights. Part of the reason they treated the slaves so poorly was because they had so much American exceptionalism. During the rebellions in the Colonial Era most believed what the slaves and workers were doing was really wrong because they had a place and the slaves were not falling into place. The owners and bosses had an issue with the slaves having more control then they should have had in the owner’s opinion. American exceptionalism can distort how we see the past and the present. If we focus on what is right instead of the course of action that the United States takes. American exceptionalism limits how American citizens see the choices the government makes. Citizens do not see the whole picture, and some of the fault is because of the media because they show what they want seen. This action could be seen