[deccan]

For those interested, the 14th November 2003 issue of The Economist includes an excellent survey of America. Some selected gems:

"From the outside, the best indication of American exceptionalism is military power. America spends more on defence than the next dozen countries combined. In the nearest approach to an explicit endorsement of exceptionalism in the public domain, the National Security Strategy of 2002 says America must ensure that its current military dominance - often described as the greatest since Rome's - is not even challenged, let alone surpassed."


"On this view, America is not exceptional because it is powerful; America is powerful because it is exceptional. And because what makes America different also keeps it rich and powerful, an administration that encourages American wealth and power will tend to encourage intrinsic exceptionalism."


"For most members of this administration, who are mainly from the heartland and the American west (Texas especially), Europe seems far away. They have not studied there. They do not follow German novels or French films. Indeed, for many of them, Europe is in some ways unserious. Its armies are a joke. Its people work short hours. They wear sandals and make chocolate."


"In terms of income per head, America is the wealthiest large industrial country. It is also the only western democracy to have practised slavery in the industrial era. It has the highest crime rate and highest rate of imprisonment (though crime, at least, is falling towards European levels). Its society is among the most religious in the world. Perhaps less obviously, Americans are more likely than almosy anyone else to join voluntary associations."


"America has one of the lowest tax rates among rich countries, the least generous public services, the highest military spending, the most lawyers per head, the highest proportion of young people at universities and the most persistent work ethic."


"Pew's pollsters sought to measure this belief by asking people in 44 countries, 'Do you agree or disagree that success is determined by forces outside your control?' In most countries, fewer than half though that success was within their control. In only two did more than 60% consider success a matter of individual effort: Canada and, by the widest margin, the United States."


"In the 2000 election, 63% of those of those who went to church more than once a week voted for George Bush; 61% of those who never went voted for Al Gore. About 70% of those who said abortion should always be available voted for Mr Gore; 74% of those who said it should always be illegal voted for Mr Bush. As Pete du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, pointed out, a map showing the sales and rentals of porn movies bore an eerie resemblance to the map of the 2000 election results."


"To Europeans, religion is the strangest and most disturbing feature of American exceptionalism. They worry that fundamentalists are hijacking the country. They find it extraordinary that three times as many Americans believe in the virgin birth as evolution. They fear that America will go on a 'crusade' (a term briefly used by Mr Bush himself) in the Muslim world or cut aid to poor countries lest it be used for birth control. The persistence of religion as a public force is all the more puzzling because it seems to run counter to historical trends. Like the philosophers of the Enlightenment, many Europeans argue that modernisation is the enemy of religion. As countries get richer, organised religion will decline. Secular Europe seems to fit that pattern. America does not."


"Over 80% of Americans say they believe in God, and 39% describe themselves as born-again Christians. Furthermore, 58% of Americans think that unless you believe in God, you cannot be a moral person."


"Over time, evangelicals have become more willing to engage in politics, too. White evangelical Protestants represent almost a third of registered voters now, up from slightly below a quarter in 1987. Their leaders have tried to unite the various evangelical churches as a political force, establishing the Moral Majority in 1979 and the Christian Coaltion in 1989. Their comments speak for themselves. Franklin Graham (Billy's son) called Islam 'a wicked religion'. The former president of the Southern Baptist Convention called the Prophet Muhammad 'a demon-possessed pedophile'."


"Some of the features that make America different cause problems within the country because they are divisive. True, qualities such as Americans' optimism and their stress on individual responsibility encourage unity. But other features are more partisan, including religiousity, small-government conservatism and perhaps intense patriotism. America is already deeply divided between traditional and secular cultures. The increase of partisanship, the culture of political victory at all costs, Mr Bush's own policies and his enormous appeal to traditional America all risk making matters worse.

Yet the contest of values is a source of strength as well as weakness for America. New opinions are always bubbling up; elite views are always being tested. This is messy but not acquiescent. De Tocqueville argued that the most insidious threat to any democracy was apathy, which conducts people 'by a longer, more secret, but surer path towards servitude.' America's culture wars help to bar that secret path."