By Derek Hunter
Sunday, September 15, 2013
It’s a sad day for the United States when the president
of any other country, but especially Russia, can outmaneuver our president and
successfully claim the moral high ground on anything. But that’s exactly what
happened thanks to President Obama's feckless “foreign policy by gaffe” – if
you can even it call it policy – toward Syria in recent weeks.
But in the course of seizing that high ground, Vladimir
Putin got a couple of things wrong.
He wrote a column in The New York Times Wednesday that
concluded, “My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked
by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation
on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American
exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America
different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to
encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long
democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their
policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s
blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Contrary to Putin's prose, American exceptionalism is not
based on “policies” but the principles upon which our nation was founded. For
what it’s worth, President Obama misunderstands this too, but the thought of a
Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB invoking God and citing the Declaration of
Independence is beyond ironic. Yet aside from what Putin gets wrong, he gets
one thing right, if only by accident.
When Putin wrote, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage
people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation,” he was, dare
I say it, right.
Our nation is exceptional, but you, me and every other
American – we’re not exceptional simply because we are American, even though
we, more than any other people on Earth, have the opportunity to become
exceptional through our actions.
This concept of individual exceptionalism simply through
the act of existing is the greatest threat to American exceptionalism we face
today.
We are raising a generation of people to believe they are
special, that like every child in Lake Wobegon they’re all “above average.” Of
course that’s not only impossible, it’s dangerous.
This “participation ribbon generation” being raised by
helicopter parents who have coddled their children to the point of removing
scores, statistics and standings from sports, will, if reality doesn’t set in,
breed into the future an attitude of entitlement more damaging than any
chemical weapon. In short, it will bring about the end of American
exceptionalism from within.
A story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal makes clear the
first members of participation ribbon generation are entering the workforce,
and it isn’t pretty. An ever-growing percentage of the few recent college
graduates who can find work in this economy are exhibiting a disturbing trend –
bringing their parents on job interviews and involving them in their adult
working life.
President Reagan famously said “Freedom is never more
than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in
the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do
the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and
our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men
were free.”
Today, self-esteem has replaced achievement, and children
are becoming more and more insulated from the realities of life, such as
failure, disappointment, losing, etc. Conversely, they’re also being insulated
from success, accomplishment, winning and the rest. This trend will soon grow
to the point children could grow up never having won or lost, failed or
succeeded, and never felt the highs and lows or learned the lessons of either.
A few weeks ago the CBC Radio ran a parody piece about a
soccer league that was removing the ball because "We want our children to
grow up learning that sport is not about competition, rather it's about using
your imagination. If you imagine you're good at soccer, then, you are." It
was originally not seen as parody because, well, society has gotten to the
point that it’s totally believable. How long until we have an “activity” (not a
sport because that implies competition) called “Imagination Ball” where the
rules are what you make them and everybody wins? It can’t be long…
We’re teaching children they are exceptional because they
are, which is wrong. What we should teach them is that, as Americans, they have
the best opportunity to do something exceptional – at least for now. But it’s
going to take a lot of hard work, wins and losses., successes and failures and,
above all, dedication.
Vladimir Putin was correct in one respect, “It is
extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional”
simply for being. Steve Jobs wasn’t born exceptional, but he certainly did
exceptional things while he was alive. The same is true for Barack Obama, and
everyone else you’ve ever heard of. We’re losing that which drives us, the
desire to be exceptional and do exceptional things, and replacing it with
entitlement through insulation from reality. Without strife there is no
accomplishment, without failure how do you measure success? If we don’t stop
this trend of coddling and enveloping kids in emotional bubble wrap, American
exceptionalism may only be one generation away from extinction.
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