The Albatross of American Exceptionalism

American hubris is occasionally charming, sometimes entertaining, and usually a source of befuddlement. What is it that allows Americans to smugly ignore experts, do whatever they please, and then feel good about it? The United States, I predict, is going to have a terrible time limiting COVID-19 transmission because of this inherent sense of American exceptionalism.

There have been and currently are a number of factors in play here. Let's start with the very odd idea that what happens to human beings in other countries will somehow not happen the same way or worse in the United States. China has a lethal pandemic? Won't happen here. Italy having catastrophic issues. Well, they struggled in the Second World War, too. Iran suffering tremendous loss of human life? It won't happen in the States; we're culturally very different.

This irrational denial of a common vulnerability has fueled a false sense of preparedness and a delusional perception of how it will all turn out. When the quarantines are imposed, and they will be, will Americans respect the probabilistic nature of the science, or will they behave like adolescents at band camp after lights out? Will symptom-free Americans accept not only the threat to themselves, but that untested asymptomatic carriers are a dire menace to others? Will those without symptoms constrain their behavior? Will U.S. citizens have the behavioral discipline to follow expert-designed protocols in this era of expert bashing?

I suspect that the patchwork state-by-state responses are only adding to the problem. Ohio has imposed x and y, but Texas has not. Will Ohio residents feel cheated of their exceptionalism because their rules are more stringent than Texas? Will this be a motive to cheat?

What happens when people must face the reality that some aspects of American culture cannot cope with mass hospitalization as well as somewhere like South Korea? Will the United States adjust on the fly or will it adhere to current American cultural practices because, after all, Americans know best?

This sense of exceptionalism has contributed to science policies not in step with the rest of the Western world. As Tom Nichols explored in his The Death of Expertise, Americans take an almost gleeful joy in ignoring the cumulative advice of experts. We have arrived at a juncture when that advice must be followed.

In some ways, the U.S. is more poorly equipped to deal with COVID-19 than most other countries. There seem to be early indications that obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure are risk factors. Americans don't rate particularly well on these. We may be in real trouble.

Can U.S. citizens subordinate their sense of exceptionalism to follow and enforce the protocols that will ameliorate COVID-19's impact, or will a sense of exceptionalism weigh Americans down like an anchor around our necks? That is the million-lives question.


March 16, 2020
Bob Dietz