On Being Oh So Special

Trey Smith

That is the imperial mind at work. Its premises are often embraced implicitly rather than knowingly: American lives are inherently more valuable; foreign lives are expendable in pursuit of American interests; the U.S. has the inalienable right to take action in other countries that nobody is allowed to take in the U.S. (just imagine: “An Iranian drone fired two missiles at a bakery in the northwest U.S. Saturday and killed four suspected militants, Iranian officials said, as Iran pushed on with its drone campaign despite American demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week” or “Thirty five women and children were killed by a Yemeni cruise missile armed with cluster bombs which struck an alleged Marine training camp in Texas”).
~ from The Imperial Mind by Glenn Greenwald ~

If you want to know why a philosophy (or religion) like Taoism finds it so difficult to gain traction in the US, the above paragraph really sums it up. We Americans see ourselves as exceptional and so the vast majority of my countrymen need a belief system that legitimizes the need to feel special. Christianity and Judaism fit the bill as the starring characters of the Bible are the Chosen People.

In Christian parlance, the faithful are the elect. A true Christian is different than other people because he/she enjoys an extra special relationship with the creator. Many Christians hold to the belief that once saved, always saved. Phrased slightly differently, it comes off as once special, always special.

With this idea of American Exceptional embedded in the minds of most Americans, why turn to a philosophy that rather explicitly points out that either no one is special or everyone is? From the Taoist perspective, life is a level playing field. As Lao Tzu points out, the sage is good to the good AND the bad, nice to the nice and the NOT so nice. Tao favors no one.

And that simply doesn't fit into the American ethos.