"American exceptionalism did not only define the U.S. as a special nation among lesser nations; it also demanded that all Americans believe they, too, were somehow superior to others.
How could I, as an American, understand a foreign people, when unconsciously I did not extend the most basic faith to other people that I extended to myself? This was a limitation that was beyond racism, beyond prejudice and beyond ignorance. This was a kind of nationalism so insidious that I had not known to call it nationalism; this was a self-delusion so complete that I could not see where it began and ended, could not root it out, could not destroy it."
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| Suzy Hansen Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World |
