March 17th, 2010 at 3:21 pm

Miley Cyrus Is A Better Political Philosopher Than Any Writer For The National Review

Matt Yglesias compares the  evocations of American exceptionalism in Miley Cyrus’ ‘Party In The USA’ and a Ramesh Ponnuru-Rich Lowry piece in the National Review:

While hacks like Ponnuru & Lowry try to identify Americanness with a particular form of conservative politics, the fact of the matter is that America’s geographic and ethnic diversity entails political diversity. Their effort to identity the United States with opposition to mass transit, for example, founders on the fact that our largest and most important city is also one of the most transit-oriented city in the world.

“Party,” more plausibly, invokes popular music as a source of unity, capable of transcending both regional and racial (”And a Jay-Z song was on,” turned into “a Michael song” in her performance at the Teen Choice awards) divisions. The irony, however, is that American popular culture is famously global. The mere fact that a Jay-Z song is on does not, in fact, provide any particular reason to believe that a given party is taking place in the USA. Jay-Z will be playing in person in Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom this summer. What’s more, the story of American popular culture is actually a story in which non-Americans play decisive roles. Rock and Roll is a quintessentially American cultural form, and yet arguably its most famous practitioners are from England. A Britney song was on, but was the song written by a Swedish guy?

This, however, is the sense in which America is truly exceptional in a normatively valorizable way, and not merely “different from other places” (as all places are). The construction of an idiom capable of recognizably creating parties in the USA all across this vast nation has produced a culture robust enough to conquer the world. What’s more, it’s a culture that’s accessible enough that is elements are practiced all over the world.

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