Well, "exceptionalism" can cover a range of things. It can be aggressive (the kind you mention on The Guardian), or it can be naive -- meaning spontaneous, unthinking, "innocent" in the sense not meaning any harm. And shades in between. But whatever shade, it's a considerable obstacle to communication.

And it's something that, over time, I thought would lessen. Looking back, young Americans of the Vietnam era I knew were (it seemed) more critical of the American Way (of life or whatever), less imbued with the unexamined conviction that there was just one natural way of doing things, than Americans now. In other words, things don't appear to have improved, meaning that America has remained as isolated as ever. What I sometimes get is the impression (and, please, this is not some superior, elitist, condescending, arrogant European position, and it is not coming from any certainty that the EU is a miracle-working solution to anybody's problems) of an American regression, by which I mean that (despite hi-tech etc) America has missed a train somewhere.