Alexis de Tocqueville

1. Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America

2. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) • Count Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris to a family from the Norman nobility • His family both suffered and participated in the French revolution • Alexis’ father was a French prefect (acquitance with state administration) • De Tocqueville studied law • 1831/2 Travels to the U.S. with a friend (G. de Beaumont) to study the prison system • 1839-1848 member of the Chamber of Deputies • 1849 French Foreign Minister • Withdrawal from politics after Louis Napoleon’s coup. • Main works: • The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856) • Democracy in America (1835-40)

3. Introductory Chapter • “Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed.”

4. Towards World Democracy • “…the equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States, and… the democracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. (…) It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident… to others it seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.”(4)

5. Europe  America

6. Providence • “The whole book… has been written under the impression of a kind of religious dread produced in the author’s mind by the contemplation of so irresistible a revolution, which has advanced for centuries… It is not necessary that God himself should speak in order to disclose to us the unquestionable signs of His will; we can discern them in the habitual course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events…” (7)

7. Abrupt Change • “The existence of a democracy was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the supreme power. (…) … the democratic revolution has been effected only in the material parts of society, without that concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and manners which was necessary to render such a revolution benefitial. We have gotten a democracy, but without the conditions which lessen its vices and render its natural advantages more prominent…” (9)

8. Need for direction • “The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided… The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to warm its faith, if that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its energies; to substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities… A new science of politics is indispensable to a new world.” (8)

9. Tension • Individuality Vs. Democratic Equality & liberty

10. Tyranny of the majority • “I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has the right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?” (564)

11. Sovereignty of the people Sovereignty of Mankind Based upon justice and reason Vs. (Compare with Rousseau’s General Will)

12. Democracy’s Lights & Shadows • “In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.” (565) What are the positive and negative aspects of democracy, as de Tocqueville sees it developing in America?

13. Balance? • “The good things and the evils of life are more equally distributed in the world: great wealth tends to disappear, the number of small fortunes to increase; desires and gratifications are multiplied, but extraordinary prosperity and irremediable penury are alike unknown.” (576)

14. Equality… & Mediocrity • “When I survey this countless multitude of beings, shaped in each other’s likeness, amidst whom nothing rises and nothing falls, the sight of such universal uniformity saddens and chills me, and I am tempted to regret that state of society which has ceased to be.” (576)

15. Lack of Freedom of opinion: • “In America, the majority arises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion” (566); “The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast number of antireligious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United States, since it actually removes the wish of publishing them.”(567). What are the relationships between Equality and Freedom? Which one prevails in modern democracy, according to de Tocqueville?

16. Freedom & Art: • “If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason is very simple given in these facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America.” (566)

17. A New Aristocracy? • What is the “aristocracy of manufacturers”? • Have de Tocqueville’s predictions come true?

18. The Foreigner’s gaze • “A stranger frequently hears important truths at the fire-side of his host which the latter would perhaps conceal from the ear of friendship; he consoles himself with his guest for the silence to which he is restricted, and the shortness of the traveller’s stay takes away all fear of his indiscretion. I carefully noted every conversation of this nature as soon as it occurred, but these notes will never leave my writing-case; I had rather injure the success of my statements that add my name to the list of those strangers who repay the generous hospitality they have received by subsequent chagring and annoyance.” (17)