Alexis de Tocqueville

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Alexis de Tocqueville

• Democracy in America

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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 Napoleons
  coup.
• Main works
• The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856)
• Democracy in America (1835-40)

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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.

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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)

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• Europe ? America

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Providence

• The whole book has been written under the
  impression of a kind of religious dread produced
  in the authors 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)

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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)

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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)

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Tension

• Individuality Vs. Democratic Equality
• liberty

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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)

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• Sovereignty of the people

• Sovereignty of Mankind
• Based upon justice and reason

Vs.
(Compare with Rousseaus General Will)
12
Democracys 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?
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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)

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Equality Mediocrity

• When I survey this countless multitude of
  beings, shaped in each others 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)

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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?
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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)

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A New Aristocracy?

• What is the aristocracy of manufacturers?
• Have de Tocquevilles predictions come true?

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The Foreigners 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 travellers 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)