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De la Démocratie en Amérique #2
Democracy in America: Volume 2
Volume 2 of the classic commentary on the influence of democracy on the intellect, feelings, and actions of Americans. With an introduction by Phillips Bradley.
506 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1840
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1588 people want to read
About the author
Alexis de Tocqueville
907 books1,253 followersAlexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, usually known as just Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat, diplomat, sociologist, political scientist, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals.
Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum.
Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals.
Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum.
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November 16, 2021
“Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large that holds the end of his chain.
By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.”
“I am trying to imagine under what novel features despotism may appear in the world. In the first place, I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest….
Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare charges for a man’s life, but on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasure, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?
Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepared men for all this, predisposing them to endure it and often even regard it as beneficial.
Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped him to its will, government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.”
----------
"Nos contemporains sont incessamment travaillés par deux passions ennemies : ils sentent le besoin d’être conduits et l’envie de rester libres. Ne pouvant détruire ni l’un ni l’autre de ces instincts contraires, ils s’efforcent de les satisfaire à la fois tous les deux. Ils imaginent un pouvoir unique, tutélaire, tout-puissant, mais élu par les citoyens. [...]
Il y a, de nos jours, beaucoup de gens qui s’accommodent très aisément de cette espèce de compromis entre le despotisme administratif et la souveraineté du peuple, et qui pensent avoir assez garanti la liberté des individus, quand c’est au pouvoir national qu’ils la livrent. Cela ne me suffit point. La nature du maître m’importe bien moins que l’obéissance."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, t.2 (1840)
------------
DE LA DÉMOCRATIE EN AMÉRIQUE, T.2.
Ce volume écrit quelque cinq ans après le premier revient sur les traits distinctifs du régime politique démocratique tel que l'envisage Tocqueville après son voyage de neuf mois aux États-Unis en 1831-2.
1) Tocqueville aborde l'influence générale de la démocratie :
- Sur l'industrie et le commerce,
- Sur l'évolution de la langue,
- Sur les objets que se donne la littérature du pays (l'humanité, l'avenir, les objets les plus vastes),
- Sur les traditions intellectuelles du pays (dilettantisme, goût des idées générales, prédilection pour les gains faciles),
- Sur les mœurs, les liens sociaux et sur les familles,
- Sur la notion de l'honneur,
- Sur les armées et leur mode d'action (conscription, ambition de l'avancement,...)
2) Tocqueville étudie dans le détail l'influence qu'ont l'égalité des conditions et le goût du bien-être matériel sur la centralisation politique et administrative, et celle-ci sur les libertés individuelles.
Il donne à voir les vertus et les écueils de la démocratie (passion de l'égalité, individualisme borné, grande docilité face à un pouvoir central qui concentre de plus en plus de prérogatives et exerce une surveillance de plus en plus grande des individus), qui peut aboutir aux pires forme de servitude qui soient.
3) Enfin, il s'interroge : comment combattre les maux et périls que la démocratie ne manque pas d'apporter avec elle ?
D'après l'auteur, la religion est l'un des éléments qui peuvent le mieux contrebalancer les défauts inhérents à la démocratie : amour excessif du bien-être matériel, égalitarisme passionné, individualisme borné...
D'autres éléments de réponse à ces périls sont les contre-pouvoirs comme les associations et les médias ; en règle générale tout ce qui permet l'exercice par tous des libertés politiques citoyennes.
MES RÉSERVES :
Pour moi, ce deuxième volume se montre beaucoup trop prolixe et bavard.
Les idées exposées méritent sûrement qu'on s'y arrête et qu'on passe du temps à bien les comprendre, et leur auteur défend une vision nuancée et qui dans l'ensemble me paraît juste, mais Tocqueville revenant sans arrêt sur les mêmes observations, on a là de vraies redites, parfois copieuses.
Ce livre reprend extensivement certaines idées majeures déjà développées dans le premier volume pour finalement n'apporter pratiquement rien de nouveau, sinon un travail de projection beaucoup moins rigoureux que ce qu'offrait le premier volet.
Bref, les idées sont bien argumentées et bien articulées, mais le livre manque cruellement de nerf. Lecteur, je te conseille de passer ton chemin et de lui préférer le premier tome :
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome I
-------------
LECTURES PROCHES :
Le développement de Tolstoï sur une certaine forme de déterminisme historique qui régit les sociétés humaines :
La Guerre et la Paix II
Le discours de Soljénitsyne sur les travers des démocraties modernes selon lui :
Le Déclin du courage
Celui du monarchiste Charles Maurras :
Mes idées politiques
Le processus de centralisation de l'État et la formation des identités nationales :
La création des identités nationales. Europe, XVIIIe-XXe siècle
Les dérives de la centralisation et de l'égalitarisme à outrance :
La rebelión de las masas
La Révolution française déclare la guerre à l'Europe : L'embrasement de l'Europe à la fin du XVIIIe siècle
Nouvelle histoire des guerres de Vendée
L'URSS. De la révolution à la mort de Staline (1917-1953)
Istanbul: Souvenirs D'une Ville
Fiction sur la formation des États-Unis :
The Martian Chronicles
Sur les inégalités économiques et leurs justifications. Sur l'histoire de la fiscalité en occident et ailleurs (BRICAS, Afrique subsaharienne, ...) :
Capital et idéologie
Sur les subdivisions du travail industriel et commercial et ses effets sur la société civile.
Le travail - Une sociologie contemporaine
Sur le mercantilisme et la publicité :
Contes cruels
99 francs
Sur la perversion du rôle joué par les médias aujourd'hui :
La Langue des medias : Destruction du langage et fabrication du consentement
L'art du roman
La Guerre du faux
Sur le rôle de l'association de citoyens comme contre-pouvoir à la centralisation administrative et à la concentration des pouvoirs dans le seul gouvernement :
Habiter en lutte : Zad de Notre-Dame-des-Landes. 40 ans de résistance
Tour de piste de la France contemporaine :
Sur les chemins noirs
Le tour de la France par deux enfants d'aujourd'hui
La carte et le territoire
L'avenir possible :
Retour au meilleur des mondes
Les Monades urbaines
Tous à Zanzibar
Nous autres
La Ferme des animaux
1984
Le Meilleur des mondes
------------
Bande-son :
Electioneering - Radiohead
By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.”
“I am trying to imagine under what novel features despotism may appear in the world. In the first place, I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest….
Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare charges for a man’s life, but on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasure, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?
Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepared men for all this, predisposing them to endure it and often even regard it as beneficial.
Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped him to its will, government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.”
----------
"Nos contemporains sont incessamment travaillés par deux passions ennemies : ils sentent le besoin d’être conduits et l’envie de rester libres. Ne pouvant détruire ni l’un ni l’autre de ces instincts contraires, ils s’efforcent de les satisfaire à la fois tous les deux. Ils imaginent un pouvoir unique, tutélaire, tout-puissant, mais élu par les citoyens. [...]
Il y a, de nos jours, beaucoup de gens qui s’accommodent très aisément de cette espèce de compromis entre le despotisme administratif et la souveraineté du peuple, et qui pensent avoir assez garanti la liberté des individus, quand c’est au pouvoir national qu’ils la livrent. Cela ne me suffit point. La nature du maître m’importe bien moins que l’obéissance."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, t.2 (1840)
------------
DE LA DÉMOCRATIE EN AMÉRIQUE, T.2.
Ce volume écrit quelque cinq ans après le premier revient sur les traits distinctifs du régime politique démocratique tel que l'envisage Tocqueville après son voyage de neuf mois aux États-Unis en 1831-2.
1) Tocqueville aborde l'influence générale de la démocratie :
- Sur l'industrie et le commerce,
- Sur l'évolution de la langue,
- Sur les objets que se donne la littérature du pays (l'humanité, l'avenir, les objets les plus vastes),
- Sur les traditions intellectuelles du pays (dilettantisme, goût des idées générales, prédilection pour les gains faciles),
- Sur les mœurs, les liens sociaux et sur les familles,
- Sur la notion de l'honneur,
- Sur les armées et leur mode d'action (conscription, ambition de l'avancement,...)
2) Tocqueville étudie dans le détail l'influence qu'ont l'égalité des conditions et le goût du bien-être matériel sur la centralisation politique et administrative, et celle-ci sur les libertés individuelles.
Il donne à voir les vertus et les écueils de la démocratie (passion de l'égalité, individualisme borné, grande docilité face à un pouvoir central qui concentre de plus en plus de prérogatives et exerce une surveillance de plus en plus grande des individus), qui peut aboutir aux pires forme de servitude qui soient.
3) Enfin, il s'interroge : comment combattre les maux et périls que la démocratie ne manque pas d'apporter avec elle ?
D'après l'auteur, la religion est l'un des éléments qui peuvent le mieux contrebalancer les défauts inhérents à la démocratie : amour excessif du bien-être matériel, égalitarisme passionné, individualisme borné...
D'autres éléments de réponse à ces périls sont les contre-pouvoirs comme les associations et les médias ; en règle générale tout ce qui permet l'exercice par tous des libertés politiques citoyennes.
'Je veux imaginer sous quels traits nouveaux le despotisme pourrait se produire dans le monde : je vois une foule innombrable d’hommes semblables et égaux qui tournent sans repos sur eux-mêmes pour se procurer de petits et vulgaires plaisirs, dont ils emplissent leur âme. Chacun d’eux, retiré à l’écart, est comme étranger à la destinée de tous les autres : ses enfants et ses amis particuliers forment pour lui toute l’espèce humaine ; quant au demeurant de ses concitoyens, il est à côté d’eux, mais il ne les voit pas ; il les touche et ne les sent point ; il n’existe qu’en lui-même et pour lui seul, et, s’il lui reste encore une famille, on peut dire du moins qu’il n’a plus de patrie.
Au-dessus de ceux-là s’élève un pouvoir immense et tutélaire, qui se charge seul d’assurer leurs jouissances et de veiller sur leur sort. Il est absolu, détaillé, régulier, prévoyant et doux. Il ressemblerait à la puissance paternelle, si, comme elle, il avait pour objet de préparer les hommes à l’âge viril ; mais il ne cherche, au contraire, qu’à les fixer irrévocablement dans l’enfance ; il aime que les citoyens se réjouissent, pourvu qu’ils ne songent qu’à se réjouir. Il travaille volontiers à leur bonheur ; mais il veut en être l’unique agent et le seul arbitre ; il pourvoit à leur sécurité, prévoit et assure leurs besoins, facilite leurs plaisirs, conduit leurs principales affaires, dirige leur industrie, règle leurs successions, divise leurs héritages, que ne peut-il leur ôter entièrement le trouble de penser et la peine de vivre ?'
'C’est ainsi que tous les jours il rend moins utile et plus rare l’emploi du libre arbitre ; qu’il renferme l’action de la volonté dans un plus petit espace, et dérobe peu à peu à chaque citoyen jusqu’à l’usage de lui-même. L’égalité a préparé les hommes à toutes ces choses : elle les a disposés à les souffrir et souvent même à les regarder comme un bienfait.
Après avoir pris ainsi tour à tour dans ses puissantes mains chaque individu, et l’avoir pétri à sa guise, le souverain étend ses bras sur la société tout entière ; il en couvre la surface d’un réseau de petites règles compliquées, minutieuses et uniformes, à travers lesquelles les esprits les plus originaux et les âmes les plus vigoureuses ne sauraient se faire jour pour dépasser la foule ; il ne brise pas les volontés, mais il les amollit, les plie et les dirige ; il force rarement d’agir, mais il s’oppose sans cesse à ce qu’on agisse ; il ne détruit point, il empêche de naître ; il ne tyrannise point, il gêne, il comprime, il énerve, il éteint, il hébète, et il réduit enfin chaque nation a n’être plus qu’un troupeau d’animaux timides et industrieux, dont le gouvernement est le berger.'
MES RÉSERVES :
Pour moi, ce deuxième volume se montre beaucoup trop prolixe et bavard.
Les idées exposées méritent sûrement qu'on s'y arrête et qu'on passe du temps à bien les comprendre, et leur auteur défend une vision nuancée et qui dans l'ensemble me paraît juste, mais Tocqueville revenant sans arrêt sur les mêmes observations, on a là de vraies redites, parfois copieuses.
Ce livre reprend extensivement certaines idées majeures déjà développées dans le premier volume pour finalement n'apporter pratiquement rien de nouveau, sinon un travail de projection beaucoup moins rigoureux que ce qu'offrait le premier volet.
Bref, les idées sont bien argumentées et bien articulées, mais le livre manque cruellement de nerf. Lecteur, je te conseille de passer ton chemin et de lui préférer le premier tome :
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome I
-------------
LECTURES PROCHES :
Le développement de Tolstoï sur une certaine forme de déterminisme historique qui régit les sociétés humaines :
La Guerre et la Paix II
Le discours de Soljénitsyne sur les travers des démocraties modernes selon lui :
Le Déclin du courage
Celui du monarchiste Charles Maurras :
Mes idées politiques
Le processus de centralisation de l'État et la formation des identités nationales :
La création des identités nationales. Europe, XVIIIe-XXe siècle
Les dérives de la centralisation et de l'égalitarisme à outrance :
La rebelión de las masas
La Révolution française déclare la guerre à l'Europe : L'embrasement de l'Europe à la fin du XVIIIe siècle
Nouvelle histoire des guerres de Vendée
L'URSS. De la révolution à la mort de Staline (1917-1953)
Istanbul: Souvenirs D'une Ville
Fiction sur la formation des États-Unis :
The Martian Chronicles
Sur les inégalités économiques et leurs justifications. Sur l'histoire de la fiscalité en occident et ailleurs (BRICAS, Afrique subsaharienne, ...) :
Capital et idéologie
Sur les subdivisions du travail industriel et commercial et ses effets sur la société civile.
Le travail - Une sociologie contemporaine
Sur le mercantilisme et la publicité :
Contes cruels
99 francs
Sur la perversion du rôle joué par les médias aujourd'hui :
La Langue des medias : Destruction du langage et fabrication du consentement
L'art du roman
La Guerre du faux
Sur le rôle de l'association de citoyens comme contre-pouvoir à la centralisation administrative et à la concentration des pouvoirs dans le seul gouvernement :
Habiter en lutte : Zad de Notre-Dame-des-Landes. 40 ans de résistance
Tour de piste de la France contemporaine :
Sur les chemins noirs
Le tour de la France par deux enfants d'aujourd'hui
La carte et le territoire
L'avenir possible :
Retour au meilleur des mondes
Les Monades urbaines
Tous à Zanzibar
Nous autres
La Ferme des animaux
1984
Le Meilleur des mondes
------------
Bande-son :
Electioneering - Radiohead
Read
December 11, 2021wow un autre livre lu pour l'école que je ne note pas et que je marque uniquement comme lu dans mon étagère goodreads pour me récompenser d'avoir passé à travers mon cours de philo *se tape l'épaule soi-même*
September 2, 2024
This review covers Volume 2. Here's a link to my review of Volume 1. The focus of Volume 1 was more political in the narrow sense, and the focus of Volume 2 is more on sociology.
Tocqueville's writing is much like a series of essays expressing his opinion and point of view on a number of subjects with little reference to data or quotations to back up his comments (this is particularly true for Volume 2). But his opinions have some credibility because they are based on his experiences traveling through the United States and having conversations with many people.
For Volume 2 I've decided to simply list various excerpts from Tocqueville's writing.
Book 2 (Volume 2) Part 1: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in the United States
From Chapter 1 - Philosophical Method Among the Americans
"I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them."
However there is "a philosophic method of the Americans… America is therefore one of the countries in the world where philosophy is least studied, and where the percepts of Descartes are best applied."
From Chapter 2 - Of the Principle Source of Belief Among Democratic Nations
"When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness."
"For this reason, public opinion is essentially forced into the minds of a democratic people, whereas in an aristocracy, it is merely persuaded."
From Chapter 3 - Why the Americans Display More Readiness and More Taste for General Ideas Than Their Forefathers, the English
"Men who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and very little leisure; their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that but little time remains to them for thought." As such, men of democracies "are prone to general ideas because they spare them the trouble of studying particulars."
From Chapter 5 - Of the Manner In Which Religion In the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies
"Even religions which are very false and very absurd may be conducive to man's happiness, provided they do not hinder the free progress of man's mind."
"The more the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other, the more important it is for religions...not needlessly to run counter to the ideas which generally prevail, and the permanent interests which exist in the mass of the people."
From Chapter 8: The Principle of Equality Suggests to the Americans the ldea of the Indefinite Perfectibility of Man
"Aristocratic nations are naturally too apt to narrow the scope of human perfectibility; democratic nations, to expand it beyond reason."
From Chapter 9 - The Examples of the Americans Does Not Prove that a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and No Taste for Science, Literature, or Art
"It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare."
"When men living in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they readily discover that they are confined and fixed within no limits which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. They all therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they all attempt it, but all do not succeed in the same manner."
"As natural inequality is very great, fortunes become unequal as soon as every man exerts all his facilities to get rich."
"The inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is diffused and liberty increased."
"When heredity wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind."
From Chapter 10 - Why the Americans Are More Addicted to Practical than to Theoretical Science
"With education and freedom, men living in democratic ages cannot fail to improve the industrial part of science."
From Chapter 20 - Characteristics of Historians in Democratic Ages
"In general, historians in democratic societies attribute events to general causes, while those in aristocratic societies attribute them to the special influences of certain individuals."
"The historians of antiquity taught how to command: those of our time teach only how to obey; in their writings the author often appears great, but humanity is always diminutive" (Tocqueville refers to this as the doctrine of necessity.)
Book 2 (Volume 2) Part 2: Influence of Democracy on the Feelings of Americans
From Chapter 1 - Why Democratic Nations Show a More Ardent and Enduring Love of Equality than of Liberty
"The taste which men have for liberty, and that which they feel for equality, are, in fact, two different things; and I am not afraid to add that, amongst democratic nations, they are two unequal things."
From Chapter 2 - Of Individualism in Democratic Countries
"In democratic societies, individuals acquire or retain "sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands."
From Chapter 3 - Individualism Stronger at the Cost of a Democratic Revolution than at Other Periods
"The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution (against an aristocracy); and that they are born equal, instead of becoming so."
From Chapter 4: That the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism by Free Institutions
"To combat the evils which equality may produce, there is only one effectual remedy namely, political freedom."
From Chapter 5 - Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life
"The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would be as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies."
"If men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased."
From Chapter 8 - The Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Interest Rightly Understood
"I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others; but they were more incessantly talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret."
In more democratic times, moralists "content themselves with inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all;"
"The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made."
"The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous, but it disciplines a number of citizens in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, and self-command; and, if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits."
From Chapter 12 - Causes of Fanatical Enthusiasm in Some Americans
"Religious insanity is very common in the United States."
"The soul has wants which must be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amidst the enjoyments of sense."
From Chapter 13 - Causes of the Restless Spirit of Americans in the Midst of Their Prosperity
"In the United States a man builds a house to spend his later years in it, and he sells it before the roof is on: he plants a garden, and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing: he brings a field into tillage, and leaves other men to gather the crops: he embraces a profession, and gives it up: he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere."
"The desire of equality always becomes more insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete."
From Chapter 15 That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns the Thoughts of the Americans to Immaterial Pleasures
"I have always held that if they be sometimes of momentary service to the interest of political power, they always, sooner or later, become fatal to the Church."
From Chapter 20 - That Aristocracy May Be Enlightened By Manufactures Manufacturing "lowers the class of workmen; it raises the class of masters."
"Whereas the workman concentrates his facilities more and more upon the study of a single detail, the master surveys a more extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that of the former is narrowed."
"The small aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of our age contain, like the great aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very opulent, and a multitude who are wretchedly poor."
Book 3 (Volume 2): Influence of Democracy on Manners, Properly So Called
From Chapter 1 - That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions Become More Equal
The "horrid suffering” and "barbarous punishments” of the American slaves demonstrate that the mildness of manners is "attributed to the equality of conditions, rather than to civilization and education."
"As nations become more like each other, they become reciprocally more compassionate, and the law of nations is mitigated."
From Chapter 7 - Influence of Democracy on Wages
"I think that, upon the whole, it may be asserted that a slow and gradual rise of wages is one of the general laws of democratic communities. In proportion as social conditions become more equal, wages rise; and as wages are higher, social conditions become more equal."
From Chapter 8 - Influence of Democracy on Kindred
"Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various members of the community more widely apart."
From Chapter 12 - How the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes
"It may readily be conceived, that by ... attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women."
"As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that, although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply -- to the superiority of their women." (emphasis is mine)
From Chapter 13 - That the Principle of Equality Naturally Divides the Americans Into a Number of Small Private Circles
"Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage."
From Chapter 18 - Of Honor in the United States and In Democratic Communities
"In the United State, "where fortunes are scanty and insecure, everybody works, and work opens a way to everything: this has changed the point of honor quite around, and has turned it against idleness.”
From Chapter 19 - Why So Many Ambitious Men and So Little Lofty Ambition are to be Found in the United States
"The principle of equality, which allows every man to arrive at everything, prevents all men from rapid advancement."
From Chapter 20 - The Trade of Place-Hunting In Certain Democratic Countries
"When public employments are few in number, ill-paid and precarious, whilst the different lines of business are numerous and lucrative, it is to business, and not to official duties, that the new and eager desires engendered by the principle of equality turn from every side. But if, whilst the ranks of society are becoming more equal, the education of the people remains incomplete, or their spirit the reverse of bold if commerce and industry, checked in their growth, afford only slow and arduous means of making a fortune -- the various members of the community, despairing of ameliorating their own condition, rush to the head of the State and demand its assistance. To relieve their own necessities at the cost of the public treasury, appears to them to be the easiest and most open, if not the only, way they have to rise above a condition which no longer contents them."
Tocqueville refers to this as place-hunting, and he considers it to be "a great social evil".
From Chapter 21 - Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare
"In democratic communities, the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one."
"Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed amongst them, and as the number of those possessing it increases."
"Violent political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted all their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being."
"Men living in democratic communities...love change, but they dread revolution."
From Chapter 22 - Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous of Peace, and Democratic Armies of War
"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war, and to end it."
"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country."
From Chapter 26 - Some Considerations on War in Democratic Communities
"When the principle of equality is in growth, not only amongst a single nation, but amongst several nations at the same time, as is now the case in Europe, the inhabitants of these different countries, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of language, of customs, and of laws, nevertheless resemble each other in their equal dread of war and their common love of peace."
_____________
Link to BBC In Our Time podcast on Alexis de Tocqueville:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09...
Tocqueville's writing is much like a series of essays expressing his opinion and point of view on a number of subjects with little reference to data or quotations to back up his comments (this is particularly true for Volume 2). But his opinions have some credibility because they are based on his experiences traveling through the United States and having conversations with many people.
For Volume 2 I've decided to simply list various excerpts from Tocqueville's writing.
Book 2 (Volume 2) Part 1: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in the United States
From Chapter 1 - Philosophical Method Among the Americans
"I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them."
However there is "a philosophic method of the Americans… America is therefore one of the countries in the world where philosophy is least studied, and where the percepts of Descartes are best applied."
From Chapter 2 - Of the Principle Source of Belief Among Democratic Nations
"When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness."
"For this reason, public opinion is essentially forced into the minds of a democratic people, whereas in an aristocracy, it is merely persuaded."
From Chapter 3 - Why the Americans Display More Readiness and More Taste for General Ideas Than Their Forefathers, the English
"Men who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and very little leisure; their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that but little time remains to them for thought." As such, men of democracies "are prone to general ideas because they spare them the trouble of studying particulars."
From Chapter 5 - Of the Manner In Which Religion In the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies
"Even religions which are very false and very absurd may be conducive to man's happiness, provided they do not hinder the free progress of man's mind."
"The more the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other, the more important it is for religions...not needlessly to run counter to the ideas which generally prevail, and the permanent interests which exist in the mass of the people."
From Chapter 8: The Principle of Equality Suggests to the Americans the ldea of the Indefinite Perfectibility of Man
"Aristocratic nations are naturally too apt to narrow the scope of human perfectibility; democratic nations, to expand it beyond reason."
From Chapter 9 - The Examples of the Americans Does Not Prove that a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and No Taste for Science, Literature, or Art
"It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare."
"When men living in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they readily discover that they are confined and fixed within no limits which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. They all therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they all attempt it, but all do not succeed in the same manner."
"As natural inequality is very great, fortunes become unequal as soon as every man exerts all his facilities to get rich."
"The inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is diffused and liberty increased."
"When heredity wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind."
From Chapter 10 - Why the Americans Are More Addicted to Practical than to Theoretical Science
"With education and freedom, men living in democratic ages cannot fail to improve the industrial part of science."
From Chapter 20 - Characteristics of Historians in Democratic Ages
"In general, historians in democratic societies attribute events to general causes, while those in aristocratic societies attribute them to the special influences of certain individuals."
"The historians of antiquity taught how to command: those of our time teach only how to obey; in their writings the author often appears great, but humanity is always diminutive" (Tocqueville refers to this as the doctrine of necessity.)
Book 2 (Volume 2) Part 2: Influence of Democracy on the Feelings of Americans
From Chapter 1 - Why Democratic Nations Show a More Ardent and Enduring Love of Equality than of Liberty
"The taste which men have for liberty, and that which they feel for equality, are, in fact, two different things; and I am not afraid to add that, amongst democratic nations, they are two unequal things."
From Chapter 2 - Of Individualism in Democratic Countries
"In democratic societies, individuals acquire or retain "sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands."
From Chapter 3 - Individualism Stronger at the Cost of a Democratic Revolution than at Other Periods
"The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution (against an aristocracy); and that they are born equal, instead of becoming so."
From Chapter 4: That the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism by Free Institutions
"To combat the evils which equality may produce, there is only one effectual remedy namely, political freedom."
From Chapter 5 - Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life
"The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would be as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies."
"If men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased."
From Chapter 8 - The Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Interest Rightly Understood
"I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others; but they were more incessantly talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret."
In more democratic times, moralists "content themselves with inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all;"
"The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made."
"The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous, but it disciplines a number of citizens in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, and self-command; and, if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits."
From Chapter 12 - Causes of Fanatical Enthusiasm in Some Americans
"Religious insanity is very common in the United States."
"The soul has wants which must be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amidst the enjoyments of sense."
From Chapter 13 - Causes of the Restless Spirit of Americans in the Midst of Their Prosperity
"In the United States a man builds a house to spend his later years in it, and he sells it before the roof is on: he plants a garden, and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing: he brings a field into tillage, and leaves other men to gather the crops: he embraces a profession, and gives it up: he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere."
"The desire of equality always becomes more insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete."
From Chapter 15 That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns the Thoughts of the Americans to Immaterial Pleasures
"I have always held that if they be sometimes of momentary service to the interest of political power, they always, sooner or later, become fatal to the Church."
From Chapter 20 - That Aristocracy May Be Enlightened By Manufactures Manufacturing "lowers the class of workmen; it raises the class of masters."
"Whereas the workman concentrates his facilities more and more upon the study of a single detail, the master surveys a more extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that of the former is narrowed."
"The small aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of our age contain, like the great aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very opulent, and a multitude who are wretchedly poor."
Book 3 (Volume 2): Influence of Democracy on Manners, Properly So Called
From Chapter 1 - That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions Become More Equal
The "horrid suffering” and "barbarous punishments” of the American slaves demonstrate that the mildness of manners is "attributed to the equality of conditions, rather than to civilization and education."
"As nations become more like each other, they become reciprocally more compassionate, and the law of nations is mitigated."
From Chapter 7 - Influence of Democracy on Wages
"I think that, upon the whole, it may be asserted that a slow and gradual rise of wages is one of the general laws of democratic communities. In proportion as social conditions become more equal, wages rise; and as wages are higher, social conditions become more equal."
From Chapter 8 - Influence of Democracy on Kindred
"Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various members of the community more widely apart."
From Chapter 12 - How the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes
"It may readily be conceived, that by ... attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women."
"As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that, although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply -- to the superiority of their women." (emphasis is mine)
From Chapter 13 - That the Principle of Equality Naturally Divides the Americans Into a Number of Small Private Circles
"Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage."
From Chapter 18 - Of Honor in the United States and In Democratic Communities
"In the United State, "where fortunes are scanty and insecure, everybody works, and work opens a way to everything: this has changed the point of honor quite around, and has turned it against idleness.”
From Chapter 19 - Why So Many Ambitious Men and So Little Lofty Ambition are to be Found in the United States
"The principle of equality, which allows every man to arrive at everything, prevents all men from rapid advancement."
From Chapter 20 - The Trade of Place-Hunting In Certain Democratic Countries
"When public employments are few in number, ill-paid and precarious, whilst the different lines of business are numerous and lucrative, it is to business, and not to official duties, that the new and eager desires engendered by the principle of equality turn from every side. But if, whilst the ranks of society are becoming more equal, the education of the people remains incomplete, or their spirit the reverse of bold if commerce and industry, checked in their growth, afford only slow and arduous means of making a fortune -- the various members of the community, despairing of ameliorating their own condition, rush to the head of the State and demand its assistance. To relieve their own necessities at the cost of the public treasury, appears to them to be the easiest and most open, if not the only, way they have to rise above a condition which no longer contents them."
Tocqueville refers to this as place-hunting, and he considers it to be "a great social evil".
From Chapter 21 - Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare
"In democratic communities, the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one."
"Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed amongst them, and as the number of those possessing it increases."
"Violent political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted all their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being."
"Men living in democratic communities...love change, but they dread revolution."
From Chapter 22 - Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous of Peace, and Democratic Armies of War
"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war, and to end it."
"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country."
From Chapter 26 - Some Considerations on War in Democratic Communities
"When the principle of equality is in growth, not only amongst a single nation, but amongst several nations at the same time, as is now the case in Europe, the inhabitants of these different countries, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of language, of customs, and of laws, nevertheless resemble each other in their equal dread of war and their common love of peace."
_____________
Link to BBC In Our Time podcast on Alexis de Tocqueville:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09...
April 11, 2008
Written over 150 years ago, Democracy In America is even more important and compelling today than it was then. This past fall, I had the opportunity to teach a Government class for my college. My class studied the second volume of this invaluable classic. It was such a pleasure to study it through a mentor's eyes. It truly came alive for me in a way that it never had before as I prepared to teach it.
Despite his young age, Tocqueville was a master at understanding human nature. Volume II is filled with both compliments for American culture and cautionary advice for us as citizens. It's amazing how accurate his predictions and warnings were. We are falling into the very snares and excesses about which he cautioned. I wish that all Americans would take the time to read this insightful volume. If we would simply heed Tocqueville's admonitions, we would be well on our way to rebuilding our great American culture and securing our liberty.
“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” ~Alexis de Tocqueville
Despite his young age, Tocqueville was a master at understanding human nature. Volume II is filled with both compliments for American culture and cautionary advice for us as citizens. It's amazing how accurate his predictions and warnings were. We are falling into the very snares and excesses about which he cautioned. I wish that all Americans would take the time to read this insightful volume. If we would simply heed Tocqueville's admonitions, we would be well on our way to rebuilding our great American culture and securing our liberty.
“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” ~Alexis de Tocqueville
July 22, 2011
Dans cette deuxième partie, Tocquville parle moins de l Amérique et prend de la hauteur pour ne plus que s intéresser a la démocratie proprement dite. Je la trouve plus inégale que la première, quoique certains chapitres soient réellement impressionnants de pénétration.
November 27, 2023
SO REAL !!!!!!!!!!!
March 1, 2008
it's amazing to read a book from so long ago that is so exquisitely detailed about what's going to happen in the future. tocqueville follows democracy through to its most minute consequences and sets forth warnings. many sections of this book were very dense for me, but it was still enjoyable. mostly i appreciated the warning of the gentle power that will eventually permeate from the government throughout all society into the individuals until they become unmotivated to exercise their moral agency and cede more and more of it for the sake of preserving tranquility until they become completely dependent on the government. this is bad! as the tytler cycle illustrates, dependence is the last stage before bondage.
February 15, 2015
I wrote the foreword to the Laissez Faire ebook edition, available at Amazon and LFB.org.
This second volume is more theoretical than the first, which was a survey of the U. S. circa 1835. The author's conclusions on his subject are fascinating. And the chapter on how tyranny can come to a democracy is the most astute secular prophecy I have ever read. Tocqueville limns modern social and political reality from his vantage point in early 19th century. Without seeing one example, Toqueville foresaw the rise (and nature) of the welfare state. An astounding intellectual achievement. Really, this is the classic of its genre, a book every American should read.
This second volume is more theoretical than the first, which was a survey of the U. S. circa 1835. The author's conclusions on his subject are fascinating. And the chapter on how tyranny can come to a democracy is the most astute secular prophecy I have ever read. Tocqueville limns modern social and political reality from his vantage point in early 19th century. Without seeing one example, Toqueville foresaw the rise (and nature) of the welfare state. An astounding intellectual achievement. Really, this is the classic of its genre, a book every American should read.
January 11, 2016
La tercera vez que lo leo; esta vez tomando notas en el ordenador...he conseguido reducir los dos tomos a 45 páginas de pasajes que me interesan. Tiempo de cocción de una tesis: mil años.
October 6, 2016
This second volume is much more of a generic philosophical treatise than the first volume that dealt with the nuts and bolts of the structure of U.S. government. As such, it didn't have as much punch or relevance of the first volume. This volume is divided into two main sections: Section I: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in The United States. Section 2: Influence of Democracy on the Feelings of Americans.
Here are some quotes I thought were particularly interesting:
"It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. ... Religious institutions have remained wholly distinct from political institutions, so that former laws have been easily changed whilst former belief has remained unshaken."
"It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare."
"[The man of action] has perpetually occasion to rely on ideas which he has not had leisure to search to the bottom; for he is much more frequently aided by the opportunity of an idea than by its strict accuracy; and, in the long run, he risks less in making use of some false principles, than in spending his time in establishing all his principles on the basis of truth."
"Taken as a whole, literature in democratic ages can never present, as it does in the periods of aristocracy, an aspect of order, regularity, science, and art; its form will, on the contrary, ordinarily be slighted, sometimes despised. Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, overburdened, and loose—almost always vehement and bold. Authors will aim at rapidity of execution, more than at perfection of detail. Small productions will be more common than bulky books; there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an untutored and rude vigor of thought--frequently of great variety and singular fecundity. The object of authors will be to astonish rather than to please, and to stir the passions more than to charm the taste. Here and there, indeed, writers will doubtless occur who will choose a different track, and who will, if they are gifted with superior abilities, succeed in finding readers, in spite of their defects or their better qualities; but these exceptions will be rare, and even the authors who shall so depart from the received practice in the main subject of their works, will always relapse into it in some lesser details."
"But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what ought to be said in order to serve the party to which Representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on great questions which they understand imperfectly; that they should speak but little on those minor questions which impede the great ones; lastly, and for the most part, that they should not speak at all. To keep silence is the most useful service that an indifferent spokesman can render to the commonwealth."
"Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification: this taste, if it become excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights: such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round."
"Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various members of the community more widely apart."
"American women never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business, or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women, although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men."
"I never observed that the women of America consider conjugal authority as a fortunate usurpation of their rights, nor that they thought themselves degraded by submitting to it. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they attach a sort of pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will, and make it their boast to bend themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off."
"It would seem that in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of America claim no such privileges."
"Men who live in democratic countries do not value the simple, turbulent, or coarse diversions in which the people indulge in aristocratic communities: such diversions are thought by them to be puerile or insipid. … He thus enjoys two pleasures; he can go on thinking of his business, and he can get drunk decently by his own fireside."
"If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States--that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality, but to the inequality, of conditions."
Here are some quotes I thought were particularly interesting:
"It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. ... Religious institutions have remained wholly distinct from political institutions, so that former laws have been easily changed whilst former belief has remained unshaken."
"It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare."
"[The man of action] has perpetually occasion to rely on ideas which he has not had leisure to search to the bottom; for he is much more frequently aided by the opportunity of an idea than by its strict accuracy; and, in the long run, he risks less in making use of some false principles, than in spending his time in establishing all his principles on the basis of truth."
"Taken as a whole, literature in democratic ages can never present, as it does in the periods of aristocracy, an aspect of order, regularity, science, and art; its form will, on the contrary, ordinarily be slighted, sometimes despised. Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, overburdened, and loose—almost always vehement and bold. Authors will aim at rapidity of execution, more than at perfection of detail. Small productions will be more common than bulky books; there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an untutored and rude vigor of thought--frequently of great variety and singular fecundity. The object of authors will be to astonish rather than to please, and to stir the passions more than to charm the taste. Here and there, indeed, writers will doubtless occur who will choose a different track, and who will, if they are gifted with superior abilities, succeed in finding readers, in spite of their defects or their better qualities; but these exceptions will be rare, and even the authors who shall so depart from the received practice in the main subject of their works, will always relapse into it in some lesser details."
"But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what ought to be said in order to serve the party to which Representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on great questions which they understand imperfectly; that they should speak but little on those minor questions which impede the great ones; lastly, and for the most part, that they should not speak at all. To keep silence is the most useful service that an indifferent spokesman can render to the commonwealth."
"Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification: this taste, if it become excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights: such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round."
"Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various members of the community more widely apart."
"American women never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business, or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women, although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men."
"I never observed that the women of America consider conjugal authority as a fortunate usurpation of their rights, nor that they thought themselves degraded by submitting to it. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they attach a sort of pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will, and make it their boast to bend themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off."
"It would seem that in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of America claim no such privileges."
"Men who live in democratic countries do not value the simple, turbulent, or coarse diversions in which the people indulge in aristocratic communities: such diversions are thought by them to be puerile or insipid. … He thus enjoys two pleasures; he can go on thinking of his business, and he can get drunk decently by his own fireside."
"If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States--that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality, but to the inequality, of conditions."
September 10, 2022
Not as good as book one, but still interesting. He speaks of general trends without so much first hand evidence, which makes it slightly more difficult to trace from what he is convinced.
July 27, 2020
La partie la plus intéressante du second tome traite de l’influence de la démocratie sur le mouvement intellectuel aux États-Unis. Quasiment 2 siècles après la publication du livre, les écrits de Tocqueville sont toujours d’actualité dans les autres démocraties de la planète. L’auteur montre donc que le système démocratique, qui a eu pour influence d’établir l’égalité parmi les hommes, a instauré une certaine médiocrité dans l’intellect quotidien ; que ce soit sur la langue, la littérature, l’histoire, les arts, la poésie, le théâtre …
Une analyse politique complémentaire à la philosophie de Nietzsche.
Une analyse politique complémentaire à la philosophie de Nietzsche.
April 19, 2019
In the first volume, Tocqueville frames the politics, geography and people of the United States. In the second volume, he pontificates on how the freedom and equality loving Americans differ from their European counterparts. He extends numerous theories, most of them sound, regarding the unique character of Americans and how the democracy has lead to some surprising and some anticipated outcomes.
He talks about religion, community, industry, society, military, materialism, and revolution. With all the freedoms granted to Americans, American are very rule-abiding. In this Tocqueville attributes to the devoutly Christian attitude of most Americans. Rather than being limited by governmental regulations, Americans conform to Christian morality and therefore self-regulate their behavior against antisocial behavior. Tocqueville equivocates on this question. He ponders whether Americans inherently desire a social fabric where morality tempers bad behavior and therefore turn to Christianity, or whether Americans would be deeply religious regardless of the form of government of the country. In their less religious European counterparts, the more restrictive government rules serve to control the population from anarchy. Tocqueville leans towards the counter intuitive theory that because Americans have less civil rules, they gravitate towards a more religious nature.
He spends much time on American's love of equality. He argues that American love equality even more than freedom. Equality, unlike the class and caste system of European countries, creates a curious dynamic among fellow citizens. In England, where social classes are firmly established, the interactions among upper class and servant classes are well known and easy to adhere too. In the United States, the equality among citizens make social interaction unstructured and often uncomfortable. Whereas a servant is an appendage of his master's estate in England, none such relations exist among employers and employees in America. In England, a servant and master have a close patriarchal relationship, whereas American workers and bosses trade on monetary agreements and lack that bond.
In Europe, class and title are paramount. In the United States, as no class system is formalized, American instead seek monetary gains to establish their credentials. The quest for riches drives Americans to work hard and industriously. The distinction of bettering one self is financially based in America. Tocqueville observes the materialism and monetary drive that is uniquely American.
Tocqueville notes that a high percentage of Americans are land owners, and therefore desirous to hold onto their property. Revolution and wars are antithetical to the stability and status quo. Americans are want to seek peace and reject revolutionary appeals that may threaten their coveted property and materials.
This volume is not as interesting or informative as the first. On the plus side, it is more speculative and detailed. Tocqueville shows his intelligence, knowledge of political science, and well-considered deductions to show how democracy has shaped the actions, goals, interactions and value systems of Americans. With the unique opportunities, Christian heritage and land-rich aspects of the country, Tocqueville is careful not to assume that all democracies will function like that of the United States. He does his best to distinguish which aspects are likely uniquely American and which are likely universal outcomes of a democratic society. At times he admires, other times he disdains, and sometimes he marvels at America and Americans. Tocqueville offers a fair, thorough and well-written assessment of the American experiment. Certainly exhaustive, but a well-crafted work that will endure.
He talks about religion, community, industry, society, military, materialism, and revolution. With all the freedoms granted to Americans, American are very rule-abiding. In this Tocqueville attributes to the devoutly Christian attitude of most Americans. Rather than being limited by governmental regulations, Americans conform to Christian morality and therefore self-regulate their behavior against antisocial behavior. Tocqueville equivocates on this question. He ponders whether Americans inherently desire a social fabric where morality tempers bad behavior and therefore turn to Christianity, or whether Americans would be deeply religious regardless of the form of government of the country. In their less religious European counterparts, the more restrictive government rules serve to control the population from anarchy. Tocqueville leans towards the counter intuitive theory that because Americans have less civil rules, they gravitate towards a more religious nature.
He spends much time on American's love of equality. He argues that American love equality even more than freedom. Equality, unlike the class and caste system of European countries, creates a curious dynamic among fellow citizens. In England, where social classes are firmly established, the interactions among upper class and servant classes are well known and easy to adhere too. In the United States, the equality among citizens make social interaction unstructured and often uncomfortable. Whereas a servant is an appendage of his master's estate in England, none such relations exist among employers and employees in America. In England, a servant and master have a close patriarchal relationship, whereas American workers and bosses trade on monetary agreements and lack that bond.
In Europe, class and title are paramount. In the United States, as no class system is formalized, American instead seek monetary gains to establish their credentials. The quest for riches drives Americans to work hard and industriously. The distinction of bettering one self is financially based in America. Tocqueville observes the materialism and monetary drive that is uniquely American.
Tocqueville notes that a high percentage of Americans are land owners, and therefore desirous to hold onto their property. Revolution and wars are antithetical to the stability and status quo. Americans are want to seek peace and reject revolutionary appeals that may threaten their coveted property and materials.
This volume is not as interesting or informative as the first. On the plus side, it is more speculative and detailed. Tocqueville shows his intelligence, knowledge of political science, and well-considered deductions to show how democracy has shaped the actions, goals, interactions and value systems of Americans. With the unique opportunities, Christian heritage and land-rich aspects of the country, Tocqueville is careful not to assume that all democracies will function like that of the United States. He does his best to distinguish which aspects are likely uniquely American and which are likely universal outcomes of a democratic society. At times he admires, other times he disdains, and sometimes he marvels at America and Americans. Tocqueville offers a fair, thorough and well-written assessment of the American experiment. Certainly exhaustive, but a well-crafted work that will endure.
January 9, 2010
I don’t know if I can be as forgiving as others have been in responding to Democracy in America. Tocqueville’s Volume 2 is filled with distracting, generalizing statements comparing an aristocracy to a democracy, amassing every American into unfavorable observations. I have read some book reviews that change how Tocqueville worded his comparisons into a less absolute manner, letting him get away with all of his inflexible, degrading statements. I found that I was so annoyed with his judgments that I would almost miss his observations that have merit. I suppose that I need to change how I read his report, and then I can concede that valuable introspective questions can be gleaned and a great examination can take place. Is this why this book is so revered, people are already doing this without objection?
What kind of aristocratic world was Tocqueville living in? The only place I have heard of a devout aristocracy is in my core book. In those societies, everyone was raised up to an “aristocratic” level, all being equal and having abundance. Indeed, the kind of aristocracy Tocqueville describes sounds like the translated city of Enoch, and I am sure he didn’t have first hand experience there. Are there really any forms of government that stay free of corruption outside of religious texts? Like Madison observed in Federalist Paper 10, the same freedom that allows free men, allows men to form factions. This freedom allows for degeneration and conversely allows acceleration, inventions and improvement. Yes, there were (and still are) bad effects of democracy for Tocqueville to observe, because there is human nature and people are free to choose to do selfish and shortsighted things. Those effects and people aren’t universal in the United States, but sadly, the number it is becoming far more than is healthy.
Tocqueville couldn’t foresee the result of democracy and its related free market effects on science, inventions, and manufacturing so early, but they were starting to manifest. Many of his conclusions are thus outdated and even laughable as I type this on my computer. The 5000 Year Leap explains this principle beautifully; the proof that democracy and free markets work is the amount of progress we have made in the last 200 years compared to the last 5000.
A chapter without Tocqueville’s annoying comparisons was Chapter 14 in Book 2, How the Taste for Physical Gratification is United in America to Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs. In this chapter he gives warnings about being so caught up in day to day living and enjoyments that education wanes, preoccupation with the fun things in life distracts attention from government and that lack of government involvement results in loss of freedom. We have seen some of these results already and are suffering its consequences. Still many of the American people aren’t alert to governmental proceedings and corruption.
I know I need to reread this classic in a different light, one that is not so provoked and to give more consideration to Tocqueville’s train of thought and conclusions. I think that half the reason I resented his judgments was because they neatly pigeonholed the American people into behaviors that we can’t escape from, taking away our freedom to act differently. However, I grudgingly admit that I am not free of generalizing judgments…yet.
What kind of aristocratic world was Tocqueville living in? The only place I have heard of a devout aristocracy is in my core book. In those societies, everyone was raised up to an “aristocratic” level, all being equal and having abundance. Indeed, the kind of aristocracy Tocqueville describes sounds like the translated city of Enoch, and I am sure he didn’t have first hand experience there. Are there really any forms of government that stay free of corruption outside of religious texts? Like Madison observed in Federalist Paper 10, the same freedom that allows free men, allows men to form factions. This freedom allows for degeneration and conversely allows acceleration, inventions and improvement. Yes, there were (and still are) bad effects of democracy for Tocqueville to observe, because there is human nature and people are free to choose to do selfish and shortsighted things. Those effects and people aren’t universal in the United States, but sadly, the number it is becoming far more than is healthy.
Tocqueville couldn’t foresee the result of democracy and its related free market effects on science, inventions, and manufacturing so early, but they were starting to manifest. Many of his conclusions are thus outdated and even laughable as I type this on my computer. The 5000 Year Leap explains this principle beautifully; the proof that democracy and free markets work is the amount of progress we have made in the last 200 years compared to the last 5000.
A chapter without Tocqueville’s annoying comparisons was Chapter 14 in Book 2, How the Taste for Physical Gratification is United in America to Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs. In this chapter he gives warnings about being so caught up in day to day living and enjoyments that education wanes, preoccupation with the fun things in life distracts attention from government and that lack of government involvement results in loss of freedom. We have seen some of these results already and are suffering its consequences. Still many of the American people aren’t alert to governmental proceedings and corruption.
I know I need to reread this classic in a different light, one that is not so provoked and to give more consideration to Tocqueville’s train of thought and conclusions. I think that half the reason I resented his judgments was because they neatly pigeonholed the American people into behaviors that we can’t escape from, taking away our freedom to act differently. However, I grudgingly admit that I am not free of generalizing judgments…yet.
February 7, 2017
It is impossible to do this book enough justice and I posit that if you haven’t read it, then no matter how high your expectations are you will be blown away nonetheless, just as I was. The depth and breadth of the ideas, number of subjects, and the quality of writing makes you take a step back and realize how pedestrian in comparison most of political and sociological writing and thinking is, no matter how serious or well-reviewed.
The rest are really just notes to self, don’t bother reading them and get the book instead.
Tocqueville:
- Constantly runs counterfactuals
- Always looks at long & short terms effects, and rather uncommonly at transitional period effects
- Extensively employs thinking on the margin, sometimes marginal effects are themselves considered on the margin.
- Regularly finds multiple divergent effects of the same cause, and conversely finds multiple divergent causes leading to the same effect
Small sample of themes and ideas:
- America vs France given the absence of genuine revolution in the former.
- Must have initial equality (of opportunity) to get to freedom, which leads to appreciation and cultivation of individualism but under fluctuating and uncertain conditions this can in the long term decrease the need and taste for that very freedom & individualism via apathy and mediocrity.
- Individual freedom seems “protected” by surrendering sovereignty to the illusion of self-rule by elected nation (via de Jouvenel/Orwell lines). T. sees voluntary associations as the only long term hedge against inevitable strengthening of the state at the expense of the individual. Intermediary local institutions as the only practically sustainable buffer.
- Democratization leading to moderation in virtues and vices and more dangerously to moderation of will and mediocrity of the spirit.
- Under democracy tendency to generalize is encouraged by assumption of sameness. The price of any generalization is a decrease in accuracy. French generalization, unlike American, had for centuries not been checked by practical experience and as such it is more utopian.
- Literature under aristocracy can get suffocated by form, under democracy by lack of the taste for it.
- Divorce and unfaithfulness are frowned upon, as under democracy you marry voluntarily and for love in theory
- Democracy restricts the scope and ambition of intentional scientific study but increases the chances of breakthroughs by unintended positive side effects of wide-spread tinkering.
- Pantheism is likelier under democracy (using sameness to generalize from self to society and then from self to everything). Lapses into obsessive spirituality are to be expected as an overreaction to otherwise general over-occupation with practice.
- Religion, Army plus warfare style, Preoccupation with wellbeing, “Industrial” Aristocracy, Democratic despotism, Manners, National Vanity, Theater and Poetry
The rest are really just notes to self, don’t bother reading them and get the book instead.
Tocqueville:
- Constantly runs counterfactuals
- Always looks at long & short terms effects, and rather uncommonly at transitional period effects
- Extensively employs thinking on the margin, sometimes marginal effects are themselves considered on the margin.
- Regularly finds multiple divergent effects of the same cause, and conversely finds multiple divergent causes leading to the same effect
Small sample of themes and ideas:
- America vs France given the absence of genuine revolution in the former.
- Must have initial equality (of opportunity) to get to freedom, which leads to appreciation and cultivation of individualism but under fluctuating and uncertain conditions this can in the long term decrease the need and taste for that very freedom & individualism via apathy and mediocrity.
- Individual freedom seems “protected” by surrendering sovereignty to the illusion of self-rule by elected nation (via de Jouvenel/Orwell lines). T. sees voluntary associations as the only long term hedge against inevitable strengthening of the state at the expense of the individual. Intermediary local institutions as the only practically sustainable buffer.
- Democratization leading to moderation in virtues and vices and more dangerously to moderation of will and mediocrity of the spirit.
- Under democracy tendency to generalize is encouraged by assumption of sameness. The price of any generalization is a decrease in accuracy. French generalization, unlike American, had for centuries not been checked by practical experience and as such it is more utopian.
- Literature under aristocracy can get suffocated by form, under democracy by lack of the taste for it.
- Divorce and unfaithfulness are frowned upon, as under democracy you marry voluntarily and for love in theory
- Democracy restricts the scope and ambition of intentional scientific study but increases the chances of breakthroughs by unintended positive side effects of wide-spread tinkering.
- Pantheism is likelier under democracy (using sameness to generalize from self to society and then from self to everything). Lapses into obsessive spirituality are to be expected as an overreaction to otherwise general over-occupation with practice.
- Religion, Army plus warfare style, Preoccupation with wellbeing, “Industrial” Aristocracy, Democratic despotism, Manners, National Vanity, Theater and Poetry
May 14, 2013
Now I need to read more about de Tocqueville and critiques of his theory. I have tentative criticisms of his main tenets - mostly questions that I hope someone else might have noticed and studied for me. Perhaps I missed this section, but did he address how the despot produced by equality and democracy interacts with the other branches of our government? I suppose he would say that even if we begin with those three branches checking power, eventually the executive branch will dominate.
And then, while in practice, it does seem as though de Tocqueville is accurate in his portrayal of equality producing mediocrity, I do wonder if mediocrity is the necessary result of equality. Why can't there be high standards and an excellent education available for all people? And perhaps I missed it, but does de Tocqueville address the waste of aristocracies who may have fools in high positions and geniuses born into poverty?
But he remains utterly interesting in his analysis of our society. It's fascinating to me to observe his comments on equality between the sexes and the differences between European women and American women in his century. Apparently, he thought women in America acted more intelligently than European women. And it just amazes me, despite modern psychology, to see even a couple of centuries ago, evidence that people live up to expectations.
Anyway, this is one author I would LOVE to meet in heaven.
And then, while in practice, it does seem as though de Tocqueville is accurate in his portrayal of equality producing mediocrity, I do wonder if mediocrity is the necessary result of equality. Why can't there be high standards and an excellent education available for all people? And perhaps I missed it, but does de Tocqueville address the waste of aristocracies who may have fools in high positions and geniuses born into poverty?
But he remains utterly interesting in his analysis of our society. It's fascinating to me to observe his comments on equality between the sexes and the differences between European women and American women in his century. Apparently, he thought women in America acted more intelligently than European women. And it just amazes me, despite modern psychology, to see even a couple of centuries ago, evidence that people live up to expectations.
Anyway, this is one author I would LOVE to meet in heaven.
July 3, 2012
De Tocqueville said the first volume of Democracy in America was more about America, the second more about democracy. The introduction by Mansfield and Winthrop, the translators and editors of the edition I read, called it both the best book on America and the best on democracy. The first volume was a popular bestseller in its day, the second a more modest success, and I can understand that. I rated the first volume five stars, this volume is getting quite a bit lower. It's still well worth reading--there are startling insights in this book, they're just to me less striking and come less often.
As De Tocqueville noted, the first book is more on America, and is grounded in a lot of telling observations. Not that it's absent in this second book, but this one is a lot more theoretical, and I think a lot of its points are better made in the first book. I also admit I'm not inclined to accept one of his major themes in this second volume, that religion is essential to democracy. And he seems very much off the mark in his contention that American democracy doesn't produce great literature or advances in the sciences. Admittedly, in 1835 when this second volume was published, about the only well-known American writers of fiction were James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. I can't say I much agree with his criticisms of individualism either. That's not to say reading this wasn't worthwhile, but less essential I feel than the amazing first volume.
As De Tocqueville noted, the first book is more on America, and is grounded in a lot of telling observations. Not that it's absent in this second book, but this one is a lot more theoretical, and I think a lot of its points are better made in the first book. I also admit I'm not inclined to accept one of his major themes in this second volume, that religion is essential to democracy. And he seems very much off the mark in his contention that American democracy doesn't produce great literature or advances in the sciences. Admittedly, in 1835 when this second volume was published, about the only well-known American writers of fiction were James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. I can't say I much agree with his criticisms of individualism either. That's not to say reading this wasn't worthwhile, but less essential I feel than the amazing first volume.
May 14, 2012
This book was required reading for my political science class in college but, to my surprise, I found it absolutely fascinating. Alexis de Tocqueville was a Frenchman who visited America shortly after the ratification of the United States Constitution and wrote Democracy In America vol. 1 praising our nation for it's determination, work ethic, and politics. He revisited the country some time later and wrote this book to express troublesome changes that he witnessed from one visit to the next and made some predictions about where we were headed, as a nation, based on those changes.
de Tocqueville wasn't a psychic or any kind of Nostradamus, he was both a master and student of human nature and political trends. Now, 200 years later, his predictions are eerily on point and my copy of this book, for one, is heavily marked with various colored highlighters as I simply couldn't resist the urge to re-read and often quote certain passages from it.
de Tocqueville wasn't a psychic or any kind of Nostradamus, he was both a master and student of human nature and political trends. Now, 200 years later, his predictions are eerily on point and my copy of this book, for one, is heavily marked with various colored highlighters as I simply couldn't resist the urge to re-read and often quote certain passages from it.
February 6, 2014
Easily one of the six greatest secular books I've ever read. Somehow predicted the rise of socialism and the nanny state, the disappearance of truly great men from the political scene, the concentration of governmental power and its broadness of scope, the rise and dangers of the modern corporation and the mass-media, and the ever-shrinking individual amidst an increasingly dominant equality. Nobody has ever written such powerful and insightful social commentary with such force: Tocqueville is as good as it gets.
July 24, 2018
One of the best books that I've ever read although it took me quite some time to read it. What started out was an examination of the prison system of the U.S. turned into an examination and observation about the political system of the United States and why it seems to work so well here and why it may not when attempted to other countries. He also warns the U.S. that we should be careful lest our democratic system become an oligarchy. It's pretty much about what makes the political system that we've adopted here run so well. I cannot recommend this book too highly.
July 30, 2011
Ce deuxième ouvrage sur le système démocratique en Amérique est un peu plus intéressant que le premier. Il quitte le point de vue purement historique, il arrête l'analyse institutionnelle pour se pencher sur les moeurs de la population dans une démocratie. Cela tient assez de la sociologie, mais il y a aussi toute une partie très philosophique, notamment les deux premiers chapitres de la première partie (sur la tendance cartésienne des américains, et sur la relation au dogme).
May 19, 2013
In the first volume, the author described what he saw in the American people and system of government.
In this volume he generalizes more about the future (from his point of view) and centers his thoughts about "democratic ages". He tries to relate the American experience to France. I can understand why he did that, and, if I were steeped in French history, I could probably relate much better to what he was saying. But I am not, and don't.
In this volume he generalizes more about the future (from his point of view) and centers his thoughts about "democratic ages". He tries to relate the American experience to France. I can understand why he did that, and, if I were steeped in French history, I could probably relate much better to what he was saying. But I am not, and don't.
August 15, 2017
This was an absolutely fantastic read in which de Tocqueville focus more on the social aspects of the great American experiment than the governmental ones. His observations are amazing and uncanny in their accuracy nearly two hundred years after this book was written. You will be amazed and glad you read this work.
November 15, 2015
I loved this book because it is a clear window back in time. His observations about human nature under different political systems is interesting, but sometimes debatable. His predictions for the future of the Union probably would have been correct except for the Civil War.
October 3, 2015
7: Brilliant, incisive and still very relevant.
"if I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women."
"if I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women."
October 4, 2019
[Suite du précédent]
« Si les hommes parvenaient jamais à se contenter des biens matériels, il est à croire qu'ils perdraient peu à peu l'art de les produire, et qu'ils finiraient par en jouir sans discernement et sans progrès, comme les brutes. »
« Si les hommes parvenaient jamais à se contenter des biens matériels, il est à croire qu'ils perdraient peu à peu l'art de les produire, et qu'ils finiraient par en jouir sans discernement et sans progrès, comme les brutes. »
July 16, 2020
This volume starts with 'Americans philosophical evolution'?.. Then briefly explain individualism and different states of equality in America, and also a kinda tried to predict? the future of democratic government.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 7, 2020
Since June of this year I have been nightly nibbling away at Tocqueville's fascinating "take" on the United States of 1831-32, first finishing volume one a few months ago and, last night, volume two.
Although they are now often, as in the version published by the Library of America, as one book, they were written roughly four years apart: volume one appearing in 1835 and the second in 1840.
Although most of the data Tocqueville cites are long out-of-date, the observations about American life -- culture, thought, inclinations, etc. -- and some of the predictions he makes for this country in the future are not.
In the last chapter of volume one, for example, he includes a long chapter discussing how Native Americans and Black people have been treated in America, and it is not a flattering read. He and his traveling companion hated the institution of slavery and found its glaring contradiction to the professed ideals of the American Republic astounding. He also predicted that while slavery would someday inevitably fade away, the tensions of the long injustices done to Blacks would long remain.
In volume two, while discussing the likelihood of future "revolutions" in America, he observes that revolutions do not result from societies that practice equality but, rather, those that practice some form of inequality. "If," he cautions, "American ever experiences great revolutions, they will be brought on by the presence of Blacks on the soil of the United States: in other words, they will result not from equality of conditions but, on the contrary, from inequality."
In volume two, he returns frequently to what he sees as one of the most distinctive qualities of Americans -- their individualism. In volume one he had warned that excessive individualism, if it was allowed to crowd out or smother an appropriate concern for the larger needs of the whole, would lead to a crumbling of democracy. In this volume he returns to that theme, and talks more extensively about the pursuit of self-interest -- PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD (his words) -- would balance the pursuit of individual goals with those of the commonwealth. One of the brakes on excessive individualism, he believed, was the influence of religion (meaning Christianity) since its moral precepts stressed the importance of caring for others. However, as he had warned in volume one, if religious bodies began to intrude on specific matters of the state -- by, for instance, instructing their congregations on whom to vote for -- they would lose their broader positive interest on the broader society even as they perhaps gained a tighter hold on their congregants. Should this latter occur, this all-important brake on excessive individualism would be severely weakened. It appears to me that this fear has been realized in our own time, and the ethical rot that is so widespread among office-holders today is but one consequence.
He also foresaw the danger of "great industry." Clearly, the vigor of American manufacturing and scientific inventions and rapid advances in technology were one of the reasons that so many Americans were able to live in relative equality (economic and social). However, he anticipated the marshaling of ever-greater combinations of industry that would not only acquire significant power but also weighs ever more heavily on workers. "Thus," he writes, "as industrial science steadily debases the class of workers, it raises the class of masters."
He also anticipated -- imperfectly, of course, for he is writing almost 200 years ago now -- the rise of omnipotent states and the consequent loss of true freedom by citizens. "I am trying to imagine what new features despotism might have in today's world," he writes. "I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasure with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he lives alongside them but does not see them. He touches them but does not feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family, he no longer has a country.
"Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably."
This strikes me as a remarkably prescient view of the reality of what happens to those citizens who give all agency to some "leader" or "movement" for, once having done that, all real thinking and assessing by those citizens is shunted aside, making room for the incorporation of what "their leader" says and believes and asserts. We saw this sad phenomenon many times in the 20th century and, as should be very clear by now and in the United States of America, too, it still lives in the 21st century.
Tocqueville's two volumes make for fascinating reading, much of it still of worth today.
Although they are now often, as in the version published by the Library of America, as one book, they were written roughly four years apart: volume one appearing in 1835 and the second in 1840.
Although most of the data Tocqueville cites are long out-of-date, the observations about American life -- culture, thought, inclinations, etc. -- and some of the predictions he makes for this country in the future are not.
In the last chapter of volume one, for example, he includes a long chapter discussing how Native Americans and Black people have been treated in America, and it is not a flattering read. He and his traveling companion hated the institution of slavery and found its glaring contradiction to the professed ideals of the American Republic astounding. He also predicted that while slavery would someday inevitably fade away, the tensions of the long injustices done to Blacks would long remain.
In volume two, while discussing the likelihood of future "revolutions" in America, he observes that revolutions do not result from societies that practice equality but, rather, those that practice some form of inequality. "If," he cautions, "American ever experiences great revolutions, they will be brought on by the presence of Blacks on the soil of the United States: in other words, they will result not from equality of conditions but, on the contrary, from inequality."
In volume two, he returns frequently to what he sees as one of the most distinctive qualities of Americans -- their individualism. In volume one he had warned that excessive individualism, if it was allowed to crowd out or smother an appropriate concern for the larger needs of the whole, would lead to a crumbling of democracy. In this volume he returns to that theme, and talks more extensively about the pursuit of self-interest -- PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD (his words) -- would balance the pursuit of individual goals with those of the commonwealth. One of the brakes on excessive individualism, he believed, was the influence of religion (meaning Christianity) since its moral precepts stressed the importance of caring for others. However, as he had warned in volume one, if religious bodies began to intrude on specific matters of the state -- by, for instance, instructing their congregations on whom to vote for -- they would lose their broader positive interest on the broader society even as they perhaps gained a tighter hold on their congregants. Should this latter occur, this all-important brake on excessive individualism would be severely weakened. It appears to me that this fear has been realized in our own time, and the ethical rot that is so widespread among office-holders today is but one consequence.
He also foresaw the danger of "great industry." Clearly, the vigor of American manufacturing and scientific inventions and rapid advances in technology were one of the reasons that so many Americans were able to live in relative equality (economic and social). However, he anticipated the marshaling of ever-greater combinations of industry that would not only acquire significant power but also weighs ever more heavily on workers. "Thus," he writes, "as industrial science steadily debases the class of workers, it raises the class of masters."
He also anticipated -- imperfectly, of course, for he is writing almost 200 years ago now -- the rise of omnipotent states and the consequent loss of true freedom by citizens. "I am trying to imagine what new features despotism might have in today's world," he writes. "I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasure with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he lives alongside them but does not see them. He touches them but does not feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family, he no longer has a country.
"Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably."
This strikes me as a remarkably prescient view of the reality of what happens to those citizens who give all agency to some "leader" or "movement" for, once having done that, all real thinking and assessing by those citizens is shunted aside, making room for the incorporation of what "their leader" says and believes and asserts. We saw this sad phenomenon many times in the 20th century and, as should be very clear by now and in the United States of America, too, it still lives in the 21st century.
Tocqueville's two volumes make for fascinating reading, much of it still of worth today.
March 8, 2010
A prophetic book about the mindset of Americans -- including their virtues and potential vices.
May 7, 2009
This is a hard and wonderful book. I loved it. This Frenchman in 1840 could see the very soul of men 150 years ahead of his time.
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