Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Chapter 4 CONSEQUENCES OF THE THREE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
Men are more willing to chip in and help a fellow citizen who is equally exposed to the same dangers.

Chapter 5 HOW DEMOCRACY MODIFIES RELATIONS BETWEEN SERVANT AND MASTER
Excepting slavery in the South, under democracies with equal conditions, domestic service is viewed as an honorable way to earn money and make a living. Furthermore, the master-servant relationship takes on temporary, freely chosen, business-like employer/employee, job for hire characteristics.

Chapter 6 HOW DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND MORES TEND TO RAISE PRICES AND SHORTEN THE TERMS OF LEASES
The usual comparison to aristocracies reveals that:

In aristocracies the hire of a farm is paid to the landlord, not only in rent, but in respect, regard, and duty; in democracies the whole is paid in cash.

Then he seems to digress to address what he sees as a problem of emerging and unspecified democratic institutions in Europe. Landowners are selling out in a sense, in receiving more cash income from renting their lands at the expense of their patronage, power, respect, social standing, and influence.

Chapter 7: Influence of Democracy on Wages
Tocqueville notes a general increase in wages in a democracy as well as a developing dependency in the workers on their jobs and suggests lawmakers need to remain vigilant for exploitation and desperation of workers during tough times when wages may be reduced.

Chapter 8: Influence of Democracy on the Family
Tocqueville describes the typical American nuclear family with children being ruled by the father until a certain age and then gaining their independence and going out to make their own way as autonomous citizens. Tocqueville notes childhood appears to be very short.

Chapter 9: Raising Girls in the United States
Tocqueville repeats his assertion from the first volume that women are the maintainers of morals.

. . .as I said in the first part of this work, it is woman who makes mores. To my way of thinking, therefore, anything that influences the condition of women, their habits, and their opinions is of great political interest.

Tocqueville suggests a certain level of independence is necessary to the political and environmental conditions in America; American Protestant women, are raised to exercise the most independence and are most competent in conducting their own affairs than their European and Catholic counterparts.

Chapter 10: How the Traits of the Girl Can Be Divined in the Wife
Digging a little deeper in the matter Tocqueville notes:

In America, a woman forfeits her independence forever when she embraces the bonds of matrimony. Although girls in America are less restricted than they are anywhere else, wives submit to stricter obligations. A girl turns her father’s house into a place of freedom and pleasure, whereas a wife lives in her husband’s home as in a cloister.

He also notes religious, commercial conditions to those in the previous chapter make American women stronger and more dependable:

Americans constitute both a puritanical nation and a commercial people. Hence both their religious beliefs and their industrial habits lead them to require of women a degree of self-denial and constant sacrifice of pleasure to business that are rarely asked of women in Europe.

A question I still have is, what is it about commercial people that causes this?

How fair is Tocqueville’s statement?

It is fair to say that it is through the use of independence that she develops the courage to endure the sacrifice of that independence without a struggle or a murmur when the time comes.

Unless the independence Tocqueville is describing is illusory, I can more easily imagine it being a double-edged sword to 19th. century expectations.

Chapter 11: How Equality of Conditions Helps to Maintain Good Morals in America
Other than the historical value of the obsolete opinions in it, is there anything worthwhile to take from this chapter? For example:

SOME philosophers and historians have stated or implied that the severity of women’s morals varies directly with the distance they live from the equator. . .

. . .This great regularity of American mores is doubtless due in part to the country, to race, and to religion. But all these causes are found elsewhere and together do not suffice to explain it. Some specific reason is needed. As I see it, that reason is equality and the institutions that derive from it.

Chapter 12: How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman
Some positive thoughts:

I think that the social movement that is bringing son and father, servant and master, and, in general, inferior and superior closer to the same level is raising woman and will make her more and more the equal of man. . .

. . . if someone were to ask me what I think is primarily responsible for the singular prosperity and growing power of this people, I would answer that it is the superiority of their women.

And some more questionable thoughts:

Americans, moreover, never assumed that the consequence of democratic principles would be to topple the husband from power and confuse lines of authority within the family. They believed that every association needs a leader in order to be effective and that the natural leader of the conjugal association was the man. . .

. . .Thus, Americans do not believe that man and woman have the duty or right to do the same things, but they hold both in the same esteem and regard them as beings of equal value but different destinies

For those members who read Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance with us, does this describe the relationship Zenobia surprisingly longs for with Hollingsworth?

Chapter 13: How Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Small Private Societies
Tocqueville thinks it is a superficial mistake to think that equality of conditions will lead to a near homogeneous population, but he fears while the people are politically equal, their private and peculiar diversities will cause them to confine themselves to little societies within the democracy instead of living their lives more in common.

Chapter 14: Some Reflections on American Manners
In aristocracies, everyone knows their place and manners are thus well established and followed by tradition. In democracies, where everyone is equal, social rank is less discernable and manners are therefore not well established, disciplined, or instructed. Again we seem to have a leveling affect by equality of conditions in which a democracy’s manners may not be considered neither as refined as they are in aristocracies nor are they distilled so much to be considered crude. In the end, after repeated claims of the critical importance in the impression that manners provide he admits:

The manners of the aristocracy draped human nature in beautiful illusions, and though the portrait was often deceptive, there was noble pleasure in looking at it.

Does this mean American manners are more genuine?

Chapter 15: On the Gravity of Americans and Why It Does Not Prevent Them from Acting Rashly
American pride makes them so serious, but also because they are so habitually absorbed in the serious concerns of government. However, because they cannot commit enough time and attention to those serious concerns they tend to act rashly. Tocqueville names this habitual inattention as the greatest defect of the democratic mind.

Chapter 16: Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Restless and Argumentative Than That of the English
Of American patriotism, Tocqueville says:

Their vanity is not only greedy but also restless and envious. It gives nothing yet is always asking to receive.

He explains this by stating:

. . .when there is little difference in conditions, the slightest advantages are important. Since each person is surrounded by a million others who possess quite similar or analogous advantages, pride becomes exigent and jealous; it fastens on trifles and defends them stubbornly.

Chapter 17: How Society in the United States Seems Both Agitated and Monotonous
Tocqueville explains:

The appearance of American society is agitated, because men and things are constantly changing; and it is monotonous, because all the changes are the same.

It sounds like he is saying, the rat race becomes boring after a while. It is also suggested that like cookie-cutter franchised businesses, other localities on a national scale and he fears a global scale as well, are adopting the same ways of acting, thinking and feeling; wiping out local variety. E.g., there used to be a nice rib joint here that made their own BBQ sauces, but now it is just another McDonalds with a drive-thru.

AdT has a remarkable ability to praise American ways when he approves them, and then in the next sentence denigrate some other American way of which he disapproves. He really seems to look with his eyes open.

David wrote: "Tocqueville repeats his assertion from the first volume that women are the maintainers of morals.

. . .as I said in the first part of this work, it is woman who makes mores. To my way of thinking, therefore, anything that influences the condition of women, their habits, and their opinions is of great political interest...." (Chapter 9)

I have a problem with the first part of his assertion. Why should it be women who make mores? Why not women AND men?

It seems to me when we place the burden on women for establishing and sustaining the mores of a society, we are letting men off the hook. Or, to put it another way, if there is a problem with the mores of a society, blame the women!

I don't think so.

I applaud the second part of his assertion, i.e. "anything that influences the condition of women, their habits, and their opinions is of great political interest." I'm assuming he doesn't mention men in this sentence because he takes for granted anything that influences the condition of men, etc. etc. is of great political interest.

But I would also add children and the elderly to the assertion. Anything that influences the condition of children and the elderly surely has to be of political interest. Or perhaps he is assuming women will automatically promote the interests of these two groups, which may or may not be the case.

I think it was Alija Izetbegovic, the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who said you can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its elderly and its children.

Tocqueville likes to suggest a tendency and then present an opposing tendency to balance it out.

For example in Chapter 13 he says that contrary to popular opinion equality of conditions does not lead to a homogeneous society because a prideful desire to be part of some advantageous inequality will lead to a collection of small private societies. However in Chapter 17 he says equality of conditions makes everything monotonous because of the adoption of the same ways of acting, thinking and feeling, i.e., a homogeneous society, stifles variety.

My thought on women as the maintainer of morals is that if that were true, why were there no famous women philosophers or female clergy writing the Sunday sermons?

At the end of Chapter 15, AdT speaks directly to me. "The habit of inattention ought to be considered the greatest vice of the democratic mind."

Certainly we live in a time (or in a "century", as AdT might put it) where both mobility and technological advancements are creating shorter and shorter attention spans (to which this Goodreads group is a WONDERFUL remedy). What I would wonder, though, is whether AdT would see our inattention as a direct function of democracy, or rather an indirect function, simply existing as the result of the kinds of economies, aspirations, political cycles, tech advancements, that democracy tends to create.

In the 19th century is was commonly thought that women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men, on average.

David wrote: "My thought on women as the maintainer of morals is that if that were true, why were there no famous women philosophers or female clergy writing the Sunday sermons?"

This is probably irrelevant logically as a response to your comment, David, but where stream of consciousness takes me to respond this moment is that a number of at least the Protestant denominations required that clergy be trained in Greek and/or Latin, yet many of the educational institutions of the time barred women from such training. To a large extent, that problem extended to university-level education in general.

Which takes one to a rather strange place, that being a maintainer of morals is independent of education? And, of course, what does it mean to "make mores"? (I wish I knew more about the women who led the salons in aristocratic Europe where ostensibly so many political and social concerns were discussed and debated.)

Roger wrote: "In the 19th century is was commonly thought that women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men, on average."

Because they were given?/allowed? or took? only a narrower set of roles in society? Or....?

Because they were usually subject to .... my mind stops at what to speculate.

And a difference exists between were "thought such because" and "were such because"? Or maybe the question ought to be, what does "by nature" mean?

I'm not sure but what I have just tried to ask isn't just nonsense...

Kyle wrote: "What I would wonder, though, is whether AdT would see our inattention as a direct function of democracy, or rather an indirect function, simply existing as the result of the kinds of economies, aspirations, political cycles, tech advancements, that democracy tends to create."

That is an interesting question. If I understand it correctly, Tocqueville seems to suggest the "inattention" is a direct byproduct of democracy:

In aristocracies, each person has but a single goal, which he pursues constantly. Among democratic peoples, however, man’s existence is more complicated. It is rare for a mind not to embrace several objects at once, and often these objects are quite unrelated to one another. Since he cannot know all of them well, he settles easily for imperfect notions.

Otherwise, he might have mentioned the other factors in aristocracies that create the inattention as well. In this case he indicates democracy alone. However, I cannot help but think several contributing factors all combine to play a part in creating this inattentiveness under the umbrella of democracy, most notably, equality of conditions, individualism, and the pursuit of material well-being.

Roger wrote: "In the 19th century is was commonly thought that women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men, on average."

Which is somewhat ironic since women had no legal or political rights at that time. If women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men, shouldn't it be logical for them to have a say in the making of laws, in elections, in how society is run, etc. etc.?

Declaration of Sentiments (1848) reminds us that women had no right to vote; had no voice in the making of laws; were considered legally and civilly dead if married; denied all rights to property, including wages if they earned any (her wages were paid to her husband); denied guardianship of their children in divorce; and in all aspects of their lives were totally under the jurisdiction of the husband.

If women were truly considered to have greater moral virtue than men, why didn't they have a bigger say in society? How are they supposed to exert a positive moral influence on society if all avenues are barred to them? And if the answer to that is by educating future generations to be good citizens, my question is how are they to do that in a vacuum when they, themselves, have not been permitted to exercise their citizenship?

I believe the 19thC claim that women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men is nothing more than a justification for denying women their rights.

On the one hand, women were put on a pedestal and repeatedly cautioned against sullying their delicate fingers by involving themselves in the political sphere; on the other hand, they were stripped of all rights and denied access to venues that would, presumably, enable them to better influence society with their ostensibly higher morals.

I'll get off my soapbox now :)

My father always said that the hand that rocked the cradle ruled the world.

David wrote: "Chapter 13: How Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Small Private Societies
Tocqueville thinks it is a superficial mistake to think that equality of conditions will lead to a near homogeneous population, but he fears while the people are politically equal, their private and peculiar diversities will cause them to confine themselves to little societies within the democracy instead of living their lives more in common."

AdT nailed this insight. Since democracy gives folks choices that they would otherwise be unable to have, we tend to choose folks just like ourselves. AdT predicted that democracy produces a polarization, rather than a unification.

I've been finding T’s descriptions of and comments about aristocracy as interesting as his description of and thoughts about democracy. T seems to be sharing insights on the mores, lifestyles, and beliefs of European, and more specifically French, aristocrats. DiA’s descriptions seemed to extend my understanding of Age of Enlightenment aristocracy beyond what I've picked up from histories and literature.

But now I ask, what makes T an authority on aristocracy? He was born into an aristocratic family, but not until 13 years after the revolution and the fall of the Ancien Regime. He was a child during Napolean's reign, and came of age and was a young man during the Bourbon Restoration. By then aristocrats who had fled France during the revolution, or by singular circumstance survived it, were repatriated to a very much changed nation and to a monarchy that was constitutional rather than absolute. Their ranks were much depleted, their seigneurial rights and their peasants were gone, and they were constrained in innumerable ways that would have been unimaginable to their aristocratic predecessors. T experienced a limited aristocracy that had to compete with the business and professional classes for recognition and advancement. Knowing only this watered-down aristocracy firsthand, T would likely have turned to other sources such as remembrances of elders, his own reading, and other secondhand commentary.

I contend that T is no more an authority on aristocracy than he is on democracy. I find that he uses statements about aristocracy as foils to statements about democracy. Much of his writing uses contrast as a technique, which make me wonder if some of his neatly formulated contrasts were driven by literary technique rather than observation.

Be that as it may, I still admire his broad vision, his bold conceptualizations, and his thought-provoking and often astute assertions.

I have found AdT/DIA is thought-provoking enough that it is driving me to supplemental reading!?! On this particular week, I found myself pulling Volume 4 of A History of Private Life: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War. I was fascinated to find both Tocqueville and his traveling companion Beaumont cited therein. But let me just say here, the book gives a rather more complex view of family/civic mores than I perceive in DIA.

I created my collection of Private Lives when Borders went out of business. If not already references on your own shelves and your local library has a set, I encourage browsing when dealing with a particular era of history. Although I'd like to quote more, and I may do a bit as this conversation continues, I respect such is not the flavor of this board, but rather to concentrate on the original text before us. Anyway, with your forbearance:

"All Tocqueville's work revolves around the problem of reconciling private happiness with public action. He advocated associations and celebrated the virtues of the American family, virtues from which he believed a social bond might be forged. 'Democracy stretches social bonds but tightens natural ones. It brings relatives together even as it pushes citizens apart.'" p104 Hence the need for civic associations.

But Tocqueville also writes of the perils of excessive individualism pushing peoples apart and the opportunities such provides to the governing class for usurping the general interests -- divide and conquer strategies.

I finished up this section this morning--as usual, I'm almost exactly a week behind. I don't know that I can add much to what's already been said--I was interested to see that T finally (either here or in the preceding week) brought up the idea of a moneyed aristocracy that I wondered about earlier.

A quote from chapter 17 struck me when I recognized it--"...mais, comme les mêmes succès et les mêmes revers reviennent continuellement, le nom des acteurs seul est different, la pièce est la même."

Which should be something like, 'but, since the manner of success is the same and the same dreams continually return, the actors alone are different, the play is the same." which I've paraphrased myself, unknowingly, for years, as 'the script never changes, only the actors are different.' Funny to see a possible source for that here.

I'm way behind (about two weeks and a half) but I have to say that chapter 9 and 10 got me ranting a while and stalled me (like the chapters on the native americans and slavery). I guess Tocqueville was pretty liberal compared to his contemporaries but I can't help being exasperated by these kinds of baseless assumptions on women or the double standard regarding their roles in the society and in the family.

Borum wrote: "I guess Tocqueville was pretty liberal compared to his contemporaries but I can't help being exasperated by these kinds of baseless assumptions on women or the double standard regarding their roles in the society and in the family. .."

I echo your sentiments (see my posts #8 and #16).

Tamara wrote: "Borum wrote: "I guess Tocqueville was pretty liberal compared to his contemporaries but I can't help being exasperated by these kinds of baseless assumptions on women or the double standard regardi..."
Yes, and Ch. 12 was like he was trying to somehow fit his idea of American woman in with his ideal of American democracy. How can a woman who "willingly" accepts her unequal position fit in with his idea of equality? He starts from the premise of men and women being different by nature but he seems to be confusing the physical differences with other nonphysical values. I mean, WHAT greeat variation between the moral constitution?

I was surprised by the astuteness of chapter 13, though. As Kyle said, T nailed this and I'm sorry to see that he didn't delve further into this insight. This isn't just the phenomenon in America or democratic societies, I think. I sometimes think it's people inborn nature and that they can't help making factions or divisions or cliques (even when it's frowned upon). This happens in even little dimensions like classrooms or bigger societies. In many of these chapters regarding the mores, Tocqueville seems to point out the society's basis which is the human nature (or mores? I'm still undecided) that instinctively avoids any extremes and seeks the balance between. It's as if we intuit subconsciously that it's too dangerous to steer too much towards equality or liberty, homogeneity or individuality.

It was a common idea in the 19th century that women were more moral by nature (on average) than men.

Roger wrote: "It was a common idea in the 19th century that women were more moral by nature (on average) than men."

Yes, unsupported ideas leading to more questionable division in labor and standards. Speaking of double standards, in the Nolla/Schleiffer edition I have, the footnote in chapter 11 under the sentence 'you see at the very same time a great number of coutesans and a multitude of honest women.' notes: [In the margin: Men always have the time to make love, but not courtship./ Man always attacks no matter what you do. The important thing is that women defend themselves well.] Of course this was rejected in the end, but I found it horrible. He seemed to have a lot of trouble in writing about women as the footnote for chapter 12 says that a copy of the chapter contains this initial note: "Chapter such as I revised it, but without being able to be satified about it in this form any more than the other. The fact is that I no longer understand anything; my mind is exhausted. (October 1839)". I guess for Tocqueville, gender equality was a work in progress with much more puzzles to be solved than democracy.

Borum wrote: "Chapter such as I revised it, but without being able to be satisfied about it in this form any more than the other. The fact is that I no longer understand anything; my mind is exhausted. (October 1839)"

Smiled at this. The biographical information I read suggests Alexis felt fortunate to have married Mary, an English woman, despite some resistance from his family. They apparently wanted children, but did not have any. Some of this is alluded in correspondence with his traveling partner to the U.S,

Tamara wrote: "Roger wrote: "In the 19th century is was commonly thought that women were by nature less prone to moral vices than men, on average."

Which is somewhat ironic since women had no legal or political ..."

AMEN to your soapbox!! I am right there with you!

Chris wrote: "AMEN to your soapbox!! I am right there with you! .."

Thanks, Chris. I'm delighted to have the company :)