Summary: Democracy in America (page 4)

In a visionary passage, Tocqueville predicts that America and Russia will emerge as two dominant nations, surpassing the English and French, who, at the time of his writing, hold sway over global affairs: There are today on earth two great peoples who, starting from nothing, seem to be advancing towards the same goal: they are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans [...] Each of them appears destined, by a secret design of Providence, to one day hold in their hands the fate of half the world ¹.

However, Tocqueville does not propose America as a model for European nations to follow. Given the differing historical, geographical, and sociological contexts, one must be cautious about applying the same model to such distinct nations:

I am well aware of the influence exerted by a country's nature and historical precedents on political constitutions, and I would consider it a great misfortune for the human race if liberty were to manifest itself everywhere in the same form ².

This idea was already articulated in Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws.

The equality inherent in democracy fosters certain ideas, among them that of progress.

In an aristocracy, each individual occupies a fixed rank in society—noble, serf, knight... As a result, no one seeks to challenge an inevitable destiny.

It is not that, in an aristocracy, people believe man cannot improve or change. Rather, it is believed that this change is not infinite but confined within certain limits. One envisions an improved human condition, but not a radically different one ³.

Such societies are thus characterised by their seemingly fixed or immutable nature: As nothing stirs around them, they easily assume that everything is in its rightful place ⁴.

The legislator aspires to enact eternal laws, while peoples and kings seek to build monuments for the ages, and so on.

With equality, social classes draw closer, customs and laws evolve, and new truths are uncovered. These changes reveal that man possesses an indefinite capacity for self-improvement.

From a literary perspective, such societies witness a democratisation of literature in both senses: the people, being better educated, read more books, but literature also becomes more commonplace.

Likewise, democracy shapes certain historical perspectives. Unlike in an aristocracy, historians no longer attribute events to the decisions of great men but to vast, providential forces that determine the course of the world, beyond the reach of any individual will.

La Fayette noted in his Memoirs that this deterministic outlook offers great comfort to mediocre politicians, as it always furnishes them with a ready excuse for political failure.

Tocqueville, for his part, argues that while some events stem from broad general factors, others arise from specific causes.

Similarly, the spirit of equality fosters another metaphysical notion: individualism. Democratic individualism turns each man's attention inward, focusing solely on himself ⁵.

This is a new phenomenon; aristocracy, by contrast, knows only egotism. Whereas egotism is merely a passionate and exaggerated self-love, born of blind instinct, individualism is a reflective and tranquil disposition that inclines each citizen to withdraw from the masses and retreat into seclusion with family and friends ⁶. It stems from an error of judgement rather than from moral corruption.

In an aristocracy, men are bound together by class; each sees a superior who protects him and an inferior whom he can assist. Moreover, everyone belongs to a family.

In a democracy, the levelling of conditions means that men no longer occupy a fixed rank within a social hierarchy. As a result, the sense of family disintegrates: Democracy makes each man forget his ancestors, obscures his descendants from view, and isolates him from his contemporaries; it perpetually redirects his focus back to himself alone ⁷.

¹ I, p.597
² I, p.465
³ tome II, p.53
⁴ ibid.
⁵ II, p.143
⁶ ibid.
⁷ II, p.145