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Why Tocqueville Matters
- wrp 3y agoWhat I find remarkable about Tocqueville and Democracy in America is how frequently and in how many contexts he is still quoted. With such a broad coverage of topics and a knack for pithy characterization, he is easily mined for quotes to give your argument a feeling of authority. I enjoyed this lecture by a law professor about Washington Irving and the social subtexts in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The prof makes substantial use of Tocqueville. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGMKQ8De_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGMKQ8De_xo)
- greenyoda 3y agoArchive with full text of article: https://archive.ph/qsC5b https://archive.ph/qsC5b
- gadders 3y agoReview on the same book from the Spectator if you want to compare and contrast: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-remarkable-prescience-of-alexis-de-tocqueville/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-remarkable-prescienc...
- RedCondor 3y ago[flagged]
- augment003 3y agoIs there any writer who is positive about the promise of America that you would recommend instead?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RedCondor 3y agoSort of. You can check this out, it says a few positive things about America near the end: https://redsails.org/what-is-capitalism/ https://redsails.org/what-is-capitalism/ edit: Can't reply (HN being silly as usual) but, regarding being scandalized at the American-capitalist essence of Nazism... I mean, didn't Hitler look to America for inspiration? Didn't the term "Untermensch" come from "under man" in the works of Lothrop Stoddard, an American? From Hitler’s infamous Mein Kampf [My Struggle], published in 1925: >There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship laws] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the American Union, in which an effort is made to consult reason at least partially. By refusing immigration on principle to elements in poor health, by simply excluding certain races from naturalization, it professes in slow beginnings a view which is peculiar to the folkish state concept. From Hitler's 1942 recollections: >The struggle we are waging [in Crimea] against the Partisans resembles very much the struggle in North America against the Red Indians. Victory will go to the strong, and strength is on our side. At all costs we will establish law and order there. […] Saxony, for example, will enjoy an unprecedented trade boom, and we shall create for her a most profitable export market, which it will be the task of Saxon inventive genius to develop. There's a whole book about it: Hitler's American Model. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hi... I don't see anything wrong with the argument. A few good things are said about American efficiency, and that's what I think history will say in the end.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- augment003 3y agoThis is clearly not an answer to the question: "Is there any writer who is positive about the promise of America that you would recommend instead?" Are you one of the authors of redsails.org?
- clueless 3y agoWonder how you can subjectively conclud that the statement: “Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare” has been deemed incorrect?
- RedCondor 3y agoWell, starting from the 1840s onwards, we saw far more revolutions than ever before. The European revolts of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, all the others (Vietnamese, Korean, etc.). Then we also had the counter-revolutions in Germany and Italy, etc. Tocqueville was a bad analyst, but people who say what others want to hear stand a decent chance of failing upwards (see: American invasion of Iraq, etc.).
- augment003 3y agoA lot of people want to hear anti-American rhetoric, indeed there is money to be made in it. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ccps-increasingly-sophisticated-cyber-enabled-influence-operation/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ccps-increasingly-sophisti...
- prepend 3y agoAnd how does that compare to the frequency of revolutions in earlier periods? The premise wasn’t that there would be no further revolutions. Just that they would be more rare. I think it’s important to think on this from a 500 year horizon rather than just what’s happened recently.
- mistercheph 3y ago> [...] he adored America. Just another American holding up a book they've never read and screaming lines they've been fed by a think-tank about it. "Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to meliorate the condition of the prisons. The public was excited by the statements which they put forward, and the regeneration of criminals became a very popular undertaking. New prisons were built; and for the first time, the idea of reforming as well as of punishing the delinquent, formed a part of prison discipline. But this happy alteration, in which the public had taken so hearty an interest, and which the exertions of the citizens had irresistibly accelerated, could not be completed in a moment. While the new penitentiaries were being erected (and it was the pleasure of the majority they should be terminated with all possible celerity), the old prisons existed, which still contained a great number of offenders. These jails became more unwholesome and more corrupt in proportion as the new establishments were beautified and improved, forming a contrast which may readily be understood. The majority was so eagerly employed in founding the new prisons, that those which already existed, were forgotten; and as the general attention was diverted to a novel object, the care which had hitherto been bestowed upon the others ceased. The salutary regulations of discipline were first relaxed, and afterward broken; so that in the immediate neighbourhood of a prison, which bore witness to the mild and enlightened spirit of our time, dungeons might be met with, which reminded the visiter of the barbarity of the middle ages." Tocqueville, unlike the newly minted class of college-educated illiterates who would come to throw him back and forth at each other while throwing in English words they learned upon encountering their foreign equivalents on Duolingo, each smearing a little bit more of their unwiped fecality from fingernail to spine of the $38 Barnes-and-Noble hardcover reprint of a public domain translation, was complicated, and the phenomenon he described, Democracy in America, remains complicated.
- RedCondor 3y ago[flagged]
- AlbertCory 3y agoIf you think expressing pity for those you deem inferior to you exempts you from the charge of snootiness: https://archive.ph/mjnvX https://archive.ph/mjnvX You don't even know your subject.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoWhat you quote is not especially scandalous. It uses the language of the time but is not wrong in that Europe essentially conquered the world and was factually superior to everyone else at the time where in some places people still lived like in the iron age.
- RedCondor 3y agoIt's very scandalous, but as I said, people will defend Tocqueville because they like what he says about them. Quid pro quo.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoI don't think that stating something broadly factual can be scandalous. The language is very dated but that's what happens after 200 years.
- brookst 3y agoI think the person you're replying to is interpreting "superiority over all the other races" to mean moral / intrinsic superiority, and I think you're reading it as meaning superior economic / military power. I tend to agree with your reading.
- RedCondor 3y ago>the individual, placed with us, by his vices and his ignorance, on the lowest step of society, is yet the first among savages. I think Tocqueville speaks very clearly for himself, and I don't how if there exist mental gymnastics dexterous enough to try to make this sentence mean anything other than what it clearly means.
- brookst 3y agoFair enough. I think you are either unaware that language changes over time, or choosing to pretend to be unaware to justify outrage. But you do you!
- AlbertCory 3y agoDemonstrating how little you know about your own subject, beyond that he was white: https://archive.ph/mjnvX https://archive.ph/mjnvX he also supported the French mission in Algeria.
- maire 3y agoYou have to put Tocqueville in the context of his era. Europe was still in the era of monarchies. In fact, even though France had just beheaded their monarchs they tried to recreate various flavors of monarchies for decades. They even installed an "emperor" in Mexico. Tocqueville was trying to figure out if other forms of governance could exist. I find it comforting that the same flaws we see in democracy today also existed in the time of Tocqueville. That does not mean that I think other forms of government are better. I agree with Churchill that “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
- RedCondor 3y ago[flagged]
- maire 3y agoI love the change of subject. ;-)
- prepend 3y agoIt’s the classic “I have no valid point therefore I’ll interject a non-sequitur.” The next fallacy would be to say something “why are you angry about this?” In response to a simple question. I blame kids growing on YouTube screamer shows.
- prepend 3y agoMarx and Engels weren’t writing on American slavery and race relations. But they seem pretty racist to me based on their frequent dropping of n-bombs in their writings [0]. I think the reason we don’t have 19th century racist essays by Marx and Engels is that they wrote almost always about Europeans and European culture. Agree on Churchill. But does that surprise anyone? England was still literally colonizing India and South Africa during Churchhill’s time. It would be weird to find a non-racist world leader from that time period. Even LBJ, decades later, held pretty racist beliefs even while passing the civil rights act. [0] https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels-fathers-of-marxism-on-blacks-mexicans-74c153ef4d35 https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels...
- wesleychen 3y agoIt's difficult to say that the chapter "Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare" was proven wrong by history. Tocqueville isn't saying that revolutions will become rare period. He says that in societies with social equality (that is, without a caste system), revolutions will become rare, even when other forms of equality exist such as wealth/income inequality. All the revolutions you talk about in this thread are in societies with social class delineation. In countries like America, we can witness first-hand how extreme wealth inequality has not produced revolution in the same way that social inequality has in the past. He also argues that there are great incentives against revolution in societies when people possess things they could lose in a revolution (his main example is property). I think an example of this is May 68's failure to bring political change due to the Communist Party's nonviolent stance/cooperation with the Gaullists. We can debate back and forth why they took an antirevolutionary position but consensus seems to be that they at least did not want to surrender what political power they had won through elections. He also makes other predictions about how equality in social conditions causes people to be more individualistic and less communal, but at the same time less unique. Again, I think we can witness this first hand in America. Maybe he's wrong about other claims, but I wouldn't say this essay is wrong based on the title alone, since the actual essay reads spot on.
- RedCondor 3y agoPlenty of societies with castes had no revolution, plenty of societies without castes had some. Post-revolution America also had Black slavery, which made it a caste society. Even if we restrict ourselves to America, Tocqueville betrays zero awareness of the impending Civil War. 1848 also happened all over Europe in places that had already largely departed from caste, to say nothing of the Paris Commune. I find all of this excessive charity towards an incorrect prediction ultimately unconvincing.
- wesleychen 3y agoI would not characterize my comments as excessive charity. It’s an accurate summary of Toqueville’s essay and a rough comparison of his claims to the way history unfolded. The 1848 revolutions you talk about occurred in different ways, but a way to generally characterize them is that they were all democratic with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures (regardless of the actual participants). This aligns with Toqueville’s claim that revolution stems from social division (which liberalism eliminates) and not other forms of inequality. The same is true of the Paris Commune; the third republic was initially dominated by monarchists and the Paris Commune as government was organized as a rival to the national government in Versailles/Bordeaux. The American Civil war is another example that supports Tocqueville. The social stratification of slavery led to war but not the extreme inequality of the 1920s. Neither has the inequality of the present. Tocqueville’s observation of the connection between social class and revolution also explain why the 20th century movements in Europe played out the way they did. Communist revolution occurred in Russia but not Germany. The fascist movements in liberal Germany and Italy took power without bloody revolution but the movement in Spain was tied to monarchists and thus there was civil war. His main point is that liberalism provides off-ramps from violent revolution because people have other ways of wielding political power. In societies with strict social classes, the classes without political power have much greater incentives to fight. I imagine you wouldn’t disagree with this claim.
- prepend 3y ago> >The European race has received from Providence, or has acquired by its own efforts, so incontestable a superiority over all the other races which compose the great human family, that the individual, placed with us, by his vices and his ignorance, on the lowest step of society, is yet the first among savages. From a political power perspective he’s correct though. Especially in 1830. I didn’t real this as biologically superior so much as “Europe is so great, it’s greater than everywhere else.” And at the time, wasn’t that true? Were there any major world players at the time? This was at the peak of industrialization that was having Europe eclipse historical powers like China and India. And this would all change around in the 20th century (and 21st obviously). I think the word race was used very differently at the time and means more like peoples or nations.
- emmelaich 3y agoIs he just being descriptive of that current state of affairs though? Or does he attempt to justify it? I guess I'll have to read it...
- kpw94 3y ago> Tocqueville observes that among the French “the taste for general ideas” is much stronger than in America, where something of the English proclivity for details and practical concerns predominates. The details & practical concerns, although I've a feeling reading this article is painted as lesser than these higher level "general ideas" is something Tocqueville seemed to find somewhat admirable, or at least he was neutral about it. That basically local government would have an elected official for small, specific matters was a very US thing. Overall he seemed to emphasize how the decentralization in US was in contrast to deep centralization in France (and China, at the time too apparently). How this decentralization meant the principle of "subsidiarity" was applied closely in the US (and was the only major country doing it). (https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1444121638857891844 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1444121638857891844 for a tweet-sized definition of that principle)
- skywal_l 3y ago> China, at the time too apparently As a side note, China is probably the first country to have a central government.
- kpw94 3y ago> Arthur de Gobineau, a French aristocrat and one-time secretary to Tocqueville, is considered one of the fathers of scientific racism. When Tocqueville became aware of Gobineau’s theories of inherent racial inequality, he responded fiercely, calling them “false” and “pernicious” Maybe I read a different book, but in tome 1 there's some pretty racist chapters about the differences between white & black in America, and how they'll never get along or something. It's possible he disagreed with "scientific racism" but he appeared pretty confident in some other racist views in that chapter in the first tome... (note his visit was before abolition of slavery)
- beebmam 3y agoI don't think it is inherently racist to claim that two culture-groups will never get along. Could you articulate the author's claim further? If it is a racist claim, I suspect it goes a bit further than this.
- hammock 3y agoCan you quote some?
- thuuuomas 3y agoIt’s on Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/815/pg815-images.html#link2HCH0006 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/815/pg815-images.html#l...
- prepend 3y agoDid you just quote the entire book (600 pages or so) as an example? That’s pretty funny and you may as well just as GP to google it. I’m currently halfway through the book and don’t remember any particularly egregious (any more than I expect all 19th century European aristocrats were regularly racist) and am interested in what passages are most of interest to understand the argument.
- thuuuomas 3y ago
- paganel 3y agoAs it happens I've just finished reading Irena Grudzińska Gross's Custine, Tocqueville, and the Romantic Imagination [1], half of it being devoted to Tocqueville and his journey to the United States. The part that touches on him and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visiting Lake Oneida and especially the deeply forested Frenchman Island located there was really illuminating. I highly recommend the entire book (the first part on Custine and his travels into Russia also deserves an entire article all by itself, probably even more so). [1] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3b69n83q&brand=ucpress https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3b69...
- alexpotato 3y agoIt's been a long time since I read Democracy in America but one passage in particular has always stuck with me. It's where he contrasts New England (aka Vermont etc) with the South. He essentially says: - In New England, it's almost a Greek democracy b/c everyone is seen as equal and everyone is required to work together for the common good - In the South, they tried to recreate the aristocracy. That was only possible if there were multiple classes of society with the lowest class being the primary manual laborers. In other words, if you didn't have serfs then you needed slaves. Year later, I was reading a comparison of the US vs Argentina. Similar size, similar resources and similar weather yet vastly different outcomes politically and economically. The thesis of the comparison was that Argentina imported the Spanish aristocracy model whereas US had a more egalitarian model. It was interesting to see two somewhat similar comparisons made hundreds of years apart and coming to similar conclusions.
- 082349872349872 3y agoI've been living in europe for the last couple of decades, and it's obviously been an even longer time since I read Democracy in America in american school, but the local culture seems a much better fit to what de Tocqueville was lauding (spontaneous self-organisation, etc). Was he just projecting? Or have the continents switched cultural places in the intervening centuries? (especially after Suez?)
- archgoon 3y ago[dead]
- sixo 3y agoMostly converged to the same cultural place, but unevenly. That's the trend ever since the French revolution—France removed its aristocracy (though it kept coming back.) England basically weakened theirs to the point of redundancy, but kept it in a form. Russia kept theirs all the way until 1918 and then upheaved it all at once. The World Wars mostly wiped out whatever was left of the old world order. Sort of seems like Europe built a stronger immune system against the smell of hierarchy than the U.S. did, so the U.S. keeps inventing new caste systems e.g. Jim Crow.
- jchook 3y agoThis paragraph by Tocqueville kind of haunts me. “I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary. Whosoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.” Perhaps I was fed a reductionist view of the Civil War in grade school, but this seems to challenge core assumptions we were taught. My view of the Civil War was further shifted when I learned that Lincoln’s idea of ending slavery never implied amalgamation of former slaves into white society— something he was openly against. He literally tried (and inhumanely failed) to deport all the black people to a remote location. Before the War, Lincoln publicly complained that the slave states were breeding all the unwanted “mulattos”. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Confederacy, almost like it was a war tactic.
- jfengel 3y agoYou were certainly fed a reductionist view of the Civil War. You're lucky if you avoided a frankly false view of the Civil War, that it was a noble lost cause to be celebrated. The industrial North was very much in fear of anybody taking their jobs. That included immigrant groups as well as blacks, though immigrants were usually able to assimilate within a generation or two, while blacks were permanently discriminated against. There was plenty of discrimination against black people in the north after the war, too. But de Tocqueville was not around for the way southern bias turned into Jim Crow laws and lynching. I think he was misled by the way southerners felt protected from blacks by slavery. They felt no threat, economically or personally. When the slaves were freed, that same emotion became virulent.
- 082349872349872 3y ago> ...but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary "In the South, they don't care how close you get as long as you don't get too rich; in the North, they don't care how rich you get as long as you don't get too close." (tbf I think the situation described has improved since my childhood ... so not exactly stationary, but definitely glacial)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fsckboy 3y agocould a frenchman speak out, isn't his family name "de Tocqueville"?
- kalimanzaro 3y agoYou can check out the french wikipedia they leave out the de too unless disambiguating from his relatives, when they go de Tocqueville comte
- prepend 3y agoI noticed this quote that made me think of Paul Graham’s Economic Inequality essay [0], and I think it made me change my mind as originally I agreed with Graham’s premise out of a rational analysis perspective of it being objectively right. Tocqueville reminded me that objective truth doesn’t help you against an angry mob. “ It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and strong with one that is poor and weak. Even if it were proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the weaknesses and poverty of the other. A union is still more difficult to maintain at a time when one party is losing strength and the other is gaining it. This rapid and disproportionate increase of certain states threatens the independence of the others.” [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html