still shaping...........................

 

The society of the modern world, which I have sought to delineate and which I seek to judge, has but just come into existence.  Time has not yet shaped it into perfect form; the great revolution by which it has been created is not yet over; and amid the occurrences of our time it is almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the revolution itself and what will survive its close.  The world that is rising into existence is still half encumbered by the remains of the world that is waning into decay; and amid the vast perplexity of human affairs none can say how much of ancient institutions and former customs will remain or how much will completely disappear.

-Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy in America, Book Two, Chapter VIII, 1840

Ah, de Tocqueville......................

 

     As the rulers of democratic nations are almost always suspected of dishonorable conduct, they in some measure lend the authority of the government to the base practices of which they are accused.  They thus afford dangerous examples, which discourage the struggles of virtuous independence and cloak with authority the secret designs of wickedness.  If it be asserted that evil passions are found in all ranks of society, that they ascend the throne by hereditary right, and that we may find despicable characters at the head of aristocratic nations as well as in the bosom of a democracy, the plea has but little weight in my estimation.  The corruption of men who have casually risen to power has a coarse and vulgar infection to it that renders it dangerous to the multitude.  On the contrary, there is a kind of aristocratic refinement and an air of grandeur in the depravity of the great, which frequently prevents it from spreading abroad.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

centralization...........................

 

     I think that extreme centralization of government ultimately enervates society, and thus, after a length of time, weakens the government itself; but I do not deny that a centralized power may be able to execute great undertakings with facility in a given time and on a particular point.  This is more especially true of war . . . All men of military genius are fond of centralization; and all men of centralizing genius are fond of war . . .

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II, Fourth Book, Chapter IV

that salutary fear................

 

. . . for a long time they will prevent the establishment of any despotism, and they will furnish fresh weapons to each succeeding generation that struggles in favor of the liberty of mankind.  Let us, then, look forward to the future with that salutary fear which makes men keep watch and ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which depresses and enervates the heart.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2, Chapter VII (1840)

weary.....................

 

     A constitutional republic in its head and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts has always appeared to me to be a shortlived monster.  The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring about its ruin, and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Fourth Book, Chapter VI

Checking in with de Tocqueville......

 

     I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world; our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. . . .

     Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate.  That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild.  It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: . . .For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the decent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all care of thinking and all the trouble of living? 

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Fourth Book, Chapter VI

stupefies..........................

     After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community.  It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.  The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly constrained from acting.  Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Fourth Book, Chapter VI

 

About equality.....................

 Now, I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone. . . .

     There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored.  This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book 1, Chapter 3

a taste..................................

      The men who live in the democratic ages upon which we are entering have naturally a taste for independence; they are naturally impatient of regulation, and they are wearied by the permanence even of the condition they themselves prefer.  They are fond of power, but they are prone to despise and hate those who wield it, and they easily elude its grasp by their own mobility and insignificance.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2, Chapter VII (1840)

On privilege........................

 Moreover, in politics as well as in philosophy and in religion the intellect of democratic nations is particularly open to simple and general notions.  Complicated systems are repugnant to it, and its favorite conception is that of a great nation composed of citizens all formed upon one pattern and all governed by a single power.

     The very next notion to that of a single and central power which presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of equality is the notion of uniformity of legislation.  As every man sees that he differs but little from those around him, he cannot understand why a rule that is applicable to one man should not be equally applicable to all others.  Hence the slightest privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be the first condition of good government.

     I find, on the contrary, that this notion of a uniform rule equally binding on all members of the community was almost unknown to the human mind in aristocratic ages; either it was never broached, or it was rejected.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II,  Fourth Book, Chapter II