Essay 75: How In America The Taste For Physical Pleasures Is Combined With Love Of Freedom And Concern For Public Affairs (Vol. 2 Pt. 2 Ch. 14)
Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner
The essays in our study reference the following edition of Democracy In America: University of Chicago Press – 1st edition translated by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Today’s essay references pages 514 – 517 of this edition of Democracy in America.
In Democracy in America, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville provides a comprehensive account of the nature of democracy based on observations made while in America. He examines the qualities of the American people that enable its free society to persist, and he describes what could lead to its decline. He argues that a movement toward democracy is inevitable in a commercial society, and this is borne out in the industrial growth that enabled the foundation of America. The development of industry enabled a greater diffusion of material goods among the mass of the people. In a democracy the people rule, and the institutions of government and manners of the people must both be ordered in a way that is conducive to a free society.
In this particular chapter, De Tocqueville describes how a free society is uniquely suited to long-term prosperity. While a monarchy ruled by a king with the elevation of the few initially enables material prosperity for a small group, De Tocqueville argues it would not endure. It is free societies which continue to prosper throughout history. He concludes that freedom and prosperity are intertwined, most particularly within democratic nations.
The character of the people in a democratic regime is rooted in equality of the individual, and it is shaped by the people joining into associations with their fellow citizens. De Tocqueville famously explains that associations promote a community that enables individual freedom under limited government. In this chapter, he speaks of associations in light of material concerns. In “centuries of equality,” there is a need for associations to enable one to acquire goods. Political freedom, he argues, enables the production of wealth, and despotism is destructive to it.
Democratic people long for certain goods, and freedom will enable them to attain the “material enjoyments for which they constantly sigh.”
However, an excessive longing for material enjoyment will disturb the spirit of liberty promoted by associations. The focus on accumulating wealth can be so extreme that it will lead an individual away from caring for the society as a whole. A person who solely focuses on wealth does not have the civic spirit necessary to see beyond himself, and it makes civic engagement a chore that distracts from his selfish pursuit. The desire for material enjoyments must be ordered by the cultivation of “habits of freedom.” De Tocqueville argues that the maintenance of self-government is the principal interest of every democratic citizen, and the attachment to wealth leads one to misjudge his primary interest to be the accumulation of wealth at the expense of freedom.
There needs to be a certain disposition in the democratic citizen, and De Tocqueville believes Americans have a unique combination of seeking individual interest while actively engaging in civic affairs. The individual needs to perceive that freedom furthered in the social and political realms is most beneficial for material enjoyment in private life. De Tocqueville warns that if the mass of the people is dedicated to “private affairs” they are prone to be ruled by a few which will enable the rise of despotism. Americans have been able to avoid this, and “in that genuinely deserve to be admired.” The character of the American people lets individuals both seek material enjoyments but also remain engaged in civic activities required for the maintenance of freedom. This does not mean that Americans have no concern for material enjoyment. Rather, they are directed by their capacity of reason instead of being blindly ruled by passion alone.
Americans, De Tocqueville explains, appear to be guided primarily by selfish motivations, but their conduct reveals something more noble. He writes, “An American occupies himself with private interests as if he were alone in the world, and a moment later, he gives himself over to the public as if he had forgotten them.” Americans see freedom as the “greatest guarantee of their well-being.” In other words, they do what De Tocqueville says is necessary for democratic people: recognize that freedom is the key to prosperity.
Joey barretta received his B.A. in Political Science and History as an Ashbrook Scholar at Ashland University. He went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College. His academic training is in political philosophy and American political thought, and he has published widely on the political thought of Frederick Douglass.
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Hello! I’m Janine Turner, founder of Constituting America!
“An American occupies himself with private interests as if he were alone in the world, and a moment later, he gives himself over to the public as if he had forgotten them”
I love this quote by De Tocqueville. He combines the basis of liberty and prosperity, with the spirituality of caring for our fellow man.
what are your thoughts?