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 673 (start at chapter 8 heading) – 676 of this edition of Democracy in America.
In the final chapter of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville says that he has one task left—to provide a summative judgment on how democracy, or the equality of conditions, will help or hinder “the lot of man.” In so doing, he provides a robust account of democratic greatness and offers cautious hope for the future of democracy.
Before giving his opinion, De Tocqueville hesitates. He says “I feel my sight becoming blurred and my reason wavering.” He is less confident about this final remaining task.
What prompts this circumspection? New democratic societies, De Tocqueville points out, are “only being born” and so “[t]ime has not yet fixed its form.” Here De Tocqueville revisits (and gently revises) a metaphor he used at the beginning of his book in which he compared newborns and nations. There he boasted that the best way to understand the habits, passions, and characteristics of a man’s maturity was to study him as a child. The whole man was “in the swaddling clothes of his cradle” (1.1.2). Likewise, nations always feel the effect of their origins. The problem that De Tocqueville admits here is that if the “whole” is contained in the beginning, then there’s no room for human freedom to play a role.
To some extent, the future of democracy is open ended. Much will depend on what Americans choose to do. The character of American democracy could be resentful and small-minded. Or it could be generous and magnanimous. It will be up to particular peoples and statesmen to pursuit the advantages and resist the weaknesses of democracy.
The principle effect of democracy on society, De Tocqueville observes, is to reduce all extremes. Most people will be of the “middling” sort in terms of wealth, fortune, education, arts, and ambition. Most people will be lifted up but at the cost of lowering the few at the top. The rise of democracy means less individual excellence but much less cruelty and injustice. Education will be more widely diffused throughout the population. Manners and mores will be “mild” and “legislation humane.”
De Tocqueville makes a confession. He laments this brave new world in which humanity is an “innumerable crowd” of mediocrity; he regrets the passing of aristocratic brilliance. He recognizes that his view is partial and that it is a “weakness.”
In order to correct his limited point of view, De Tocqueville adopts the perspective of God whom he credits as being able to see “the whole human race and each man.” From this divine vantage, De Tocqueville says that democracy is more just and “its justice makes for its greatness and its beauty.”
The grandeur and nobility of aristocracy that delights De Tocqueville personally, he concedes, comes at the expense of justice. In a democracy, more people get what they merit. Moreover, it is enough for democratic peoples to strive “to be honest and prosperous.”
De Tocqueville turns to consider what should be done. In his own time, reactionaries against democracy and liberalism, out of nostalgia, strove to preserve aristocracy and inequality. Aristocracy, he firmly says, is not coming back.
The political goal, De Tocqueville says, isn’t to cling to the benefits that aristocracy produced but to pivot to “securing the new goods that equality” offers. De Tocqueville’s moderate and humane liberalism teaches the weaknesses of democracy—not to scorn democracy—but in order to guard against them and to obtain the benefits that equality of conditions makes possible. As he prudently advises, “we ought not to strive to make ourselves like our fathers, but strive to attain the kind of greatness and happiness that is proper to us.”
De Tocqueville is “full of fears and full of hopes” for the future of democracy. Rival ideologies to democracy will emerge that will introduce new and brutal justifications for inequality. With great prescience, De Tocqueville warns against pseudo-scientific justifications for the superiority or inferiority of peoples based on history, race and ethnicity, and geography. He warns his readers against such doctrines and calls them “false and cowardly.” These ideologies will not mark a return to the brilliance and nobility of aristocracy. Rather, they will produce “weak men and pusillanimous nations” as the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and various racial supremacy doctrines demonstrate.
De Tocqueville saves his best argument for democracy for the very end. Democracy is not only more just but more accurately mirrors the human condition. Aristocracy is based on an exaggeration of human freedom for a very few and exaggeration of human dependence for the many. The truth is in the middle. Individuals (as well as nations and peoples) are caught in the middle—neither wholly free nor wholly dependent. Every person lives within a “fatal circle” but that circle is expansive. De Tocqueville says “within its vast limits man is powerful and free.” It is up to individuals and nations to reach for the greatness within their grasp.
Elizabeth Amato earned her B.A. at Berry College and her M.A. and Ph.D. at Baylor University in political science. She is the author of The Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime: Political Theory in Literature (Lexington Books, 2018). She is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Gardner-Webb University.
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