De Tocqueville and the Principle of Equality

Alexis de Tocqueville Predicts Obamism

In 1835 and 1840 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the two books contained in the now single volume called “Democracy in America”. Born in 1805, Tocqueville was only 35 when he wrote the chillingly prescient words that follow, taken from the Signet Classic edition, Heffner ed., 2001.

“It would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume different character (*); it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them. I do not question, that, in an age of instruction and equality , sovereigns might more easily succeed in collecting all political power into their own hands, and might interfere more habitually and decidedly with the circle of private interests, than any sovereign of antiquity could ever do. But this same principle of equality which facilitates despotism, tempers its rigor. We have seen how the manners of society become more humane and gentle, in proportion as men become more equal and alike. When no member of the community has much power or much wealth, tyranny is, as it were, without opportunities and a field of action. As all fortunes are scanty, the passions of men are naturally circumscribed, their imagination moderates the sovereign himself, and checks within certain limits the inordinate stretch of his desires.

“Independently of these reasons, drawn from the nature of the state of society itself, I might add many others arising from causes beyond my subject; but I shall keep within the limits I have laid down.

“Democratic governments may become violent, and even cruel, at certain periods of extreme effervescence or of great danger; but these dangers are rare and brief. When I consider the petty passions of our contemporaries [Americans], the mildness of their manners, the extent of their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which they almost all observe in their vices no less than in their virtues, I have no fear they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but rather with guardians.

“I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it.

“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest, -his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens he is close to them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.

“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: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principle concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of their property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

“Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them, and often times to look on them as benefits.

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community into 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 restrained 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 be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

“I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people. “

Having firm hindsight of the French Revolution and the horrific outcome of egalite’ over liberte’, Tocqueville accurately described the humanist, socialist totalitarianism that we now must combat here on our home turf. It will take years to overcome the damage done by such governing; it is not even clear that the Americans of today want anything more than to be the “flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd”. The moral relativism that is educated into several generations translates well into the cults of victimhood, dependency and self-centered irresponsibility that is endemic in not just consumer behavior, but now in governmental response to it.

If he were here today, Tocqueville could document the collapse of freedom into the sucking muck of equality, just as he outlined in his principle of equality.

(*)Tocqueville had previously been describing the Roman verison of totalitarian control.