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Started By
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Alexis de Tocqueville
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:23 am
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:23 am
“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 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 descent of 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 to look on them as benefits.
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 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 nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
A. de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
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 to look on them as benefits.
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 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 nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
A. de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
5
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:25 am to Mohican
“Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:25 am to Mohican
Imagine if he wrote a paper on that now?
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:27 am to Mohican
“When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:28 am to Mohican
“However strong a Government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its Constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right.” Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America.
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:30 am to Mohican
“Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:32 am to Mohican
“ everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:33 am to Mohican
He would've pulled a Grandpa (Abe) Simpson had he visited today.
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:33 am to Mohican
“ It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:34 am to Rex Feral
quote:
Imagine if he wrote a paper on that now?
The soy professors wouldn't be able to understand his writing today.
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:38 am to Mohican
“ What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.
They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license.
When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.”
There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.
They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license.
When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:39 am to Mohican
“ Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:41 am to Mohican
“ Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:43 am to Mohican
“ The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:46 am to Mohican
Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
Published in 1835 and 1840 (Vol. I & II).
Published in 1835 and 1840 (Vol. I & II).
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:53 am to Mohican
quote:
Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul.
This is why Biden and the dims are always hootin' and hollerin' about opening up our souls and uniting the soul of America.
Stay the frick away from my soul, you demented old ghoul!
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:56 am to Mohican
quote:
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
Perhaps his most salient point.
One thing the Founding Fathers could not envision was a society that would endure corruption and politicians who saw public service as a way of life. They figured the citizens would vote the bastards out of office or string them up.
Our Republic requires a moral people to govern themselves. We are way past that now.
Posted on 1/21/21 at 8:59 am to Mohican
“ Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
- Alexis de Tocqueville”
- Michael Scott
- Alexis de Tocqueville”
- Michael Scott
Posted on 1/21/21 at 11:44 am to mtntiger
quote:
Perhaps his most salient point.
He had many. His descriptive prose helped to sharpen the image of the idea of Americanism - and what it wasn't. It also proved to be extremely prophetic.
He hit on exactly what made America exceptional and what would eventually lead to its demise. Democracy in America should be required reading.
Posted on 1/21/21 at 11:46 am to Mohican
This thread is anchored?
ETA: Holy shite.
ETA: Holy shite.
This post was edited on 1/21/21 at 11:47 am
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