Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy in America

When I was an undergraduate college student I took a class titled Social and Intellectual History of the United States. It was in this class I became acquainted with the Frenchman A. de Tocqueville and his famous travel and critique of our young nation. He came, ostensibly, for a tour of our country’s prison system, but really came as an observer and reporter of our National Character.

I have been interested in our National Character and in the development of personal character—in fact, my doctoral dissertation dealt with character education in the university I attended. I have wondered if others of my acquaintances have given much thought to who we as an American people are or of their own character development? Others, such as John Steinbeck (Travels With Charlie) and Alistair Cook and James Michener have undertaken such journeys and have published accounts on them, and I think we could all profitably engage ourselves with such contemplations and journeys where possible. My wife and I just returned from a trip to Europe and I will, in some later posting, report on some of my observations in this vein.

Here are just a few of de Tocqueville’s observations of 1831; I wonder how valid they are today:
• ‘The greatest blot on the [American national character] is the avidity to get rich and to do it by any means whatever.’
• ‘[Contrasted to the above] was the talk, always, of improvement and reform—what to do about slavery, about education, about God and the churches, about the rich, about women, about alcohol, about prisons.’
• ‘No novelty in the United States struck me more vividly during my stay here than the equality of conditions.’
• This is ‘a country where the military spirit is absolutely unknown.’
• ‘Every American feels a sort of personal interest in obeying the laws.’
• ‘The inhabitant of the United States learns from birth that he must rely on himself to combat the ills and trials of life; he is restless and defiant in his outlook toward the authority of society and appeals to its power only when he cannot do without it….’
• ‘Every American has the sense to sacrifice some of his private interests to save the rest.’
• ‘It is all-important for them to be educated…and I see a time approaching in which freedom, public peace, and social stability will not be able to last without education.’
• ‘As [inhabitants] mingle, Americans become assimilated; the differences which climate, origin, and institutions had created among them become less great. They all get closer to one type.’
• ‘The quarrels which are carried on in the newspapers or in society concern persons rather than things, and not a single person I met talked about leaving the United States. Indeed, it was the rare man or woman who even suggested that Americans might learn anything from the experience and ideas of other societies. They have an immensely high opinion of themselves and are not far from believing that they form a species apart from the rest of the human race.’

What would be his critique of America now? What would be our critique of ourselves? Do we ever subject ourselves of such an evaluation in our own personal lives? Maybe we should.