| Tocqueville's introduction |
"Translation" |
| (p. 10) No novelty in the United States struck
me more vividly during my stay there than the equality of conditions...
the influence of this fact extends far beyond political mores and laws,
exercising dominion over civil society as much as over government; it creates
opinions, suggests customs, and modifies whatever it does not create....
(seven hundred years ago, France) was divided up between a few families
who owned the land and ruled the inhabitants. At that time the right to
give orders descended, like real property, from generation to generation. |
The narrative of the equality of men and its impact is most obvious
in the United States. It created, and transforms, personal narratives,
the public narrative of public opinion, governmental institutions, customs
and habits everywhere...At the height of the Middle Ages, the political
narrative, and the corresponding political order, was defined by a few
families who had the power to command and change things as they pleased. |
| (p. 14) Because it never entered the noble's
head that anyone wanted to snatch away privileges which he regarded as
legitimate, and since the serf considered his inferiority as an effect
of the immutable order of nature, one can see that a sort of goodwill could
be established between those two classes so differently favored by fortune.
At that time one found inequality and wretchedness, but men's souls were
not degraded thereby. |
Because it was an idea that was completely strange to the narrative/order
of things that legitimized a noble's privileges, he never thought his privileges
endangered, and because the serf himself had his own narrative of the immutable
order of nature which knew none of the noble's privileges, one can see
how both sides, in their perception differently favored by fortune, could
oversee, and not feel degraded by what we today perceive as inequality
and wretchedness. |
| (p. 10 )But then the political power of the clergy
began to take shape and soon to extend. The ranks of the clergy were open
to all... through the church, equality began to insinuate itself into the
heart of the government, and a man who would have vegetated as a serf in
eternal servitude could, as a priest... often take precedence over kings. |
But then the narrative of equality of the Christian church began
to spill over into the political realm. Common people, through the order
of the church (as legitimized by the Christian narrative) were elevated
in their social status. The Christian narrative accorded them often precedence
over the king. |
| As society became more stable and civilized,
men's relations became more numerous and complicated. Hence the need for
civil laws was felt, and the lawyers soon left their obscure tribunals...
to appear at the king's court side by side with feudal barons... the commoners
were growing rich by trade. The power of money began to be felt in affairs
of state. Trade became a new way of gaining power and financiers became
a political force... |
As society became less focused on survival and more focused on
culture, men's relations diversified, and were not legitimized by the old
narrative only. The political order needed diversification in the form
of civil laws, a new form of narrative-turned-institution that needed a
new kind of people - lawyers - to write it. Equally, a new economic order
produced masters of the new economic narrative and its institutions, with
both layers and financiers spilling over into the political realm... |
| Gradually enlightenment spread, and a taste for
literature and the arts awoke. The mind became an element in success; knowledge
became a tool of government and intellect a social force; educated men
played a part in affairs of state. |
Gradually the idea of a new morality, focused on the equality of men
and their possibility of forming their own independent (political) judgment
spread. People begun to be concerned about words and the sublime representation
of reality in art. Mind, knowledge and intellect - the power to rewrite
a narrative - became politically relevant. |
| (p. 10-11) As soon as citizens begun to hold
land otherwise than by feudal tenure, and the newly discovered possibilities
of personal property could also lead to influence and power, every invention
in the arts and every improvement in trade and industry created fresh elements
tending toward equality among men. Henceforward every new invention, every
new need occasioned thereby, and every new desire craving satisfaction
were steps towards a general leveling... |
As soon as citizen begun to experience themselves as independent from
confinements of the old narrative/order, they discovered themselves as
actors with numerous possibilities to further change the existing order
to their advantage. Every invention and every improvement made them masters
of their own order, which, in turn, diversified more and more, with new
needs and new satisfactions being integrated into the diversifying narratives,
contributing to a general narrative of equality... |
| (p. 11) Once the work of the mind had become
a source of power and wealth, every addition to knowledge, every fresh
discovery, and every new idea became a germ of power within reach of the
people. Poetry, eloquence, memory, the graces of the mind, the fires of
the imagination and profundity of thought, all things scattered broadcast
by heaven, were a profit to democracy... and literature was an arsenal
from which all, including the weak and the poor, daily choose their weapons. |
Once the mastery over ideas had become a source of power and wealth,
every new idea and insight gave people the opportunity to creatively (re)write
their own narrative/order. The mastery over the word in poetry, speech,
and over history, the ability to think profoundly and passionately different,
was increasing all over, thanks to heaven... literature, the simulation
of reality with gentle means, the mastery over ideas and the word, became
a powerful weapon for everyone fighting for social change. |
| (p. 11) The Crusades and the English wars decimated
the nobles and divided up their lands. Municipal institutions introduced
democratic liberty into the heart of feudal monarchy... printing offered
equal resources to their minds; the post brought enlightenment to hovel
and palace alike; Protestantism maintained that all men are equally able
to find paths to heaven. America, once discovered, opened a thousand new
roads to fortune... |
The Crusades and the English wars decimated those on whom the
old order had relied, the old masters of the political narrative. New institutions
introduced new ideas and turned subjects of the king into citizens with
rights ... printing and the post spread texts and new ideas; the new religious
narrative of Protestantism was the new model of an order in which all men
were equally able to be masters of their destiny. The discovery of America
opened many new possibilities... |
And on the problem of young European democracies, he writes:
| (p. 13) The leaders of the state have never thought
of making any preparation by anticipation of (the democratic revolution).
The progress has been against their will or without their knowledge. The
most powerful, intelligent, and moral classes of the nation have never
sought to gain control of it in order to direct it. Hence democracy has
been left to its own instincts... men would still seem unaware of its existence,
when suddenly it has seized power... as a result, the democratic revolution
has taken place in the body of society without those changes in laws, ideas,
customs, and mores which we needed to make the revolution profitable. |
The thought that new democratic ideas were to alter the old order of
the state never entered the heads of the leaders, who were either not aware,
or opposed to that change. Those people capable and in charge of writing
and administrating the order a narrative accounts for, have never sought
to control or direct the transition of the old to the new order. Hence,
democracy was not perceived as the narrative/order-changing phenomena that
it is... as a result, the societal change of ideas and narrative has largely
remained without effect on the institutions and habits of the political
order, which could make the societal revolution profitable. |
| (p. 19) (When writing this book), I saw in America
more than America; it was the shape of democracy itself which I sought,
its inclinations, character, prejudices, and passions. I wanted to understand
it so at least to know what we have to fear or hope therefrom. (p. 18)
I sought there lessons from which we might profit. |
When writing this book, I saw in America a metaphor for democracy itself,
the form it takes, and its implications. I wanted to write here a narrative
of democracy, an account of the democratic order, so that from this narrative
we know what its implications will be for us. Having sought mastery over
the narrative, we might turn it into profit. |