De Tocqueville’s Dystopia
I recently finished reading Alexis De Tocqueville’s Demoracy in America. It’s an extremely stimulating read about the makeup, the sentiments, and the tendencies of the American democratic republic. Contrary to what I expected, De Tocqueville is very critical of democracy in general, and American democracy in particular. He wasn’t shy or reserved in his criticism of the inherent ills of democracy. Of the many facets, social and political, one that he revisits time and again is the equality of condition. Some of the more notable characteristics of an equality of condition in a democracy is the blurring or total dissolution of class lines, the relatively high level of affluence for all citizens, the regularity of morals, and the rise in pleasurable living. The last quality being perhaps the newest, most intriguing, and definitely the most insidious component of America’s democratic society. The rise in pleasurable living results in a unique social condition. In this condition people seek incessantly to procure petty and nonessential pleasures and seek a sensational and glamorous lifestyle freed from thinking critically about anything essential.
Although there are a whole host of benefits derived from an equality of condition, the disadvantages may outweigh them all. Most notably of all disadvantages is the loss of the citizen’s ability to understand his own personal interest. People become lost in their own opulence. They are are less concerned with essential matters of life and society and are devoted, almost entirely, to seeking the pleasures of a material life. The equality of condition leads people to focus almost entirely on themselves. People become wholly consumed by their burning passion for material possessions and personal comfort. They are driven entirely by a fanatic-like zeal for pleasure at the expense of other, more virtuous values, such as education, public service, or community improvement. In short, people become so obsessed with satisfying their own selfish desires that they feel no need to sacrifice something of their own for the prosperity of society. As De Tocqueville notes,
The love of well-being has now become the predominant taste of the nation; the great current of human passion runs in that channel and sweeps everything along it its course.
This fault of democracy seems prima facie only minor. Selfishness may simply be a result of affluence. To some it may not seem like a disadvantage of all; what’s wrong with opulence and a passion for pleasure? Isn’t that a sign of wealth and power? Perhaps so, but the unintended consequences of gluttony may be hidden behind a translucent veneer of wealth and power. The negative effects are extremely dreadful. In part because of their gilded manifestation, but more so because of their inhibiting effects. Stationed above this race of people who are fatted by selfish desires is a tutelary power, which has taken upon itself alone to secure their satisfaction and fulfillment and to watch over their fate. Given legitimacy by popular election, this tutelary power combines the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty. This gives the people an opportunity for respite. What results is an odd form of self-imposed, popularly elected, form of despotism.
[People] console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians… by this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people.
Such a politically emaciated society will find it nearly impossible to break out of this odd state of self-imposed despotism. The “will” of the people has been surrendered to an addiction to comfort. The spirit of the people has been broken and the national character enervated. To expect people in such a state to do anything remotely constructive is all but hopeless.
It is in vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose form time to time the representative of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.
Quite a damning accusation against the American republic. To what extent has the American people become so self-centered and glamor addicted? Have we surrendered our free-thinking capabilities in exchange for material gratification and perpetual comfort? Due to our high levels of affluence and our even higher levels of comfort, it is hard to see. But I do believe that Americans have a uniquely glamor-driven mindset. We want to biggest, the best, and the fastest. We couldn’t care less for intellectual exchange or an in-depth explanation of a complex issue. We are obsessed during election periods, but quickly lose interest once election day passes. We are easily swayed by simple, bunper-sticker phrases; we disdain thinking critically about critical issues. We prefer instead simple, lofty language that tells us what we want to hear. American politics is a spend-o-fest, fully equipped with all the lights, glamor, and sooth-sayings needed to win over the remarkably simple, glamor-obsessed minds of the respective politicians’ constituents. We’re exceptionally easy to entertain. Feed our craving for sensationalism, promise us a lot, keep our taxes low and employment high, then continue as planned. A Brave New World anyone? Perhaps some Foucault?
America. Land of the “free.” Home of the intellectually emaciated slaves of pleasure.
Opulent self indulgence can be a personal prison of the cruelest nature.
I would note that the trend for the last century has been an overall elevation of intelligence. Isn’t it odd that with an explosion of leisurely activities that people are arguably more savvy “now as opposed to then”? It would also the explosion in higher learning – in academia – results in a far greater number of experts.
The case for the Republic versus a direct Democracy also falls into this debate. Life is filled with eccentricities and vibrant personal expressions. A society solely occupied with political and academic dealings may loose cultural significance. But this doesn’t speak to the horde of wholly disinterested individuals. The politician has always pandered to a low denominator. But the function of the public is to be the backstop for a terrible politician – only deciding on major issues. There is an institutionally imposed elitism that often solves the problem of a politically lethargic public. Look toward the percentage of advanced degrees holding office.
I think I definitely came off more “longing for the golden days” than I had intended. Forgive me. I’m basically trying to posit the argument that American politics has become a game who can calculate the lowest common denominator and then exploit it. The result is a populace intellectually incapable of sound decision making capabilities but catered to as if they possessed the holy grail. Elites don’t act like elites anymore. They don’t lead. They verify that they are supported by the masses, then they act. That isn’t leadership; that’s pandering. And this type of pandering is to a public not necessarily worthy of such high honors. No public is really. Popular opinion, although sometimes right in extreme circumstances, is typically just popular; it isn’t always right.
As for the education argument you brought up, there is substantial evidence which suggests that America’s level of education is in slow decline. Paul Krugman and Fareed Zakaria talk about this issue. Krugman talks more directly about the decline in Ameircan education (see a recent article on this subject HERE). Zakaria does so in a more indirect, but perhaps more damning, fashion. In Zakaria’s book Illiberal Democracy: At Home and Aboard, he discusses the decline in academic rigor, especially at America’s most prestigious universities, and the subsequent decline in American elitism (if such a thing ever really existed). The result is an enervated American leadership, understaffed and increasing powerless, left pandering to a impulsive-driving populace concerned more about glamor than with prudent policy-making.
Are you pro-tutelary or anti-tutelary?
I can’t decide exactly how anti-democracy I am. There are times when it seems useful to have transparent government and the threat of majority backlash to prevent corruption. But there are other (more?) times when it seems like the masses drag political discourse down to a first grade level and turn it into a reality TV show instead of a reasoned debate.
My only criticism of your article is that you make it seem like the American people used to be intellectually healthy (instead of emaciated) and that they “surrendered [their] free-thinking capabilities” at some point. I object to your implication that there was ever some golden age of free thought among the masses. The only thing that has changed has been broader inclusion into the electoral process, which has dragged the average down.
To put it another way, it’s not that people are getting dumber; it’s that we are caring more what dumb people have to say. That makes it sound mean, and I don’t intend to be too mean. But not everything is best decided by majority vote.
In many communities, majority vote decides that evolution did not occur and that intelligent design is science. I prefer to let trained and peer-reviewed scientists decide debates like that. In many of the same communities, school boards decide that abstinence-only is the best policy, even though it results in more pregnancies and STDs. In 2002, 81% of Americans saw Iraq as a threat to the US. I don’t think that major policy like health care should be decided by polling data when a huge percentage of the public doesn’t even know what the “public option” is.
I would also like to point out that there has been a widespread deception that just because it is said on TV by a political personality that it has any merit. Further, CNN has been considered an authority on news, but it is really just a version of Headline News. You basically just have to shut down the TV for anything mildly thought provoking. Yes I know there are public channels but they are so underfunded it is painful to watch. Personally, I frequent DemocracyNow!, for a low budget operation it is some brilliant work.
I don’t watch T.V. I download episodes of the Daily Show online. I also agree that DemocracyNow! is an excellent source for original thinking and decent analysis.
Forgive me and let me clarify lest I seem an advocate of the Golden Age delusion. I don’t think that America has ever been the plymouth of intellectual thinking. Perhaps I was too supportive of De Tocqueville’s analysis – perhaps I did this unwillingly to prove his point. I do feel strongly that America has lowered the standard of critical thinking in politics and public policy. This has been exacerbated by a decline in education, the failure of elite leadership, and the rise in illiberal democracy. Sound and prudent decision making seems to have taken a back seat to the will of the impulsive and often brash masses. We’re too democratic; too poll driven; and too often held hostage by public opinion. Some democracy is good, but a overdose of anything is typically a recipe for suicide.
I know that seems a bit tangential when compared to my article, but it is actually quite related. This “equality of condition” that De Tocqueville talks about constantly is something often overlooked, but undergirds much of our political opinion and discourse. Class lines are less distinctive in America than in any other western nation. America conspicuously lacks an aristocratic culture. We, therefore, have no firm elitist culture either. Of course we have the academics, the think tanks, and the politicians. But the influence of these respective parts of society pail when compared to that of relatively equal masses. Public opinion is a much bigger deal in America than anywhere else. The masses empower more than anything else. So, naturally, they are catered to. Unfortunately, average folk don’t really have the capability to make truely informed and rational decisions. The result is an odd mixture of popular politics and empty politiking.
I agree with everything you just said, especially the love of Zakaria’s book. His criticism of democracy and analysis of the old days (when elites had more power) is valid, and I am sympathetic to what he says there.
I think we need a new word for democracy to represent the concept taken to the extreme. Sort of like how Islamist is Islamic taken to the extreme and Christianist is Christian taken to the extreme. Democra****?
Perhaps that’s impossible, given the over-usage of the word. Didn’t Orwell say the word democracy has essentially lost its meaning, because of its politicization and played-out usage? Along the same lines as dead metaphors, democracy is a dead word and an almost unknowable concept. What, exactly, do you mean by democracy?
I think most serious scholars almost always differentiate between the concept of “democracy” and “liberal democracy/ liberal institutionalism.” You usually see it in the introduction. Democracy, until recent history, was sort of a vile word/concept. Being a democrat wasn’t necessarily a good thing and was often a very frowned upon titled. “Ha! That fellow seeks legitimacy only in the masses. He knows not what’s best, only what’s popular!”
In the name of Democracy… yadda yadda.
But you know of all this already.
Is it too much to say democrafascism? Yes, yes it is.
To go back to your comment about the Golden Age delusion, Steve, I personally believe that American political discourse isn’t any baser than it’s ever been. It’s always been pretty base, and we’ve always had tons of incivility. Sometimes resulting in things such as the Civil War. The only real difference now is those polls and public opinion are easier/faster to get to. People are no smarter than they once were, but I’m not sure they’re dumber either, and I don’t know Mr. Zakaria’s idea that elites don’t lead anymore, but I’m not sure they did back in the day either. If you’re an elite, you can keep your head down and make more/conserve your money and station, or if you’re a total narcissist asshole, you can be famous in some station or another. I think you can’t discount the importance of being a total narcissist asshole in who goes into politics. The real issue is that nobody is brave enough to put forward the bad-tasting-medicine remedies that would actually make our society work better for fear of the unwashed masses turning and rending them asunder, and that’s a valid fear.
http://www.thestate.com/opextra/story/1032648.html