" So I think the species of oppression that democratic peoples are threatened with will be unlike anything that has come before in the world; our contemporaries cannot find an image of it in their memories. I myself seek in vain for an expression which exactly reproduces the idea that I am taking it and containing it; the old words of despotism and tyranny do not fit. The thing is new, so we must try to define it, since I cannot name it.
I want to imagine under what new features despotism could occur in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who turn restlessly on themselves to procure small and vulgar pleasures, with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the others, his children and his special friends form for him the whole human species; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel them; he only exists in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family left, we can at least say that he no longer has a homeland.
Above these rises an immense and tutelary power, which alone is responsible for ensuring their enjoyment and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, provident and mild. It would resemble fatherly power, if, like it, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but, on the contrary, he only seeks to fix them irrevocably in childhood; he likes citizens to rejoice, as long as they think only of rejoicing. He willingly works for their happiness; but he wants to be its sole agent and sole arbiter; he provides for their security, foresees and assures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances, what can he not entirely take away from them the trouble of thinking and the pain of living? "
In a sense, yes. de Tocqueville paints the picture in somewhat lurid terms, but another way to phrase it is that, in a democracy, the people do not decide. Rather, they decide which elites will decide.
Democracy does not, as a general rule, lend itself to what the ancients described as the "heroic virtues." That is, the focus of democratic publics - at least until something shocks their sensibilities - in terms of governance is their security and their pleasures. At one level, this is less than virtuous, but societies where the "heroic virtues" are necessary are often very unpleasant and unstable places. See also France under German occupation where a "resistance" was a necessary part of the national life. See also America in the Great Depression, where every day was a matter of simply scratching out life's necessities, i. e. food and shelter.
The latter case is especially pertinent. The American public voted for Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" but they could hardly have understood it in its theoretical and practical particulars. All that they knew was that it brought them material relief.
However, an inescapable fact is that the more complex things society wants government to tackle, the more dependent it becomes on experts, economists, bureaucrats, politicians - in a word, "elites" - that it becomes. These elites, not generally even with malicious intent, entrench themselves. Democracy becoming less than a choice between true alternatives and more variations on a governing ethos.
At least until circumstances change so dramatically that the society takes on a broader change of direction. Thus for example in the United States the dominance of the New Deal-Fair Deal-New Frontier-Great Society era until the social and economic upheavals of the 1960s and 70s set the stage for what might be called the Reaganite era. Itself an era that lasted until the populism of the current Trump-Biden period.
For the most part, the public accepts this. The bureaucracies set up in the New Deal and Reaganite eras effectively governed unchecked through regulations promulgated under the auspices of law.
The public is generally unconcerned with this "soft dictatorship" because their material needs are being met and a contended people are not apt to challenge the status quo that conduces to their prosperity. This is less than noble, but then as Burke said, "In that case, Prudence (in all things a Virtue, in Politicks the first of Virtues) will lead us rather to acquiesce in some qualified plan that does not come up to the full perfection of the abstract Idea, than to push for the more perfect, which cannot be attain'd without tearing to pieces the whole contexture of the commonwealth, and creating an heart-ache in a thousand worthy bosoms. In that case combining the means and end, the less perfect is the more desirable"
Can this take on a more lurid tone? Absolutely. See also at this very time Australia's response to the COVID pandemic. Where a nominal democracy is literally placing its citizens in internment camps, all in the name of public health and safety. Thus sitting at the crossroads of the public search for security and the "soft dictatorship" that de Tocqueville describes.
Thus, not for nothing did the USA's first President, George Washington, say that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. All life - most especially including public life - is practiced on a slippery slope and the art of democratic governance is striking the balance. That balance being not simple a choice between tyranny and democracy, but all the shades of gray in between.
DeTocqueville, perhaps one of the Western world's most acute and insightful political observers and thinkers, saw this. More accurately, he foresaw this as he was writing in an age when the choices were far starker and less nuanced. When dictatorship and democracy were more black and white. It is a testament to his insight that he saw that life - again especially political life - is practiced in the shades of gray.
Nobody reads this shit anymore kid. You have to speak to people in their lingo and in their time or era. There's a good message there, but nobody's gonna understand that in 2021. You gotta dumb it down. That's the way it is.
If you agree with this, I recommend reading Edmund Burke. He also describes the atomized individual of the age of enlightenment (search for social atomism).
@Neosporin "All they have is history" - Is that why literature technology and science still are mainly from Europeans or people from European descent - thank god the earth's past and future isn't in the hands of people who aren't of European descent - we'd still be petting and feeding cars like those children in Africa.. And I for one actually think from her questions that she's pretty smart and knowledgeable - Sounds like someone I'd actually be interested in having a conversation with instead of moronic "how do i look" questions..
Thank you very much for these nice compliments. Indeed the world owes a lot of things to Europe, of course not only good things but no civilization is perfect. as said, things in life are not all black or all white but shaded gray.
As for the reflection of Neosparin I did not take it badly although I found his answer a little reductive.
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Strangely Ulysses S Grant had a similar take: “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”
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American empire is what he was talking about. And America has become as bad as the Soviet Union - which is what he surmised. It needs to be broken up for the same reasons.
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