WEBVTT 00:01.610 --> 00:05.880 Professor Steven Smith: Last time, I believe I said I 00:05.878 --> 00:10.218 wanted to discuss three features that Tocqueville regarded as 00:10.220 --> 00:12.680 central to American democracy. 00:12.680 --> 00:16.890 That is not to say they were central to the democratic 00:16.889 --> 00:21.339 experience, but they are central features of the American 00:21.338 --> 00:25.708 democratic experience and to what degree these can be or 00:25.706 --> 00:30.706 could possibly be translated to other contexts in other emerging 00:30.711 --> 00:35.081 democracies remains very much an open question. 00:35.080 --> 00:39.830 But of these three features, the first I talked a little bit 00:39.830 --> 00:44.340 about on Monday is the importance of local government, 00:44.340 --> 00:49.090 the township as it's translated in this edition, 00:49.094 --> 00:53.044 what Tocqueville calls the "commune," 00:53.040 --> 00:55.300 the community, community spirit, 00:55.296 --> 00:56.676 local government. 00:56.680 --> 01:00.630 01:00.630 --> 01:03.370 In some way, connected to what he calls 01:03.372 --> 01:06.622 later in the book "the spirit of the city," 01:06.620 --> 01:10.340 using "the city" here in the context of the ancient sense of 01:10.342 --> 01:12.932 polis, l'esprit de cité, 01:12.930 --> 01:17.460 a kind of polis-like character in these small New England 01:17.463 --> 01:22.083 townships, very important, Tocqueville believes, 01:22.083 --> 01:28.253 for the sustaining a democratic country and a democratic 01:28.247 --> 01:30.787 society. But the second, 01:30.786 --> 01:35.136 and probably the aspect of Tocqueville's account of 01:35.142 --> 01:40.112 democratic America that has received the most attention at 01:40.107 --> 01:44.617 least recently, is the aspect of what he calls 01:44.620 --> 01:50.160 throughout the book "civil association," civic association. 01:50.160 --> 01:54.890 It is what one might think of as intermediary groups, 01:54.891 --> 01:58.811 voluntary groups, civic organizations of all 01:58.805 --> 02:03.625 kinds that Tocqueville is immensely impressed with and 02:03.628 --> 02:08.358 which he turns into one of the central pillars of the 02:08.360 --> 02:11.090 democratic experience. 02:11.090 --> 02:14.490 He writes that, "in democratic countries," one 02:14.485 --> 02:17.875 of the most famous sentences from the book, 02:17.879 --> 02:22.189 "In democratic countries, the science of association," he 02:22.186 --> 02:24.566 says, "is the mother science. 02:24.569 --> 02:30.289 The progress of all the others depends on the progress of that 02:30.293 --> 02:33.013 one." And it is through uniting and 02:33.006 --> 02:36.476 joining together in common endeavors, he believes, 02:36.481 --> 02:41.021 that people develop a taste for liberty, a taste for freedom. 02:41.020 --> 02:43.330 "In America," if I can just quote him again, 02:43.332 --> 02:45.382 "In America, I encountered all sorts of 02:45.375 --> 02:47.695 associations, of which, I confess, 02:47.697 --> 02:51.497 I had no idea and I often admired the infinite art with 02:51.498 --> 02:55.578 which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a 02:55.580 --> 02:59.800 common goal to the efforts of many men to get them to advance 02:59.803 --> 03:04.053 it freely." Struck by the immense variety 03:04.047 --> 03:09.997 and multiplicity and sheer number of these various kinds of 03:10.003 --> 03:12.163 civic association. 03:12.159 --> 03:17.089 It is important to see, perhaps, this is one area in 03:17.090 --> 03:23.180 which Tocqueville seems to most clearly depart from Rousseau, 03:23.180 --> 03:27.340 at least the Rousseau of the Social Contract after 03:27.336 --> 03:31.786 having said last time that his account of local democracy, 03:31.789 --> 03:35.389 township democracy owes so much to Rousseau's account of the 03:35.385 --> 03:38.045 general will. But remember that Rousseau in 03:38.047 --> 03:41.117 the Social Contract, would inveigh against, 03:41.120 --> 03:45.230 warned against what he called "partial associations," partial 03:45.225 --> 03:49.185 associations like interest groups of various kinds that had 03:49.194 --> 03:52.414 the tendency to frustrate the general will, 03:52.410 --> 03:56.560 that stand, as it were, between the individual and the 03:56.564 --> 03:58.654 general will. But Tocqueville, 03:58.645 --> 04:00.905 on the other hand, regards these kinds of 04:00.908 --> 04:04.828 voluntary associations, associations of all sorts as 04:04.830 --> 04:09.820 precisely the place where we learn habits of initiative, 04:09.819 --> 04:13.399 cooperation and responsibility with others. 04:13.400 --> 04:17.640 By taking care of our own interests or the interests of 04:17.635 --> 04:21.085 our association, we learn to take care of the 04:21.087 --> 04:22.967 interests of others. 04:22.970 --> 04:27.170 "Sentiments and ideas renew themselves," Tocqueville writes. 04:27.170 --> 04:31.970 "The heart is enlarged and the human mind is developed." 04:31.970 --> 04:35.770 So you can see from a passage like that how much weight he 04:35.767 --> 04:38.097 puts on these civic associations. 04:38.100 --> 04:39.630 "The heart is enlarged. 04:39.630 --> 04:42.200 The mind is developed." 04:42.199 --> 04:44.679 It is through these associations, 04:44.675 --> 04:47.845 PTAs, churches, synagogues and other civil 04:47.847 --> 04:52.487 bodies and associations that institutions are formed that can 04:52.488 --> 04:57.438 both resist in its way the power of centralized authority, 04:57.440 --> 04:58.840 central government. 04:58.839 --> 05:02.959 But they are also, as it were, the locus, 05:02.961 --> 05:08.321 the seedbed where citizens learn to become democratic 05:08.320 --> 05:11.920 citizens. It is very much important for 05:11.919 --> 05:14.649 Tocqueville that these associations, 05:14.645 --> 05:18.925 the absence of which he felt very acutely in France, 05:18.930 --> 05:24.330 which had already become a highly centralized society. 05:24.329 --> 05:29.439 It was these intermediary, voluntary associations that 05:29.435 --> 05:34.535 stand between the individual and central authority, 05:34.540 --> 05:38.100 the authority of the national government, which is what makes 05:38.101 --> 05:41.441 them, of course, so important for him. 05:41.440 --> 05:43.790 This argument about the importance of civic 05:43.790 --> 05:45.750 association--I say it has become, 05:45.750 --> 05:50.830 in a way, the most talked about passage or part of the book in 05:50.828 --> 05:55.238 recent years--is due in large part to the influence of 05:55.241 --> 05:58.651 political scientist, Robert Putnam, 05:58.653 --> 06:04.013 a man who teaches at another university, a book called 06:04.006 --> 06:06.426 Bowling Alone. 06:06.430 --> 06:08.320 You've probably maybe heard of that. 06:08.319 --> 06:13.939 Here, Putnam speaks about what he calls "human capital," what 06:13.942 --> 06:18.442 Tocqueville, in less social scientific jargon, 06:18.439 --> 06:23.029 calls "habits of the heart," mores, habits of the mind and 06:23.026 --> 06:25.536 heart. But Putnam argues that it is 06:25.539 --> 06:28.879 this social capital that is developed through civic 06:28.879 --> 06:31.349 association and his chief example, 06:31.350 --> 06:35.980 as the title of the book and the article from which it draws 06:35.983 --> 06:40.383 suggest, is that the bowling league is a kind of model of 06:40.382 --> 06:42.112 civic association. 06:42.110 --> 06:44.850 Particularly, he is concerned with the 06:44.845 --> 06:49.425 decline of these associations in contemporary American life. 06:49.430 --> 06:52.400 Hence the title of the book, Bowling Alone. 06:52.399 --> 06:56.109 The fact that Tocqueville himself describes these civic 06:56.107 --> 06:59.397 associations as the product of art suggests that, 06:59.402 --> 07:02.562 that is to say, that they are not natural. 07:02.560 --> 07:08.780 They are not somehow the result of some kind of instinctual 07:08.777 --> 07:12.407 behavior on us. Joining with others in 07:12.405 --> 07:16.175 voluntary associations is a learned activity. 07:16.180 --> 07:20.890 It is something that requires a certain kind of culture and is a 07:20.889 --> 07:22.309 learned activity. 07:22.310 --> 07:24.210 It is something also, it is an art, 07:24.207 --> 07:26.607 it's a skill, it is a craft that can also be 07:26.607 --> 07:29.307 lost. His argument is that more and 07:29.314 --> 07:31.444 more people are, so to speak, 07:31.442 --> 07:35.382 choosing to "bowl alone," something that shows an 07:35.384 --> 07:39.574 alarming tendency towards isolation and the subsequent 07:39.566 --> 07:43.666 kind of depletion almost of our civic capacities. 07:43.670 --> 07:46.910 The question is, taking Tocqueville to the 07:46.907 --> 07:51.877 present, have our capacities for joining with others been eroded 07:51.883 --> 07:55.993 by the forces of modern politics and technology? 07:55.990 --> 07:58.920 Are, in fact, we becoming more and more a 07:58.916 --> 08:01.986 nation of solitaries and couch potatoes? 08:01.990 --> 08:06.370 08:06.370 --> 08:10.010 These are some of the serious questions and there is a big 08:10.011 --> 08:12.631 literature that has grown up around it. 08:12.629 --> 08:18.739 Some of this literature finds Putnam's conclusions to be 08:18.744 --> 08:24.534 overdrawn, that he exaggerates the influence of these 08:24.526 --> 08:30.526 associations or the decline of these associations. 08:30.529 --> 08:35.939 In fact, our civic state is not as bad off as he suggests. 08:35.940 --> 08:37.550 But what I want to do, suggest today, 08:37.545 --> 08:40.215 and this is where we're going to show a film and Jude's going 08:40.221 --> 08:42.581 to help me, just a couple of clips, 08:42.576 --> 08:45.796 is that there is a serious question, I think, 08:45.803 --> 08:49.173 in my mind, whether bowling leagues are a 08:49.170 --> 08:52.640 proper model for a democratic association. 08:52.639 --> 08:55.589 Now, one can say, and using the title "Bowling 08:55.594 --> 08:58.884 Alone" that Putnam is just speaking metaphorically, 08:58.877 --> 09:01.567 that he doesn't mean bowling leagues. 09:01.570 --> 09:03.550 He's just using it as a metaphor. 09:03.549 --> 09:08.209 But let's take him at his word and let's find out if bowling 09:08.209 --> 09:11.839 leagues are, in fact, the ideal transmitter for 09:11.842 --> 09:14.372 democratic mores and values. 09:14.370 --> 09:18.280 I want to take an example from a movie of which I'm very fond 09:18.280 --> 09:21.800 by the Coen brothers called The Big Lebowski, 09:21.799 --> 09:24.439 which is a movie about a bowling league, 09:24.444 --> 09:28.444 or at least three gentlemen who take their bowling and their 09:28.444 --> 09:30.754 bowling league very seriously. 09:30.750 --> 09:35.290 The three of them are "The Dude," who is a stoned hippie, 09:35.294 --> 09:39.514 "Walter," who's kind of a whacked out Vietnam vet and 09:39.514 --> 09:42.034 "Donny," who's a lost waif. 09:42.029 --> 09:44.679 They are very, very concerned with getting 09:44.681 --> 09:47.721 into the finals, into the bowling tournament. 09:47.720 --> 09:52.810 In their way stands a man named Jesus Quintana who happens also 09:52.811 --> 09:54.701 to be a sex offender. 09:54.700 --> 09:58.340 I want to show a couple of clips from this movie and I 09:58.341 --> 10:02.261 should warn you that there is some very bad language being 10:02.258 --> 10:04.928 used here. So if you think that is going 10:04.931 --> 10:07.411 to be offensive to you, you should leave. 10:07.409 --> 10:11.079 It won't take more than about four minutes or so. 10:11.080 --> 10:14.490 We're going to show a couple of clips about the ethos of 10:14.490 --> 10:15.260 men bowling. 10:15.260 --> 10:51.040 10:51.039 --> 10:51.899 Professor Steven Smith: One more. 10:51.899 --> 10:55.699 Professor Steven Smith: Obviously, it goes to show that 10:55.704 --> 10:59.264 civic association alone is not enough to create democratic 10:59.259 --> 11:01.259 citizens. Again, otherwise, 11:01.264 --> 11:05.064 "Smokey" and "The Dude" and "Walter" would be a perfect 11:05.060 --> 11:07.450 example of democratic citizens. 11:07.450 --> 11:12.360 Tocqueville focuses on a third, another leg of the stool of 11:12.364 --> 11:17.024 democratic life and that is what he calls the "spirit of 11:17.023 --> 11:19.913 religion." Central, again, 11:19.911 --> 11:26.601 as the third and maybe a very important prop of the American 11:26.604 --> 11:29.444 democratic experience. 11:29.440 --> 11:33.090 "On my arrival in the United States," he observes, 11:33.092 --> 11:37.642 "It was the religious aspect of the country that struck my eye 11:37.639 --> 11:41.289 first." Very impressed with that. 11:41.289 --> 11:44.779 Like other European visitors to the United States, 11:44.778 --> 11:48.918 both then as well as now, Tocqueville was deeply struck 11:48.922 --> 11:53.602 with how democracy and religion seem to walk hand-in-hand with 11:53.597 --> 11:56.727 each other, precisely the opposite of what 11:56.727 --> 12:00.357 has occurred in Europe where religion and democracy or 12:00.361 --> 12:04.271 religion and equality were long on a collision course. 12:04.269 --> 12:09.049 What made the American encounter with democratic life 12:09.052 --> 12:12.112 unique? That is one of Tocqueville's 12:12.113 --> 12:15.263 big questions. In the first instance, 12:15.255 --> 12:18.965 you could say, or as Tocqueville notes that 12:18.969 --> 12:22.859 America is primarily a puritan democracy. 12:22.860 --> 12:27.360 "I see the whole destiny of America contained in the first 12:27.362 --> 12:30.682 puritan who landed on its shores," he says, 12:30.679 --> 12:34.549 "like the whole human race in the first man." 12:34.549 --> 12:41.249 Our experience was determined in crucial ways by early 12:41.247 --> 12:44.937 Puritanism. America was created by people 12:44.936 --> 12:49.026 with strong religious beliefs and habits who brought to the 12:49.028 --> 12:52.838 New World a suspicion of government and a strong desire 12:52.837 --> 12:54.387 for independence. 12:54.389 --> 12:59.289 This has been the foundation of the separation of church and 12:59.287 --> 13:04.177 state that has done so much both for religious and political 13:04.183 --> 13:07.603 liberty. Tocqueville drew from this two 13:07.597 --> 13:12.187 very important consequences, I think, about religious life 13:12.191 --> 13:15.671 in America. The first is that the thesis 13:15.672 --> 13:19.202 propounded by the great philosophers of the 13:19.200 --> 13:24.240 Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and still advanced in 13:24.240 --> 13:26.380 many, you might say, 13:26.377 --> 13:31.467 enlightened quarters today, that religion will disappear 13:31.472 --> 13:34.532 with the advance of modernity. 13:34.529 --> 13:38.759 As modernity advances, religious life will disappear. 13:38.759 --> 13:42.649 I suppose in the twentieth century, Max Weber gave voice 13:42.654 --> 13:46.974 most prominently to that point of view that would be a process 13:46.973 --> 13:50.873 of secularization within modernity and a sort of gradual 13:50.867 --> 13:53.767 withering away of religious belief. 13:53.769 --> 13:57.739 Tocqueville shows that to be demonstrably false, 13:57.737 --> 14:02.547 that religion will not simply disappear as modernity moves 14:02.548 --> 14:06.008 forward and that the Enlightenment and its 14:06.009 --> 14:10.129 contemporary heirs, theorists of development and 14:10.127 --> 14:14.207 modernization and so on have been all together wrong about 14:14.213 --> 14:18.373 their confident predictions about the decline and withering 14:18.371 --> 14:20.451 away of religious faith. 14:20.450 --> 14:25.580 Secondly, Tocqueville takes it to be a terrible mistake to try 14:25.577 --> 14:30.787 to eliminate religion or to secularize society all together. 14:30.789 --> 14:33.589 This is, in fact, probably a more controversial, 14:33.591 --> 14:35.321 a very controversial claim. 14:35.320 --> 14:38.630 It was his belief, and again, perhaps here he's 14:38.630 --> 14:43.020 influenced by Rousseau in the chapter on civil religion at the 14:43.020 --> 14:46.760 end of the Social Contract that free societies 14:46.762 --> 14:51.082 rest on public morality and that morality cannot be effective 14:51.080 --> 14:52.880 without religion. 14:52.879 --> 14:58.279 It may be true that individuals can derive moral guidance from 14:58.275 --> 15:01.455 reason alone, but societies can't. 15:01.460 --> 15:06.040 The danger of attempting to eliminate religion from public 15:06.043 --> 15:10.793 life is that the need or desire to believe will therefore be 15:10.786 --> 15:15.366 transferred to other and far more dangerous outlooks. 15:15.370 --> 15:18.910 "Despotism," he says, "can do without faith, 15:18.909 --> 15:20.719 but freedom cannot." 15:20.720 --> 15:23.160 A very arresting sentence. 15:23.159 --> 15:27.679 "Despotism can do without faith, but freedom cannot." 15:27.679 --> 15:32.469 "Religion is more necessary in a republic and in a democratic 15:32.467 --> 15:35.257 country than any other," he says. 15:35.259 --> 15:39.089 But why is religion necessary to a republic? 15:39.090 --> 15:41.670 Why does democracy require religion? 15:41.669 --> 15:45.279 Here, Tocqueville gives a variety of answers. 15:45.279 --> 15:50.009 One persistent theme running throughout his book as a whole 15:50.012 --> 15:55.152 is that only religion can resist the tendency toward materialism 15:55.152 --> 16:00.292 and a kind of low self-interest that he believes is intrinsic to 16:00.292 --> 16:03.232 democratic ages and societies. 16:03.230 --> 16:08.670 "The principal business of religion," he frequently writes, 16:08.669 --> 16:11.669 "is to purify, is to regulate, 16:11.669 --> 16:16.649 is to restrain the kind of ardent desire for well-being and 16:16.650 --> 16:19.830 particularly, material well-being that 16:19.827 --> 16:24.977 becomes particularly prominent during ages of equality." 16:24.980 --> 16:26.480 That's one reason. 16:26.480 --> 16:30.390 But secondly or in addition, Tocqueville operates, 16:30.388 --> 16:33.098 I find, with a very interesting, 16:33.100 --> 16:38.080 I might even call it a metaphysic of faith that regards 16:38.077 --> 16:43.697 religious belief as a necessary component for human action. 16:43.700 --> 16:48.120 "When religion is destroyed in a people," this is Tocqueville. 16:48.120 --> 16:52.140 "When religion is destroyed in a people, doubt takes hold of 16:52.138 --> 16:56.018 the higher portion of the intellect and half paralyzes all 16:56.020 --> 17:00.660 the others." When religion is destroyed, 17:00.655 --> 17:03.015 doubt takes over. 17:03.019 --> 17:07.649 It has a kind of a paralyzing effect on the will and our 17:07.648 --> 17:09.498 capacity for action. 17:09.500 --> 17:14.110 This paralysis of the will, this inability to act is a 17:14.105 --> 17:19.575 condition that later writers would choose to call "nihilism." 17:19.579 --> 17:25.179 Faith is a necessary component for our belief that we are free 17:25.177 --> 17:30.227 agents and not simply the play-thing of blind forces and 17:30.225 --> 17:33.065 random causes, so to speak. 17:33.069 --> 17:37.709 Our beliefs about freedom and the dignity of the individual 17:37.707 --> 17:41.937 are inseparable for him from religious faith and it is 17:41.944 --> 17:46.024 unlikely that these beliefs about the dignity of the 17:46.022 --> 17:49.702 individual can survive without religion. 17:49.700 --> 17:53.390 Just to take a contemporary example of that, 17:53.393 --> 17:58.723 think about the debates we have had over such things as cloning 17:58.718 --> 18:03.698 and the sense that many people have that the dignity of the 18:03.699 --> 18:08.489 individual, which is often connected with a 18:08.491 --> 18:13.221 kind of religious belief, sanctity of life, 18:13.220 --> 18:18.210 the dignity of the individual is somehow deeply violated by 18:18.214 --> 18:22.524 these advances of sort of scientific technology. 18:22.519 --> 18:30.819 Religion remains a crucial prop for our beliefs about human 18:30.819 --> 18:34.579 dignity. No more powerful challenge to 18:34.579 --> 18:39.319 the Enlightenment's faith in science and scientific progress 18:39.318 --> 18:42.208 can be found than in Tocqueville. 18:42.210 --> 18:45.260 One final issues remains, I would say. 18:45.259 --> 18:48.739 Tocqueville often writes, and I would say this is the 18:48.735 --> 18:51.605 dominant tone of his writing on religion. 18:51.609 --> 18:55.659 He often writes as if religion is only valuable or valuable 18:55.664 --> 18:58.884 primarily for the social function it serves. 18:58.880 --> 19:02.580 This is certainly consistent with lots of things he says 19:02.577 --> 19:05.347 about religion. He's only concerned about 19:05.345 --> 19:08.975 religion for its social and political consequences rather 19:08.984 --> 19:12.304 than from the deeper truths of religious belief. 19:12.299 --> 19:16.609 "I view religion," he says, "only from a purely human point 19:16.605 --> 19:18.085 of view," he says. 19:18.089 --> 19:20.949 He's only looking for its affect on society. 19:20.950 --> 19:24.410 But I would ask, how accurate is that statement, 19:24.406 --> 19:27.416 or does it describe or characterize all of 19:27.421 --> 19:30.291 Tocqueville's views about religion? 19:30.290 --> 19:34.320 I think not. Let me just say why for a 19:34.316 --> 19:36.566 minute. I think that sort of 19:36.567 --> 19:40.037 sociological or functionalist reading of religion, 19:40.040 --> 19:44.080 that he's interested in it only for its social affect, 19:44.079 --> 19:48.209 is only part of Tocqueville's very complex attitude towards 19:48.211 --> 19:50.711 this subject. Maybe you'll have a chance to 19:50.711 --> 19:52.341 talk about this in your section. 19:52.339 --> 19:55.869 Maybe you'll have an opportunity to write about it at 19:55.868 --> 19:58.588 some other time. But remember that Tocqueville 19:58.589 --> 20:00.449 was not only a student of Rousseau. 20:00.450 --> 20:03.690 As he said in that letter to Louis de Kergolay that I 20:03.694 --> 20:06.814 mentioned last time, his other two great sources of 20:06.814 --> 20:10.564 inspiration were Montesquieu and a seventeenth-century French 20:10.558 --> 20:12.928 philosopher named Blaise Pascal. 20:12.930 --> 20:18.040 Pascal was a religious philosopher, who more than any 20:18.042 --> 20:24.042 other, emphasized the emptiness of knowledge without faith. 20:24.039 --> 20:30.149 Man may be the rational animal, but reason is somehow unable to 20:30.146 --> 20:36.056 plumb or reason is unable to grasp the unfathomable depths of 20:36.055 --> 20:40.105 the universe. In one of his most famous 20:40.107 --> 20:45.147 statements, Pascal said, "A vapor," a drop of water is 20:45.146 --> 20:48.376 enough to kill him, speaking of us, 20:48.379 --> 20:51.839 humans. "A drop of water is enough to 20:51.839 --> 20:53.959 kill us. Man is a reed, 20:53.963 --> 20:59.883 a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed." 20:59.880 --> 21:06.650 We are weak. We think, but it is our 21:06.645 --> 21:09.535 weakness. It is our dependence, 21:09.544 --> 21:12.624 sense of dependence that struck Pascal. 21:12.619 --> 21:15.469 Tocqueville, you can find this in several 21:15.473 --> 21:18.543 passages throughout the Democracy. 21:18.539 --> 21:21.719 Tocqueville, I think discovered in Pascal a 21:21.722 --> 21:24.832 sense of kind of existential emptiness, 21:24.829 --> 21:30.039 an incompleteness of life that cannot be explained in terms of 21:30.039 --> 21:32.909 reason alone. There is also, 21:32.913 --> 21:39.403 he felt, something deeply hubristic about the way in which 21:39.403 --> 21:45.103 conditions of equality foster this idea of rational 21:45.095 --> 21:47.595 self-sufficiency. 21:47.599 --> 21:49.969 Tocqueville's purpose, in many ways, 21:49.974 --> 21:52.824 was to limit reason to make room for faith, 21:52.824 --> 21:55.814 and this is one of my favorite passages. 21:55.809 --> 21:57.339 Let me just read a sentence or two. 21:57.339 --> 22:02.229 "The short space of 60 years," he writes, almost as an aside. 22:02.230 --> 22:06.210 "The short space of 60 years will never confine the whole 22:06.208 --> 22:07.698 imagination of man. 22:07.700 --> 22:12.830 The incomplete joys of this world will never suffice for his 22:12.827 --> 22:16.097 heart." Incomplete joys of this world 22:16.104 --> 22:19.034 will never suffice for his heart. 22:19.029 --> 22:21.979 In other words, there is something we desire 22:21.975 --> 22:25.875 beyond the here and now that only faith and can supply. 22:25.880 --> 22:30.530 The soul exhibits a kind of longing, a desire for eternity 22:30.534 --> 22:35.604 and a kind of disgust with the world and the limits of physical 22:35.596 --> 22:38.426 existence. "Religion," he goes on, 22:38.426 --> 22:42.676 "is only a particular form of hope and it as natural to the 22:42.680 --> 22:44.880 human heart as hope itself. 22:44.880 --> 22:49.050 Only by a kind of aberration of the intellect and with the aid 22:49.048 --> 22:53.078 of a sort of moral violence exercised on their own nature do 22:53.079 --> 22:55.539 men stray from religious belief. 22:55.539 --> 23:00.219 An invincible inclination leads them back to religion. 23:00.220 --> 23:02.550 Disbelief is an accident. 23:02.549 --> 23:07.409 Faith alone is the permanent state of humanity." 23:07.410 --> 23:10.500 If anyone's interested, that's on page 284. 23:10.500 --> 23:15.430 But no one can possibly read that section and come away from 23:15.429 --> 23:20.609 Tocqueville by thinking he had only a kind of functionalist, 23:20.609 --> 23:24.949 sociological view of religion, concerned with its effects on 23:24.947 --> 23:27.077 human behavior and society. 23:27.080 --> 23:30.080 Disbelief is an accident. 23:30.079 --> 23:35.639 Faith is the permanent condition of humanity and only 23:35.642 --> 23:41.532 through a kind of moral violence, through moral violence 23:41.525 --> 23:45.585 can religious faith be eliminated. 23:45.589 --> 23:50.399 I think these passages show a much deeper, almost metaphysical 23:50.395 --> 23:53.305 dimension to Tocqueville's thought. 23:53.309 --> 23:57.589 It shows him to be, like Plato in many ways, 23:57.588 --> 24:03.458 of enormous psychological depth and subtlety and insight. 24:03.460 --> 24:06.700 But these are the three features, or three of the 24:06.695 --> 24:10.665 features, I think the three central features that remain for 24:10.672 --> 24:13.842 him crucial to democracy: local government, 24:13.839 --> 24:19.579 civil association and what he calls the spirit of religion. 24:19.580 --> 24:25.740 Yet, obviously, all is not well. 24:25.740 --> 24:28.500 All is far from being well. 24:28.500 --> 24:32.990 Too often, way too often we read Democracy in America 24:32.994 --> 24:36.884 as it if were simply a celebration of the democratic 24:36.879 --> 24:38.859 experience in America. 24:38.860 --> 24:41.080 It is not. Tocqueville, 24:41.076 --> 24:44.666 among other things, is deeply worried about the 24:44.667 --> 24:48.957 potential, I mentioned briefly about this last time, 24:48.960 --> 24:52.550 the potential of a democratic tyranny. 24:52.549 --> 24:57.959 Why is there a belief or why would one believe that the 24:57.960 --> 25:03.770 democratic government alone will eliminate various forms of 25:03.771 --> 25:08.181 arbitrary rule in tyrannical government? 25:08.180 --> 25:12.040 In fact, it might create new forms of tyranny, 25:12.040 --> 25:16.760 democratic tyranny of which previous societies had been, 25:16.758 --> 25:18.558 perhaps, unaware. 25:18.559 --> 25:23.939 This is an issue that he treats twice in two important parts in 25:23.944 --> 25:26.294 his work; one in Volume 1, 25:26.290 --> 25:28.290 the other in Volume 2. 25:28.289 --> 25:32.509 I'm going to talk for a little bit today about his account of 25:32.507 --> 25:36.437 tyranny of the majority in Volume 1 and I'm going to save 25:36.444 --> 25:40.594 the rest of the discussion for next week when he talks about 25:40.592 --> 25:44.602 what he calls "democratic despotism" in the second part of 25:44.599 --> 25:47.129 Democracy in America. 25:47.130 --> 25:50.140 In Volume 1, he treats what he calls the 25:50.138 --> 25:53.608 "tyranny of the majority" largely in terms, 25:53.609 --> 25:56.289 you might say, that are derived or inherited 25:56.288 --> 25:59.718 from Aristotle and even the authors of The Federalist 25:59.715 --> 26:02.595 Papers. As you remember in Aristotle's 26:02.604 --> 26:05.604 Politics, Aristotle associated democracy 26:05.600 --> 26:07.490 with the rule of the many. 26:07.490 --> 26:10.900 "Rule of the many," for all kinds of purposes, 26:10.904 --> 26:15.154 generally means rule of the poor and rule of the poor for 26:15.154 --> 26:16.904 their own interest. 26:16.900 --> 26:21.580 The danger with democracy for Aristotle was that it still 26:21.584 --> 26:26.194 represented the tyranny of one class of society over the 26:26.185 --> 26:30.505 society of a whole, the largest class ruling in its 26:30.507 --> 26:32.747 interests over the minority. 26:32.750 --> 26:37.620 Democracy for the ancients was always a form of class struggle 26:37.623 --> 26:40.183 between the rich and the poor. 26:40.180 --> 26:43.440 That was, in many respects, the way in which democracy came 26:43.443 --> 26:46.933 to be viewed even by The Federalist's authors who 26:46.932 --> 26:50.372 came up with their own solution to the problem of democracy or 26:50.365 --> 26:53.005 what they called "republican government." 26:53.009 --> 26:56.529 The problem of republican government was this problem of, 26:56.530 --> 26:59.050 you might say, majority faction and their 26:59.045 --> 27:01.995 answer to the problem of majority faction was in 27:01.999 --> 27:04.989 Madison's term, "to enlarge the orbit of 27:04.990 --> 27:08.960 government," to make societies and polities much larger in 27:08.956 --> 27:11.806 order not to try to eliminate faction, 27:11.810 --> 27:13.640 but to increase them. 27:13.640 --> 27:17.880 By increasing the number of factions, you decrease the 27:17.883 --> 27:22.693 possibility that any one of them will be able to represent or 27:22.686 --> 27:26.686 exercise a kind of permanent majority control, 27:26.690 --> 27:29.790 a kind of permanent tyranny of the majority. 27:29.789 --> 27:33.379 The greater the number of factions, the less likelihood 27:33.377 --> 27:37.297 that any one of them will be able to exercise despotic power 27:37.296 --> 27:39.086 over national politics. 27:39.089 --> 27:42.579 This is a question that Tocqueville returns to or turns 27:42.582 --> 27:46.012 to in that very important chapter from book one called 27:46.009 --> 27:49.889 "The omnipotence of the majority in the United States and its 27:49.889 --> 27:52.909 Effects," which is, in many respects, 27:52.911 --> 27:56.941 a response or provides his reading and critique of the 27:56.938 --> 28:01.268 classical or traditional theory of democratic tyranny. 28:01.269 --> 28:03.029 The U.S. constitution, 28:03.032 --> 28:06.732 he talks about, has enshrined the majority in 28:06.726 --> 28:09.996 its own Preamble--"We, the People." 28:10.000 --> 28:14.650 It has enshrined the majority even as it has sought to limit 28:14.651 --> 28:16.781 the powers of the people. 28:16.779 --> 28:20.469 Although Tocqueville devotes a great deal of attention in 28:20.473 --> 28:23.973 Volume 1-- we're not really reading these sections, 28:23.970 --> 28:28.020 I don't think they're all that important for our purposes--he 28:28.023 --> 28:32.153 spends a great deal of attention simply sort of describing the 28:32.145 --> 28:34.775 makeup of the federal constitution, 28:34.779 --> 28:37.739 the structure of the Houses of government and so on. 28:37.740 --> 28:41.870 One has to say he is far less impressed than Madison or the 28:41.870 --> 28:47.790 Federalist authors were, that the problem of majority 28:47.794 --> 28:52.394 faction has been solved in America. 28:52.390 --> 28:55.730 Again, the Federalist authors, following Locke and 28:55.732 --> 28:59.372 Montesquieu, believed all that was necessary was separation of 28:59.373 --> 29:02.073 powers, a system of representation, 29:02.072 --> 29:06.082 a system of checks and balances, that this could serve 29:06.082 --> 29:09.262 as an effective check on majority rule. 29:09.259 --> 29:12.509 But Tocqueville was less certain of that. 29:12.509 --> 29:16.139 He was less certain that these, as it were, institutional 29:16.143 --> 29:19.843 devices alone could check what he calls the "empire of the 29:19.841 --> 29:22.621 majority." The empire of the majority, 29:22.620 --> 29:26.430 a term that he uses that clearly has kind of theological 29:26.431 --> 29:29.491 connotations, denoting a kind of divine 29:29.491 --> 29:34.101 omnipotence, that the people have come to be the ultimate or 29:34.096 --> 29:37.126 final authority. Rather than regarding, 29:37.130 --> 29:40.870 as it were, the people in Madisonian terms simply as a 29:40.865 --> 29:44.455 kind of ongoing shifting coalition of interests, 29:44.460 --> 29:48.640 Tocqueville regarded the majority in democratic 29:48.643 --> 29:52.193 societies, the power of the majority, 29:52.190 --> 29:55.680 as unlimited and unstoppable. 29:55.680 --> 29:59.670 Legal guarantees of minority rights, he thought, 29:59.665 --> 30:04.915 were unlikely to be ineffective in the face of mobilized public 30:04.922 --> 30:08.182 opinion. Why does Tocqueville believe 30:08.181 --> 30:12.831 that, or what led him to express such skepticism about even 30:12.825 --> 30:17.145 American democracy's inability to check the prospect of 30:17.148 --> 30:19.068 democratic tyranny? 30:19.069 --> 30:23.039 In part, I think, Tocqueville's answer was that 30:23.040 --> 30:27.440 majority tyranny was inseparable from the threats of 30:27.442 --> 30:31.762 revolutionary violence and particularly charismatic 30:31.758 --> 30:36.758 demagogues and military leaders like Napoleon in France and 30:36.764 --> 30:40.394 America's counterpart to Napoleon, 30:40.390 --> 30:44.650 Andrew Jackson. Napoleon was in France, 30:44.649 --> 30:50.079 the man capable of mobilizing the masses into fits of 30:50.075 --> 30:54.035 patriotic zeal and to carry on war. 30:54.039 --> 30:58.049 Jacksonianism, for him, simply looked like an 30:58.048 --> 31:03.418 American form of Bonapartism, a military commander riding to 31:03.422 --> 31:08.162 political power on the wings of popular support. 31:08.160 --> 31:12.460 More than anything else, Tocqueville feared militarism 31:12.460 --> 31:16.760 combined with a kind of unlimited patriotic fervor. 31:16.759 --> 31:21.399 It is in these respects you can begin to see some of the less 31:21.399 --> 31:25.569 ennobling features of the democratic experience and the 31:25.574 --> 31:29.444 more ominous possibilities of democratic rule. 31:29.440 --> 31:33.120 The power of the majority, he says, makes itself feared 31:33.115 --> 31:36.785 especially through the dominance of the legislature. 31:36.789 --> 31:39.749 He believed, we could talk about whether 31:39.745 --> 31:42.545 this belief is still valid or true, 31:42.549 --> 31:47.339 he believed that the most, again, that democracy tends 31:47.344 --> 31:52.504 towards a dominance of the legislatures where the people's 31:52.500 --> 31:56.480 voice makes its will most clearly known. 31:56.480 --> 32:00.460 By having short elections or short cycles every two years in 32:00.459 --> 32:05.019 the House of Representatives, it was a way of making sure 32:05.020 --> 32:09.050 that the legislatures, the House, the Houses, 32:09.047 --> 32:14.077 are very close to public opinion and public control. 32:14.079 --> 32:18.819 He sees this as a dangerous thing, this kind of legislative 32:18.817 --> 32:23.467 dominance that he sees is one form in the way in which the 32:23.474 --> 32:27.154 tyranny of the majority expresses itself. 32:27.150 --> 32:32.360 But the most important and the most memorable aspects of 32:32.363 --> 32:37.013 tyranny of the majority have less to do with these 32:37.008 --> 32:40.798 institutional forms, you might, say. 32:40.799 --> 32:45.229 It has to do with the way in which the empire--again, 32:45.228 --> 32:50.168 I'll use his term-- the empire of the majority makes itself 32:50.167 --> 32:53.997 felt in the realm of thought and opinion, 32:54.000 --> 32:59.910 the influence of the majority over thought. 32:59.910 --> 33:03.740 In an always startling passage from the book, 33:03.739 --> 33:07.829 Tocqueville remarks, "I know of no other country 33:07.829 --> 33:11.269 where, in general, less independence 33:11.270 --> 33:16.060 of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in 33:16.056 --> 33:18.646 America." There's no country where there 33:18.654 --> 33:21.524 is less independence of mind and freedom of discussion. 33:21.520 --> 33:25.450 33:25.450 --> 33:28.360 He is, I suspect, overstating the case, 33:28.361 --> 33:32.501 but his argument here is that the dangers to freedom of 33:32.497 --> 33:36.707 thought in a democracy do not come from the threat of an 33:36.711 --> 33:41.231 inquisition. They do not come from something 33:41.228 --> 33:46.588 like that, but they are exercised in more subtle forms 33:46.593 --> 33:49.633 of exclusion and ostracism. 33:49.630 --> 33:52.550 Tocqueville is, perhaps, in that passage, 33:52.550 --> 33:56.350 one of the first and most perceptive analysts of what 33:56.346 --> 34:00.796 today might be called the power of political correctness, 34:00.799 --> 34:05.959 to control and to eliminate certain kinds of ideas and 34:05.959 --> 34:08.879 opinions from being thought. 34:08.880 --> 34:12.630 It is the fear of ostracism, in some sense, 34:12.627 --> 34:17.447 the fear of being socially ostracized through which the 34:17.446 --> 34:20.566 majority exercises its control. 34:20.570 --> 34:24.560 Tocqueville's statement here is, of course, 34:24.555 --> 34:30.435 that persecution can take many forms under a democratic people, 34:30.439 --> 34:34.139 from the cruelest to the most mild. 34:34.139 --> 34:38.509 He gives various examples of the crueler forms of the way in 34:38.507 --> 34:41.687 which the majority have expressed itself. 34:41.690 --> 34:45.820 In a lengthy footnote to the book, for example, 34:45.815 --> 34:50.115 in some of these parts, he gives two examples; 34:50.119 --> 34:55.719 one in which during the War of 1812, he says there were some 34:55.724 --> 35:00.764 anti-war journalists in Baltimore--maybe you read that 35:00.760 --> 35:03.800 passage--who were taken out. 35:03.800 --> 35:10.220 Their newspaper press was burnt down and I think they were hung, 35:10.220 --> 35:13.440 he says. This is a way in which mob 35:13.436 --> 35:15.206 mentality took over. 35:15.210 --> 35:19.860 He also uses the example of the way in which black voters in the 35:19.858 --> 35:23.088 state of Pennsylvania, and he focuses on this 35:23.093 --> 35:25.823 particularly, have been disenfranchised. 35:25.820 --> 35:29.750 He mentions Pennsylvania in particular because Pennsylvania 35:29.753 --> 35:33.013 is a Quaker state, that is to say a state where 35:33.009 --> 35:36.939 one would have thought liberal opinion towards questions of 35:36.943 --> 35:40.203 racial justice would have been most advanced. 35:40.199 --> 35:45.169 Even there, he says, the majority constrained 35:45.170 --> 35:49.800 African American voters from, free blacks, 35:49.802 --> 35:54.372 from voting. So these are ways in which, 35:54.371 --> 36:00.611 again, some overt and cruel and persecutory, others milder and 36:00.609 --> 36:06.129 through the form of ostracism that he wants to say that 36:06.131 --> 36:11.041 democratic sovereignty can exercise itself. 36:11.039 --> 36:15.129 "Chains and executions are the coarse instruments," he writes, 36:15.130 --> 36:17.410 "that tyranny formerly employed. 36:17.409 --> 36:20.319 But in our day, civilization has perfected 36:20.315 --> 36:23.495 despotism itself, which seemed to have nothing 36:23.503 --> 36:26.553 more to learn." We have perfected despotism, 36:26.552 --> 36:29.372 he says. "Under the absolute government 36:29.370 --> 36:33.840 of one man, despotism struck crudely at the body so to reach 36:33.836 --> 36:36.506 the soul," no doubt thinking about the 36:36.514 --> 36:40.034 Inquisition and things like this in Spain and in parts of 36:40.027 --> 36:42.807 Catholic Europe. He writes, "and the soul 36:42.811 --> 36:46.261 escaping from those blows rose gloriously above it. 36:46.260 --> 36:49.020 But," he goes, "in democratic republics, 36:49.019 --> 36:51.779 tyranny does not proceed in this way. 36:51.780 --> 36:57.060 It leaves the body alone and goes directly for the soul." 36:57.059 --> 37:02.829 Well, there's a wealth of commentary you might think about 37:02.834 --> 37:07.904 when you read that passage that's implied there. 37:07.900 --> 37:11.560 Oh, God. The time's moving so quickly. 37:11.560 --> 37:12.920 There's so much more. 37:12.920 --> 37:19.720 So that, for Tocqueville, is one of the other sides of 37:19.724 --> 37:23.324 the democratic experience. 37:23.320 --> 37:27.080 Again, I want to return to a piece of that on Wednesday, 37:27.076 --> 37:28.916 next week rather, Monday, 37:28.920 --> 37:32.480 because I think you will see in Volume 2, Tocqueville has 37:32.475 --> 37:34.565 something of a change of heart. 37:34.570 --> 37:36.400 He doesn't become more optimistic. 37:36.400 --> 37:38.930 In fact, he becomes far more pessimistic about this. 37:38.929 --> 37:44.849 But there's certainly a change of tone in what Tocqueville has 37:44.846 --> 37:49.886 to say about the potentiality of majority tyranny. 37:49.889 --> 37:52.089 Well, we had so much fun watching the movie, 37:52.092 --> 37:55.322 I didn't get a chance--There's a little more I wanted to say, 37:55.320 --> 37:58.070 but this seems like a good note to break on. 37:58.070 --> 38:01.820 I'll try to finish whatever I can with Tocqueville on Monday 38:01.824 --> 38:05.644 and Wednesday I'm going to try to wrap things up and tell you 38:05.642 --> 38:08.062 what you should be thinking about. 38:08.059 --> 38:12.999 So anyway, enjoy yourselves and I'll see you next week.