Alexis deTocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29th, 1805. Growing up in Metz, France, the youngest child of Hervé Tocqueville and Mlle. De Rosanbo, he showed great intellectual promise from his earliest days. By the age of 16, his academic career was a brilliant one, his schoolwork earning him a special prize and two first prizes. He was an avid reader, reading books hardly accessible to a boy of his young age. It was during these years that he developed his critical thinking and reasoning skills that would serve him so well later in life. In 1831, Alexis and his friend and colleague Gustave de Beaumont embarked for New York. Sent to study the American penal system, Tocqueville was much more interested in studying the only completely democratic state and society of his time. The journey occupied ten months, and “The American Penal System and Its Application in France” was published under both Tocqueville and Beaumont’s names. When the two returned to France in 1832, they were considered experts on the prison system, and Tocqueville established himself as a promising young writer and political mind.
Different authors generate different hypotheses regarding Tocqueville’s inspirations and mentors. John Koritansky sums up his views by stating that
“almost certainly it was Rousseau who taught Tocqueville to see the root of love of equality in human nature and to see its centrality for political life. My whole interpretation, then, might be summed up by saying that Tocqueville attempts to rewrite Montesquieu’s political science by way of an extension of Rousseau’s reinterpretation of human nature.”
Joshua Mitchell, on the other hand, believes that Tocqueville’s inspiration began ...
... middle of paper ...
...le: A Biographical Study in Political
Science.” (Gloucester: Harper and Brothers) 1960.
7. Mayer, J.P. “Alexis de Tocqueville.” (New York: Arno Press) 1979.
8. Mayer, J.P. “Oeuvres Completes.” (Beaumont) XI, 123.
9. Mitchell, Joshua. “The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy
And the American Future.” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press.) 1955.
10. Tocqueville, Alexis. “Democracy in America.” Volume 1, Part I, Chapter 5.
11. Tocqueville, Alexis. “The Old Regime and the French Revolution.” (Garden
City, New York: Doubleday) 1955.
12. Tocqueville, Alexis. “Memoir: Letters and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville.”
(Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields) 1862.
13. Zetterbaum, Marvin. “Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy.”
(Stanford: Stanford University Press) 1967.
Tocqueville seems to like democracy in its ideal form. However, nothing can be perfect and thus America is not a perfect democracy. Tocqueville found numerous problems with democracy and the influence it had on the populace. These problems range from their distrust of dogmatic beliefs to the imperfect equality that is in place in America. He also found the effects of these problems to be quite problematic as well. For instance, individualism, an effect of equality, is very problematic to democracy. Tocqueville enjoys considering America as an experiment in democracy, but does not find it to be faultless.
In a time of uncertainty and turmoil in France, Alexis de Tocqueville came to America under the pretense of studying the American penal system, which was considered the best in the world at that time. The July Revolution of 1830, led to the
Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation of the American prison system brought out several interesting facts about America and how it governs itself. He talks of the danger of greed for money, the importance of forming associations, and the power of influence in town government. Although many of his observations have since changed, many of them bring about legitimate points about American government and society.
America is viewed around the world as the land of opportunities, where anyone willing to work hard and help their neighbor is welcomed with open arms. The one thing that many seek out of the United States is the equality and natural rights bestowed upon all in the Bill of Rights. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French diplomat, wrote about the United States and the basic founding principles of its democracy as well as how the people of America utilize their rights to create a better common good for everyone. The communal effort, to Tocqueville, symbolized an equality of conditions that would slowly filter itself into law, creating laws for the betterment of society as a whole and not just the individual. He also believes that the progress of equality
Alexis de Tocqueville, felt that the Revolution’s objective was no longer liberty, which in his opinion is what it should have been. Tocqueville insisted that the failure of not making liberty a primary objective is what brought down the French Revolution and impacted revolutions for years to come. He was concerned that all future revolutions would fall short and face shortcomings if liberty was not the main objective to create a legacy of the revolution. His theories show strength based upon the fact that in the beginning, the Revolution had clear goals and objectives, however towards the end it lacked sufficient proof that liberty was the objective at the end of the
Tocqueville’s analysis for the potential of an industrial aristocracy to grow in a democracy is useful in analyzing America prior to and during the Gilded Age. This time period in American history exhibits the growth of an industrial aristocracy that Tocqueville prophetically warned readers possibly happening in democracies. To fully understand how the growth of such an elite can develop, it’s necessary to first look at Tocqueville’s arguments on how the opportunity of political freedom can give a democracy two tendencies: that of the despot or the sovereign. Also, the Tocquevillian perspective of the economic animal in a democracy helps reinforce the inevitable notion of American’s transition from an agrarian society to an industrial empire. However, what came with the preference for the efficiency of industry over the equality of republican values was a select few reaping the benefits of the rest. The aristocratic class that grew in America during Gilded Age occurred for many reasons. The American-will, coupled with technological advancement and a large European immigrant labor supply, had changed the structure of labor. This division of labor made
Davis discusses the history of the justice system and how the Penitentiary replaced capitol and corporal punishment. She defines Penitentiary as “Imprisonment was regarded as rehabilitative and the penitentiary prison was devised to provide convicts with the conditions for reflecting on their crimes and, through penitence, for reshaping their habits even their souls.3” though the idea of the penitentiary is arguable a new idea during the American Revolution. The penitentiary process was so that prisoners could learn from what they have done by a process of separation and rehabilitation. After slavery and during the early 20th century the level of crime rates rose during the early 1920’s to 1940’s. In the Article Less crime more punishment Adler4,
After reading Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, it is imperative that one is not impressed by the blue ribbon attached to this faulty account of society’s development and flaws. While he does make valid points in regards to man’s nature and his progression into the world of civilization, Rousseau’s words can mislead one into seeing progress as a force to be avoided, which would be a shame.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher that helped develop concepts such as general will, and improved on the early norms on child-raising. Born in Geneva, he was a “citizen” of the city. “Citizens” were the two hundred members of the Grand Council of Geneva, which made most of the political decisions in state. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an important part of the Enlightenment. He led an interesting life, as told by his three memoirs, had a solid philosophy, did not believe in reason, and left a lasting legacy that still affects us today.
To conclude, seeing that Tocqueville appears to be a big proponent of equality, he may praise America as a country heading toward improvement while criticizing Russia for going back to the old ways. Tocqueville may express belief that the former needs to eliminate all forms of discrimination (ex. Subversive forms of racial discrimination) while the latter needs to de-centralize the government (less power wielded by the president).
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29, 1805. Tocqueville’s father was a royalist prefect from Normandy who supported the Boubon monarchy, his great-grandfather was a liberal aristocrat killed in the French Revolution, and his mother was a devout Roman Catholic who strongly advocated a return on the Old Regime. In 1835, the first part of Democracy in America was published. A highly positive and optimistic account of American government and society, the book was very well received throughout Europe. “In 1840 the second part of Democracy in America was published. This volume was substantially more pessimistic than the first, warning of the dangers des...
In his essay, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau attempts to explain the relationship between the formation of political and social institutions and the state of human nature. Before going into depth regarding the state of human nature, Rousseau starts by first demonstrating the first crucial steps in human evolution and the effects these steps had on the development of inequality. Rousseau believes that the combination of these concepts are important to understanding where we came from, who we are now as a society and what our society will resemble in the future.
In the chapter Public Spirit in the United States, of Democracy in America, Tocqueville describes two kinds of “love of country”. One comes from the old Europe, especially the older European situation, which is hard to be found nowadays in Europe. The other one is from the early years of the new United States. Seemingly, they are the same—two sorts of patriotism—as they both contribute to the country. However, they are totally different due to the formation.
...s of government. They were based on certain principles that would make each one run effectively. The criteria of size and population mattered just as importantly as anything else that has been discussed. He would probably think that the United States was not best ran in a democratic structure due to its size and the diversity of its population. The Republican Party, contrary to Rousseau's claim, believes that the form of government is not the problem, but how that government has been ran ineffectively. They continue by stating that their philosophy has been to let government, by which its people are free, run without intervention of it's representatives. Those people, who represent, should follow the laws that are made for the protection of citizens.
In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau hypothesizes the natural state of man to understand where inequality commenced. To analyze the nature of man, Rousseau “strip[ped] that being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received, and of all the artificial faculties he could have acquired only through a lengthy process,” so that all that was left was man without any knowledge or understanding of society or the precursors that led to it (Rousseau 47). In doing so, Rousseau saw that man was not cunning and devious as he is in society today, but rather an “animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all” (47). Rousseau finds that man leads a simple life in the sense that “the only goods he knows in the un...