Another Look At Democracy in America

By Alexis de Tocqueville, as told to Paul Gray

I did not intend to revisit the United States, nor can I say what power has transported my spirit hither. I must speculate that my presence here implies a responsibility related to the one I assumed more than 150 years ago, when I spent nine months traveling in this country. I was 26, and the nation had enjoyed barely 50 years of independence. America impressed me as a place where the experiment in Democracy, the social revolution that so agitated my contemporaries , was being most peaceably and generally conducted. So, in Democracy in America, I attempted to explain how a multitudinous people contrived to govern themselves and live together under terms of equality--a thing the world had never before witnessed. I ventured not only to assess the effect of the American political system on the habits and enjoyments of citizens beholden to no power excepting themselves, but also, extrapolating from my evidence, to suggest what might spring from the new way of life I observed in America.

Now, a stranger again on these shores, I survey a landscape whose surface has changed almost beyond recognition. To rehearse these alterations would be tedious, so let us quickly grant what we all know: the 24 states and 13 million inhabitants of 1831 have swelled to 50 and 240 million; scientific advances have stretched beyond my power of foresight; the United States is no longer an infant among nations but the most powerful entity on earth.

Yet the more things change, as a saying in my native language has it, the more they remain the same. America still excites the world's hopes and fears; it continues to attract immigrants, disquietude and hatred. The experiment that struck me so forcefully when I and my host country were young continues with undiminished vigor and uncertainty. To see this tumultuous process anew fills me with hope, misgivings and the desire to make a few more remarks on the ways this great land may yet fulfill or betray its destiny. In what follows, I will have occasion to repeat some of my own words; for the past 1 1/2 centuries, scarcely anyone commenting on America at any length has failed to quote Tocqueville. I ask the same indulgence.

The Disappearing Tyranny of the Majority

At the time I wrote Democracy in America, one of the strongest fears was that this form of government would be tantamount to mob rule. I suggested how the American system could prevent or mitigate the tyranny of the majority. This process went further than I anticipated. Now I am hard put to find any majority in America at all. There are, to pick but one example, more women in the United States than men; yet since gaining suffrage in 1920 they have failed to win decisive power at any level of government. I attribute this to the fact that women, like men, do not see themselves as part of a mighty army but as Democrats or Republicans, married or single, old or young, heterosexual or things my 19th century upbringing forbids me to name. In fact, few individuals seeking redress or public attention claim the advantage of numbers on their behalf. On the contrary: they petition from weakness as the surest method of attaining their goals. The proliferation of vociferous minorities has doubtless resulted in the righting of many wrongs. It has also led to a noticeable decline in the civility of public discourse. The United States has become at once more equitable, and clamorous, than before.

The Precarious First Amendment

It struck me as self-evident that freedom of expression was the cornerstone of all democratic liberties and that censorship of the press, in particular, would soon be seen by all Americans as folly and the sure road to despotism. I now realize that my confidence was premature. Government agencies continue to threaten news organizations that publish information known to everyone, including bitter adversaries, but the American people. Certain women strive to ban, as violations of their civil rights, portrayals of members of their sex that they find insulting. People who attempt to restrict what others are allowed to read do not imagine themselves as enemies of Democracy. I must allow that they pay ideas the backhanded tribute of fearing their power. But the proper antidote to obnoxious or wicked concepts is exposure, not suppression. The urge to censor betrays a disregard for the intelligence of others. To mistrust the judgment of one's fellow citizens is to question, ultimately, their ability to govern themselves.

The Power of the Automobile

Mass-produced automobiles put freedom of movement within the reach of nearly all Americans. Nothing, in theory, could be more democratic than that. But as I see and hear America now, I marvel at the apparent enslavement of a robust people to their machines. Nearly everyone must live within earshot of the snarling, thunderous din of traffic. People who motor to their places of employment must make allowances for the time they will spend sitting still in long lines and for the time they will have to devote to finding a place to put their automobile once they arrive. To be spared such an ordeal would seem a blessing, but to suggest to an American that he give up his automobile is to invite incredulous laughter.

And of Television

Citizens who are able to set out on the road to see their country are also at liberty to remain home and have their country, indeed much of the world, transmitted to them by television. There is much to admire in this remarkable invention and more than a little cause for concern. On the one hand, television unites in common perceptions a disparate people spread across a broad continent. Such an immediate and inclusive forum would seem an unquestioned boon to Democracy. Such is not entirely the case. Although television appears to reflect marvelous diversity, it in fact fosters uniformity. Varieties of American speech, fashions and opinions are modified toward sameness by the examples of what millions of Americans watch. It also seems to me that television achieves part of its power by appealing to human weaknesses. The habit of viewing it does not encourage reflection or contemplation. The eye is trained to crave novelty, while the brain rests or slumbers. Political debate, which during my last visit seemed a passion and a recreation among Americans, has shrunk to brief bursts of pleasant images. And television's ascent has coincided with a measurable decline in the ability of young people to read. Democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry. The paradox of television in forwarding such a goal seems clear: barring extraordinary circumstances, it can best summon the attention of most of the nation by presenting trivialities.

On Charity and the State

"The state almost exclusively undertakes to supply bread to the hungry, assistance and shelter to the sick, work to the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of all kinds of misery." I wrote this description not of America but of the European nations of my own age; I ardently hoped that the self-reliant energies stimulated by Democracy would render such well-intended but despotic & administrations of charity forever a thing of the past. Yet America today presents the spectacle of an enormous machinery for the dispensing of support. Indeed, the monies spent for this purpose by government at all levels each year exceed what the nation spends annually on its self-defense. I am sad but not surprised to report that this unimaginably expensive machine does not work. There are indications that the poor are growing in number. Dependence on government help has rendered many of them unwilling or unable to pursue productive roles. The enigma is striking: a system that everyone, beneficiaries included, dislikes; a torrent of money that leaves the social landscape ever more sere. I thought that Democracy could do better than this, and I retain that expectation.

On the Decline of the Word Public

"A stranger is constantly amazed," I wrote after my first visit, "by the immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to speak, no rich men." America now contains many rich men, and the very word public seems to have sunk into strange opprobrium. I suspect that these two phenomena are related. As the number and size of fortunes have swelled, the people who possess such wealth have naturally sought means to distinguish themselves from the common run of their fellow citizens. Private wealth in America is seldom used to purchase ostentatious grandeur. Instead, great money buys the freedom not to mingle indiscriminately with those of inferior resources. The rich prefer not to avail themselves of services that are provided to the multitude. The consequences of this retreat by the wealthy from hoi polloi have been unsettling. Those who no longer require public amenities soon begrudge the funds required to maintain them. Public schools, which their children do not attend, come to seem wasteful and unnecessary; public transportation, which they do not ride, is changed from an adornment of well- regulated society into a subject of scorn. Such attitudes among the rich would not, by themselves, be decisive. But they are adopted by millions of others who hope to become rich and purchase splendid isolation for themselves. In the scramble to pursue this goal, the comfort of the public concerns fewer and fewer people. And those who have no choice but to use general facilities no longer feel glad of the convenience but trapped, resentful and abusive.

Of Industry and Commerce

"Not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be found in the United States, as they are in all other countries, but, what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce." Producing goods now seems to interest the populace less than it did then, with the result that America imports more goods from other nations than it ships out. I am at a loss to explain this change. I can only point to one development that strikes an outsider as extraordinary. Huge companies devote great energy to buying and selling one another. The American genius for commerce has discovered a method for generating vast profits without the inconvenience of making anything of value.

On the Condition of Blacks

I had few expectations that whites and blacks would ever exist easily and peacefully together here: "If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States; that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality but to the inequality of condition." I am heartened that this matter turned out better than I imagined. Wherever I turn, I see blacks in positions of authority and prominence. My initial exposure to television leads me to conclude that the most beloved person in the country is a black man named Bill Cosby. Though America has freed itself from the most visible manifestations of racial injustice and intolerance, I cannot truly say that whites and blacks have resolved all of their differences. Few whites any longer are willing to display open prejudice, but this silence does not always reflect their true feelings. Blacks, for their part, often have conflicting emotions about succeeding in America; gratifying rewards may come, but not the conviction of full acceptance in society. Complicating these tensions is the existence of a class of blacks who seem permanently excluded from the opportunities of American life. Concentrated most visibly in the decaying centers of older cities, these people produce a disproportionate amount of violence, crime and fear. These depredations are bad enough, but worse still is the prospect of wasted lives and generations: children born out of wedlock in turn bearing children who have neither the training nor the chance to break the cycle of their hopelessness. Unless blacks and whites learn how to address this problem with appropriate frankness and sensitivity, I fear that a small portion of disaffected people may make life so intolerable for all that a terrible correction will enforce safety at the expense of liberty.

America remains an inexhaustible subject, and the most I can offer is scattered readings of history still in the process of being written. If my remarks strike any as too critical, I am sorry but not apologetic. As I wrote once: "Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is very seldom offered to them by their friends." I am a friend of Democracy. My birth and training inclined me to aristocratic interests, but my heart led me to America. It is still the place among all others where the play of human nature is allowed the greatest latitude, for good and ill. It is still the place that can make itself even better by deciding to be so.