I'm just kidding about the title. I promise I will explain later in the post why the author's views have biased me against democracy.
Any way, the name of this miraculous book is Democracy in America, and it was written in the year 1835. I found out about this book because Allan Bloom, one of the main influences on the Thesis I am writing for my senior year, cited him as a major source in his assessments.
Anyway, some background on the author. Alexis De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat born in the year 1805. He was sent to America in 1831 by the French government to examine the American prison system. While he was in America, he began studying our democracy and produced the two volumes of Democracy in America when he returned from France.
The book (of which I have only read the first volume)is a fairly even-handed assessment of democratic systems. While it is obvious that Tocqueville loves democracy, he does devote a fair length of time to discussing the flaws in American politics.
Let's start with the good stuff. One of the things that Tocqueville both praises and condemns (I'll get to this later.) America for is the lack of classes in society. There is no political/ruling class, every man of quality can take part in the government. There is no control of the many by the few.
He also argues from that the lack of centralization in American government works to our advantage as a nation. In his view, decentralization is good for a nation because it brings vitality and life to the body politic. People are more inclined to be involved in and care about the fate of their country. As the man himself writes: "There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place." In America, Tocqueville saw the opposite of this and welcomed the effect it brought on civil life.
In Tocqueville's view, lack of class and lack of centralization bring unprecedented sovereignty to the common man. This idea of sovereignty simply put means that the people have freedom and say in how the government is run. However, this would be a problem because people need to be taught how to exercise freedom. As the author said: “Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.” For him, the way to remedy this is the township system. To offer a gross oversimplification of this sadly out of date system, Tocqueville says that the township system refers to government at the local level. He argues that this web of positions at the smallest level shows the people how to govern. We are not used to freedom and need practice in the small things so that we are worthy to lead on a larger scale.
Now for the stuff that Tocqueville says is a fault with democracy. First, he claims that the electoral system is inherently unstable. He says we do not allow individuals to remain in office for a long time, which means that in the local cases, the state legislatures are experiencing upheaval every year or so. This has an effect on the consistency of policy and tends to make legislators not think long term. He also argues that in the case of state legislatures and the House of Representatives, which rely on direct election by the will of the people, the legislators themselves are forced to be slaves to the mob and the passions of the majority if they want to be reelected.
He continues with his attack on the mob, saying that due to mankind's disdain for having intellectual people in power, men of intelligence refuse to run for office. Furthermore, he considers this part of an intellectual leveling off in general. The reason being that the idea of majority rules has permeated every part of society. Intelligence and genius is sharpened by dissenting opinions and clash of ideas. If the majority rules, the dissenters with legitimate opinions are penalized and forbidden from sharing their opinions. Tocqueville argues that there are checks on the power of the majority, but in the modern world the rule of the majority and direct election are dangerous.
Now, in closing, how does all of this relate to my political views and the position I want you as the reader to adopt? Well, I am of the opinion that rule by majority is no different from rule by the mob. In today's culture, we need leaders who will not pander to the will of the majority and instead stand for godly principles. This is not a flaw particular to our democracy, but the way the system is set up, these tendencies in politicians are exacerbated. The view of Tocqueville about the leveling of intelligence is more disturbing. Lack of intelligence in politicians combined with a tendency to reward the mob is dangerous. So in short, lack of faith in the collective will of humanity is why Tocqueville did not necessarily convert me to aristocratic thinking but convinced me that democracy was not the solution. That is not to say that I am critical and dismissive of democracy. As Winston Churchill wrote. "Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried." I'm not trying to sway anyone, I only think people need to consider if the leveling out of greatness in our society is worth the freedom we enjoy?