De Tocqueville Notes
Questions to think about when reading Tocqueville:
- Tocqueville wrote in 1831 after he traveled to America to understand egalitarian society
- an aristocrat writing post-revolutionary France
- came from family that suffered during the French Revolution
- doesn’t see the Revolution as a positive thing, and doesn’t prize democracy
- is a realist (doesn’t think time can reverse)
- equality is inevitable and decline of aristocracy is inevitable as well
- by democracy, he means society where there is equality of status, old aristocratic society (etc. king, queen, commoner status) is removed
1. Why do master-servant relations differ in aristocracies and democracies? (relate to Chapter 5)
2. Why are two Englishmen abroad so distant from each other? (relate to Chapter 2)
3. Why are Americans difficult to offend at home in America but so easily offended abroad? (relate to Chapter 3)
4. Why are humanitarian sentiments more prevalent in democratic societies than aristocratic societies? (relate to Chapter 1 and 4)
Chapter 1: How Mores Become More Gentle as Social Conditions Become More Equal
In times of equality, people are more sensitive to the sufferings of others because they can imagine themselves in the same position.
* Equality of social conditions and greater gentleness of mores are correlative facts (i.e. did not happen by chance) * Between members of each class, people feel as though they are children of the same family and have sympathy for one another as they come from the same profession, property, and birth level * However, members of different classes do not have real sympathetic feelings for one another * Members of each class (or caste) have their own opinions, feelings, rights, mores, and a whole separate existence therefore cannot understand and judge what others (from other castes) suffer * People had obligations to others (such as devotion of serf to lord or duty of lord to serfs) that arose from political rights,
- Tocqueville wrote in 1831 after he traveled to America to understand egalitarian society
- an aristocrat writing post-revolutionary France
- came from family that suffered during the French Revolution
- doesn’t see the Revolution as a positive thing, and doesn’t prize democracy
- is a realist (doesn’t think time can reverse)
- equality is inevitable and decline of aristocracy is inevitable as well
- by democracy, he means society where there is equality of status, old aristocratic society (etc. king, queen, commoner status) is removed
1. Why do master-servant relations differ in aristocracies and democracies? (relate to Chapter 5)
2. Why are two Englishmen abroad so distant from each other? (relate to Chapter 2)
3. Why are Americans difficult to offend at home in America but so easily offended abroad? (relate to Chapter 3)
4. Why are humanitarian sentiments more prevalent in democratic societies than aristocratic societies? (relate to Chapter 1 and 4)
Chapter 1: How Mores Become More Gentle as Social Conditions Become More Equal
In times of equality, people are more sensitive to the sufferings of others because they can imagine themselves in the same position.
* Equality of social conditions and greater gentleness of mores are correlative facts (i.e. did not happen by chance) * Between members of each class, people feel as though they are children of the same family and have sympathy for one another as they come from the same profession, property, and birth level * However, members of different classes do not have real sympathetic feelings for one another * Members of each class (or caste) have their own opinions, feelings, rights, mores, and a whole separate existence therefore cannot understand and judge what others (from other castes) suffer * People had obligations to others (such as devotion of serf to lord or duty of lord to serfs) that arose from political rights,