Alexis
de Tocqueville is one of the heads of liberalism. During his trip to the United
States, Tocqueville was able to describe the awakening democracy. His approach
is totally original compared to a normative philosophy that prevailed in Classics
(Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Greeks), Tocqueville rather use a descriptive
and clinical approach.
The issue at the heart of the book Democracy in America is this: How can we protect the people from himself? In the first part of Democracy in America, Tocqueville considers the public more as a means of coercion of people by the people than as a guarantor of rationality and freedom. In the second part, the questioning moves to protect people from the despotic democratic state.
Democracy and the power source
American
democracy, Tocqueville said, is based on the absoluteness of popular
sovereignty. This is the source of legislative power, exercised through elected
representatives and renewed frequently. Two key ideas are at the heart of
democracy: equality and freedom. In a democracy, the pursuit of equality
prevails over that of freedom. This dialectic of democratic principles creates
the possibility of self-destruction of the entire democratic system.
The excesses of democracy
It is
this potential risk inherent in any democracy, which explains the ambivalence
of judgments, both enthusiasts and critics, de Tocqueville. It diagnoses the
ills of democracy and attempts to discern, even within the existing system, the
remedies that can stop them. The healing of these evils do not occur from the
outside, but the trends already present in democracy. Tocqueville observed that
the three main threats to the American system are: the tyranny of the majority,
individualism and despotism state.
Tocqueville and The tyranny of the
majority
Paradoxically,
the tyranny of the majority comes from public space. Public opinion, the result
of free discussion between citizens within the public space, is in fact the
majority opinion. However, this majority, which could be described as rational
and legitimate, has a coercive force on minority views and lead them to comply
with the prevailing opinion. Thus was born of freedom, public opinion denies
thereafter. This tyranny of the majority comes from the absolute sovereignty of
the people, which gives him, he believes, “the right to do anything,” the
belief in its omnipotence. Therefore, to ensure that minorities are not brought
to heel, forced conformism and self-righteousness, we must erect a barrier to
this omnipotence. This remedy against the first evil watching democracy is the
political association. Tocqueville distinguishes the civil association, whose
purpose is different. This second type relates to private affairs of
individuals, including religious, commercial or legal, not a political cause.
The political association, it has always relative to a public cause. It can be
defined as the gathering of individuals around common public interest. In this
framework can only express opinions repressed by the majority, the political
association gives the scope to be the voice of him who is alone. It is the
guarantee unlimited freedom of thought and expression, respect for the rights
of citizenship for dissent: they prevent the stigmatization and rejection of
views considered deviant and those who defend them. Contrary to despotism,
tyranny, democracy is not physical in nature, but immaterial: it is the deviant
“a foreigner”.
Associations have therefore dedicated to “normalize” free
thinkers. In addition, the need for its existence is that it can be oppressive,
since it is still a minority, according to Tocqueville.
In fact, an association
that would become the majority ceases to be one. Besides being a principle of
social and political change, they are also a principle of stability. Since they
introduce, of course, factions within the society, but by allowing all opinions
to find a place for expression, they prevent the organization of plots or
conspiracies. In this, Tocqueville is in line with Kant, because it defends the
principle of publicity. Another reason “Kantian” in this observer of American
democracy: political associations promote the critical use of reason. Public
opinion is the product of reflection, but “once [the majority] is irrevocably
pronounced, everyone is silent,” while discussions continue within these
institutions, making permanent political activity. They therefore express a
struggle against the Democratic gregariousness and silence of reason.
However,
political associations pose a danger, that of anarchy. Their proliferation may
in fact cause an infinite partition of popular sovereignty, so that it would be
impossible to legislate on the basis of a majority. But this danger is thwarted
by their benefits. Political associations are therefore, in this respect, a
force of resistance to oppression of the majority, not only against state
power. Nevertheless, Tocqueville does not make them the major legislative body
of democracy: if they “have the power to attack [the existing law] and to make
advance what must exist,” they do not the power to legislate.
Democracy and individualism
This
awakening of the spirit, made possible by political associations, is also a
revival of “public spirit” of reason. The second evil which threatens democracy
is indeed individualism. He calls this tendency of individuals born from the destruction
of the hierarchy of links that united in the monarchical system, to lose
interest in the great society and retreat to the limited company. This evil is
of democratic origin, since equality “breaks the chain and severs every link of
it.” So reclusive in their private sphere, citizens directly endanger
democracy, one of whose principles is participation in power. Therefore, the
associations, but not all types, sanctions, here too, the role of remedy a
negative trend for democracy. Indeed, the proliferation civil associations is
harmful because they divert public governance. Political associations, on the
contrary, “pulling people out of themselves, struggling against the
fragmentation of the group and allow them to participate in public life. Paradoxically,
therefore democracy is through political associations, which can save
individualism, while it was she who gave birth.
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