The Tenth Anniversary Alexis de Tocqueville himself, by America’s best political philosopher, Harvey Mansfield of Harvard.
Professor Mansfield gives us a fascinating picture of the great Frenchman. Mansfield’s Tocqueville had a definite and positive teaching on religion in public life. Why it should be left a man who did not himself believe, or at least who struggled profoundly with agnostic indecision, to compose a theory of democracy that owed so much to the private action of religion on public mores, is an example of the caliber of question that Mansfield raises.
Private action: mark that distinction. Mischievous commenters here have of late adduced claims of Tocqueville secret allegiance to the ancien regime, which is how they interpret his steady caution about modern democracy’s capacity for justice; but certainly on this point only a really brassbound fool would insist on contrarianism, and present Tocqueville as pining for the old regime’s iron unity of church and state. He was fully persuaded by Americans on this point. Tocqueville privileged liberty, of conscience above all.
So Tocqueville embraced the modern liberal separation of church and state; but this by no means meant, for him, that religion was out of the game. Far from it. He reproached the Puritans for their theocracy; but he praised their remarkable capacity, in earthy practice, to give religion influence without coercion; in word, their capacity to inculcate voluntary civic virtue. As Mansfield puts it, “They not merely offered an idea but also were able to live it, transforming it into the mores of a social state that could be considered the ‘first cause’ of American democracy.”
So I cannot recommend Prof. Mansfield’s essay more enthusiastically. That I disagree with him on certain points does not detract of the overall impress of the argument. I should feel myself duped or misled for sure if I found myself agreeing with everything in one of these Straussians’ essays.
The rest of this CRB issues is similarly packed with quality writing, sharp analysis, rich review, grounded challenge. Sign up for this one now. Make sure they understand you want this double issue.
Comments (7)
I really didn't need to get it, but I did. And the worst happened, just as I expected it to - I now have a new list of about 67 books I want to read.
Seriously, though, I loved Jean Bethke Elshtain's response in the letters section - anyone who has any residual affection for Simone de Beauvior really, really needs to re-think that.
Kamilla
Posted by Kamilla | April 28, 2011 7:53 PM
Paul,
I was just getting ready to write you an excited private email about the new CRB and you stole my thunder. Of course I was going to point you to the Mansfield essay, but I was also going to highlight the book review by Wilfred McClay. He reviews what seems like a fascinating study of American social history called Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character by Claude Fischer. Given our recent discussion about the dangers of democracy/capitalism, these section of the book review stood out for me:
Posted by Jeff Singer | April 28, 2011 9:26 PM
Wilfred McClay is a fine writer. His essays are always worthwhile. I was most impressed with a recent essay of his on Whig history in First Things.
Kamilla -- that letter endeared me to Jean Bethke Elshtain as well. I'm a sucker for a journal with a good Letters column myself.
Posted by Paul J Cella | April 29, 2011 8:00 AM
Jeff, I'm not so sure about attributing more than caution to T, and then contrasting him to Fischer based on the respective quotes (I haven't read the review yet.) Note the preceding sentence below in the full quote. Also, in Nolla's 1990 translation that I used, considered one of the better ones, it uses "social power" instead of "governing power." I'd be interested in knowing how other translations render it, but even if it is rendered "governing power", it isn't clear to me you can simply insert "the state."
It is easy to foresee that the time is coming when man will be less and less able to produce by himself alone the things most common and most necessary to his life. So the task of the social power will grow constantly, and its very efforts will make it greater every day. The more it puts itself in the place of associations, the more individuals, losing the idea of associating, will need it to come to their aid.
1) One of T's most persistent memes is the powerlessness of individuals, in any type of government. He is insistent and repetitious that are all "powerless," of a "common powerlessness" and weakness. Maybe that factors in here and maybe it doesn't, but I don't share his view of the powerlessness of persons, then or now.
2) It seems the point you wish to make by quoting T depends on T's view that (presumably) because of the increasing industrialization and specialization people will be more dependent on external associations, whether the "general association" (government) or voluntary associations. I don't think he is saying it must be the former at all, but rather it will be one or the other and to the extent that it is one it will be less the other. Can this be characterized as a more pessimistic take than your quote of Fischer shows Fischer to be? T's seems pretty neutral to me, but maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
3) The sentence that contains the assertion you wish to make depends entirely on first that I included. There are senses in which the first proposition is true, but I think there are more in which it is not. And if there is anything certain in this it is the ways that industrialization and specialization has brought about surprising mitigating factors in various ways. Many of us have new freedoms from new developments that we often don't exercise because of spiritual problems.
I think it is valuable to speak of these debates in terms of pessimism/optimistism, because at the end of the day that is the real difference in my view. In other words, we are talking about attitudes. I think it is a mistake to confuse symptoms of spiritual crisis with symptoms of political corruption, and I'm not persuaded that we can simply say since the latter could cause the former that it must have somehow. The fact is spiritual crisis is inevitable, and can't be dealt with politically. Here is a funny take on how people commonly lose their perspective, and so true.
Posted by Mark | April 30, 2011 4:18 AM
I think my point 2 was poorly stated. But suffice it to say that it seems clear to me it is a statement mainly about industrialization, which is open to question. Critics of industrialization are going to say "yeah great point about democracy," whereas those who think we have it pretty well, in spite of the losses, are going to say "I dispute the premise," or at least the premise's support of the conclusion.
Posted by Mark | April 30, 2011 4:34 AM
Mark,
A couple of responses:
1) The entire block quote is McClay -- no Singer opinion is inserted in there so your argument is with the good Professor, not with me;
2) That said, I do think the fact that T. says "losing the idea of associating" suggests that McClay's interpretation is correct -- T. really does seem to be suggesting that over time people will turn toward the government rather than forming associations on their own.
3) On the other hand, like you, I'm more of an optimist in many ways, and agree with Fischer that despite all the "social atomization", I look around and still see plenty of Americans associating (even using the web to do so). I wonder if Putnam's famous book Bowling Alone still holds true?
4) I have different worries than McClay, which Putnam himself has addressed in later work, although I wonder if Fischer's book deals with the subject?
Posted by Jeff Singer | April 30, 2011 8:27 PM
Mark,
A couple of responses:
1) The entire block quote is McClay -- no Singer opinion is inserted in there so your argument is with the good Professor, not with me;
2) That said, I do think the fact that T. says "losing the idea of associating" suggests that McClay's interpretation is correct -- T. really does seem to be suggesting that over time people will turn toward the government rather than forming associations on their own.
3) On the other hand, like you, I'm more of an optimist in many ways, and agree with Fischer that despite all the "social atomization", I look around and still see plenty of Americans associating (even using the web to do so). I wonder if Putnam's famous book Bowling Alone still holds true?
4) I have different worries than McClay, which Putnam himself has addressed in later work, although I wonder if Fischer's book deals with the subject?
Posted by Jeff Singer | April 30, 2011 8:28 PM