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This 10 page paper answers questions about Alexis de Tocqueville's classic book, "Democracy in America." Bibliography lists 1 source.
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10 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVDeTocq.rtf
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first appeared in 1838, remains required reading for Americans who want to understand the beginnings of democracy in this country. This paper discusses specific questions about de Tocquevilles book. Discussion
De Tocqueville appears to have been startled by the equality that he saw when he visited America. The ideal of equality had been part of European thinking for some time,
especially in the French Revolution, but in America, he saw it in reality. It was a revelation to him because the democracy that he saw in France was growing up
wild, "like those children who have no parental guidance, who receive their education in the public streets, and who are acquainted only with the vices and wretchedness of society" (de
Tocqueville, Introduction). Democracy, he writes, apparently sprang into being without any warning, taking people by surprise; "it was worshipped as the idol of strength; and when afterwards it was
enfeebled by its own excesses, the legislator conceived the rash project of destroying it, instead of instructing it and correcting its vices" (de Tocqueville, Introduction). There was no attempt
made to fit it into government, but to keep it out, with the result that the democracy had taken place in society "without that concomitant change in the laws, ideas,
customs, and morals which was necessary to render such a revolution beneficial" (de Tocqueville, Introduction). The result of this was a democracy that had no advantages, only vices; although people
were aware of these evils, they had not yet discovered the benefits of the system (de Tocqueville, Introduction). We are not used to thinking of democracy objectively. For us,
it is always a positive thing, an absolute good. Clearly, in de Tocquevilles France it was no such thing, and this may be why he was so astonished to find
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