Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
De Tocqueville: Individualism in America
Although the ideals of the Enlightenment were most explicitly formulated and
fought for in Europe, Europe was still shaped by its numerous inherited traditions
and institutions. While Enlightenment thinkers, as Descartes before them, might
have wished to totally eradicate the past in one fell swoop and to start over
with an entirely clean slate, the tangible results of centuries of accumulated
culture were still around in the form of old cities with their historically
grown lay-outs and venerable buildings, rigidly enforced social structures,
recognized authorities in churches and educational institutions, and a host
of deeply ingrained habits and carefully observed conventions. Often this ubiquitous
presence of traditional structures seemed to overwhelm and smother all efforts
to create better living conditions and a modern, more enlightened world. That
is why many saw America as a country that was in a much better position to make
a truly new beginning than Europe; America was not nearly as encumbered and
weighed down by historical baggage as the Old World. America was the "New
World," a place where a new type of human being could develop without the
traditions and inherited institutions that greatly slowed down the spread of
freedom and progress in Europe. America was the wide open future that could
speedily transcend the ossified structures of Europe’s past.
Alexis de Tocqeville (1805-1859) was one of the French intellectuals who deeply
convinced that a new type of human being was emerging in the New World. He looked
at America as a fascinating social experiment of vast proportions and with portentous
implications for the future of the world. He spent a year in the United States
to study the penal system of this young republic. After his return, from 1835
until 1840, he wrote and published the book that made him famous, Democracy
in America. His descriptions and analyses of the United States are such
that political scientists and historians of culture find them informative and
useful to this day; they have given generations of readers an idea of what it
might mean to be an American, and what the role of America might be in the modern
world. De Tocqueville was a politician and historian, rather than a professional
philosopher, but his analyses are a philosophical reflection as much as they
are empirical research. In the second book of Democracy in America,
for example, he discusses what he calls "the philosophical method of the
Americans." At that time Americans had not yet developed a distinct and
formal philosophy of their own (such as Pragmatism, the theory that emerged
toward the end of the 19th century as a peculiarly American philosophy), but
in practice, according to de Tocqueville, they all employed the same “method”
in their deliberations and conduct:
I think that in no other country in the civilized world is less attention
paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical
school of their own; and they care but little for all the schools into which
Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them.
Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that almost all the inhabitants of
the United States conduct their understanding in the same manner, and govern
it by the same rules, that is to say, that without ever taking the trouble to
define the rules of a philosophical method, they are in possession of one, common
to the whole people.
This is how de Tocqeville describes and defines this method:
To evade the bonds of system and habit, of family maxims, class-opinions,
and in some degree, of national prejudices; to accept tradition only as a means
of information, and existing facts only as a lesson used in doing otherwise
and doing better; to seek the reason of things for oneself, and in oneself alone;
to tend to results without being bound to means, and to aim at the substance
through the form--such are the principle characteristics of what I shall call
the philosophical method of the Americans. But if I go further, and if I seek
among those characteristics the principle one which includes almost all the
rest, I discover that, in most operations of the mind, each American appeals
only to the individual effort of his own understanding.
Americans, in other words, do not rely on established philosophical systems,
traditional class perspectives, or inherited national viewpoints when they explain
things to themselves: they rely on their own individual insights. If here and
there they accept a tradition, it is only because it proves useful for a particular
purpose, not because it is sacred in itself. Their general inclination is to
improve things, not to leave things as they are. Their approach to things is
always practical: They do not care how a job gets done as long as it gets done.
They rarely let formalities of any kind get in their way. In their thinking
as well as in their actions Americans live here and now. Instead of trusting
communities and ancient traditions they rely on themselves as individuals. Their
successes are due to the fact that they are radical, unencumbered individualists.
De Tocqueville maintains that this “philosophical method of the Americans”
is essentially identical with that of René Descartes, although it was
not Descartes who taught it to them. For de Tocqueville Americans are natural
Cartesians:
America is therefore one of the countries in the world where philosophy
is least studied, and where the precepts of Descartes are best applied. Nor
is this surprising. The Americans do not read the works of Descartes, because
their social condition deters them from speculative studies; but they follow
his maxims, because this very social condition naturally disposes their understanding
to adopt them.
The social condition that makes Americans natural Cartesians are described by
de Tocqueville as follows:
In the midst of the continual movement which agitates a democratic community,
the tie which unites one generation to another is relaxed or broken; every man
readily loses the trace of the ideas of his forefathers or takes no care about
them.
Nor can men living in this state of society derive their belief from the opinions
of the class to which they belong; for, so to speak, there are no longer any
classes, or those which still exist are composed of such mobile elements, that
their body can never exercise a real control over its members.
As to the influence which the intelligence of one man has on that of another,
it must necessarily be very limited in a country where the citizens, placed
on a footing of a general similitude, are all closely seen by each other; and
where, as no signs of incontestable greatness or superiority are perceived in
any one of them, they are constantly brought back to their own reason as the
most obvious and proximate source of truth.
America’s anti-traditionalist individualism did not come about overnight
and without preparation, however, it had its own history and a sort of tradition.
De Tocqeville draws a straight philosophical line from the Protestant Reformation
of 1517 (when Luther declared the independence of the individual’s conscience
from the authority of the church) to the establishment of the United States
as a major embodiment of 18th century Enlightenment ideals:
In the sixteenth century the [Protestant] Reformers subjected some of the
dogmas of the ancient [Catholic] faith to the scrutiny of private judgment;
but they still withheld from it the discussion of all the rest. In the seventeenth
century, Bacon in the natural sciences, and Descartes in the study of philosophy
in the strict sense of the term, abolished recognized formulas, destroyed the
empire of tradition, and overthrew the authority of the schools [of philosophy].
The philosophers of the eighteenth century, generalizing at length the same
principle, undertook to submit to the private judgment of each man all the objects
of his belief. Who does not perceive that Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire employed
the same method?
This method, the individualistic self-reliance that expresses itself in a general
disregard for community and tradition, has come to be considered a central part
of American ideology—together with such ideals as unabridged freedom of
speech, free enterprise, democratic self-government, and other support structures
of individual liberty. It has been a source of deep inspiration for many—as
formulated, for example, in Emerson’s rousing essay “Self-Reliance”
of 1841. But it has also been criticized as unacceptably anti-social, and as
growing out of a misrepresentation of significant social and historical facts.
Americans, recent historians argue, were not nearly as self-reliant as the stereotype
of the individualistic American suggests, and the whole notion of individuals
functioning outside all social organization has increasingly come under critical
scrutiny and fire. Programmatic book titles like It Takes A Village To Raise
A Child reflect a widespread change of perception with regard to what isolated
individuals can do, and throughout much of recent philosophical literature one
can find a growing appreciation of the role of society and community in the
nurturing and support of individuals, including self-reliant individuals. A
short clarification of the idea of individual self-reliance will be useful at
this point.
It cannot be denied that human beings are essentially social beings, whether
they are aware of it or not. Human beings need each other to become human and
to exist as human beings, and one could not even imagine functioning human individuals
without the presence of such social support systems as a shared language, acquired
skills and tools, interdependent activities, or the collective memory of important
information and crucial events. Regardless of how solitary some individuals
may be at times, no person ever lives in a total social vacuum. And no human
individual has ever grown into a self-reliant or autonomous adult without a
minimum of social care, lengthy instructions, and acculturation into some sort
of civilization. There cannot be any individuals without an appropriate social
matrix.
In spite of this undeniable anthropological fact, however, it is still true
that some cultures and societies are more individualistic than others. Some
cultures nurture and emphasize unquestioning trust in authorities, time-honored
traditions, and the prevailing ways of communities, while others permit or encourage
individual self-reliance, dissent, and a skeptical attitude toward traditions
and the past. While no person can ever be an isolated and independent individual
in any absolute sense, some people choose to live something like a hermit’s
life, while others prefer to remain in a state of close interdependency with
their fellow humans for most of their lives. Considering the great variety of
possible forms of socialization, there is no problem with arguing that in America
individualism developed much more vigorously than in other countries, and that
for a good while at least individualistic self-reliance became indeed a noteworthy
and distinguishing characteristic of life in the New World.
It should not be surprising that the individualism described by de Tocqueville
manifested itself also in the way Americans thought of themselves--how they
conceived of their personal identity. As a nation of immigrants America provided
both the economic and social conditions that allowed and encouraged people to
overcome or leave behind the national, ethnic, and cultural affiliations that
they had inherited in their countries of origin. While some immigrants tried
to maintain some of their old identities, and while group affiliation was forced
on some by way of bigotry and discrimination, for most individuals the arrival
in America was the beginning of a new life—and a new identity. And as
de Tocqueville’s observations suggest, this new identity was based on
personal choices, not on affiliations with this or that traditional group. To
be an American progressively meant to be one’s own individual self.
The Ethics of Being One’s Self
Ever since it appeared on the cultural scene, the Enlightenment has had its
outspoken critics. Philosophers and writers, as well as politicians, have criticized
its dry rationalism, its emphasis on scientific knowledge and evidence, its
mostly secular humanism, its critical attitude toward the past and traditions,
its commitment to the idea of universal human rights and cosmopolitan values--and
its individualism. At times Enlightenment thinking was widely out of favor and
all but eclipsed, while at other times it re-surfaced with renewed vigor and
urgency. It has maintained a challenged and challenging presence in Western
civilization to this day.
In recent decades Enlightenment thinking has been the target of ideological
assaults once more. Religious fundamentalists of all persuasions certainly regard
it as a main enemy. Criticism has also come, however, from theoreticians who
argue in the name of “multiculturalism,” “ethnic identity,”
or the assumed importance of separate traditions and special “roots.”
Their quarrel is with the Enlightenment’s commitment to individualism
as well as the ideal of universal rights and cosmopolitan values. Individualism
and cosmopolitanism are targeted together because both tend to undermine the
authority of certain groups, groups that feel to be in danger of being assimilated
into the homogenizing mainstream of modern society. Modern society is indeed
characterized by its tendency to gradually absorb and transform a great variety
of ethnic, racial, and religious cultures: it tends to be a “melting pot.”
In the context of global markets, universally shared technologies, instantly
transmitted information, and a virtually endless variety of available ideas
and options, special groups now find it much harder to preserve their separate
traditions and identities than in pre-industrial times. As part of a “post-modern”
reaction to the threat of universal assimilation, différence
has thus been promoted as a trendy concept and catchword to combat the equalizing
tendencies of Enlightenment and Modernity. What distinguishes groups of people
from each other is said to be more important and inspiring than the traits that
all human beings may have in common. With regard to social organization, advocates
of ethnic and cultural différence promote cultural and racial
"salad bowls" rather than the "melting pots" of earlier
years. America in particular, according to these challengers, should not be
a country of assimilation and integration, but a society in which separate blocks
of religious, racial, ethnic, and cultural groups can preserve their different
identities and pursue their separate social agendas.
Some have seen political dangers in such a “Balkanization” of society:
unhealthy tensions and split loyalties may develop if people attach too much
significance and emotions to differences of race, creed, or national origin.
The more basic philosophical matter at issue, however, is the Enlightenment
idea that ideally every individual should not only have the right, but even
something like a duty to determine for himself or herself who he or she is,
what sort of life he or she is to live, or with whom he or she wants to associate
more closely. An individual, according to Enlightenment thinking, should not
be obliged by any group to adhere to or propagate "his" or "her"
native religion, ethnicity, race, or cultural tradition, but be allowed and
encouraged to make personal choices in all these regards—to be, in effect,
entirely unencumbered by any such particular determinations. Once individuals
reach adulthood and moral maturity, in other words, they should cease to be
representatives of particular traditions or groups, and emerge as “free
spirits” and conscientious "citizens of the world." Their ultimate
allegiance should not be to any particular group or tradition, but to themselves
and to humanity as a whole. Their individualism would be identical with a universal
solidarity that singles out no other against whom any group or individual
could be pitted.
Most people will, of course, be born into specific communities that may be distinguished
from each other by cultural, racial, religious, or other traits. But such traits
should not be considered important—certainly not nearly as important as
that which all human beings have in common, namely reason. An individual’s
particular race, native religion, or cultural background should be nothing more
than insignificant accidents of birth, not features that are to mark a person
for life. A mature adult should transcend all such inherited distinctions and
create himself or herself out of personal interests, capacities, reflections,
and decisions. Diversity in an enlightened society should not be the result
of unassimilated groups and their allegiance to past cultures, but grow out
of personal choices made by unencumbered and richly informed individuals who
set out to create future.
There are a number of reasons why Enlightenment thinkers insists on their commitment
to individualism and a cosmopolitan orientation. One reason is the actual and
potential divisiveness that usually comes with the cultivation of separate groups
and their loyalties. The hatred, cruelties, persecutions, and wars that such
groups have visited on each other are largely responsible for the fact that
many experience the past and the present as “the nightmare of history”
from which they would like to wake up.
The main reason for not dwelling too much on traditions and the past, however,
is the fact that looking backward too much obscures a clear view of the present
situation. That situation is one of global interdependence. There is no corner
of the world left that can escape the influence of the scientific and technological
changes that have transformed the planet since the Industrial Revolution. Whether
living in the Amazon rain forest, the suburbs of Denver, or inside the Arctic
Circle, we all depend on the same basic consumer goods--canned foods, aspirin,
flashlights, radios, eye glasses, jeans, gasoline, and other typical products
of Western civilization. We all use the same services, too: Computer help, pharmacology,
modern surgery, television entertainment, weather reports, police departments,
and mail delivery. Equally important are the dangers that Western technology
has created for all of us: The toxins, heavy metals, and other chemicals that
accumulate in soils and waters and move up the food chains, the global warming
and other climatic changes that industrialization has brought about, the over-fishing
of oceans, deforestation of whole regions, and eventual depletion of arable
land that is made possible by modern technology, and the population explosion
that has changed the question of access to clean drinking water, safe living
spaces, adequate schooling, and gainful employment into staggering problems.
Emblematic for the situation that we all face is the threat posed by the arsenals
of thermonuclear weapons over which, ultimately, nobody has any reassuring control.
No matter who or where we are on this planet, accidents or rash decisions can
unleash the hair-trigger machinery that will lead to the Mutually Assured Destruction
built into the delivery systems of the atomic powers. It is in view of this
global situation with its universal conditions, dangers, and threats that the
worlds of special groups and traditions look quaint, narrow, and out of touch
with the reality in which we live. A sober contemplation of what actually has
become of the planet will do more for finding an identity than a dubious refuge
in some inherited culture.
In view of the dire history of ethnic, religious, racial, cultural, and national
groups one may wonder why many people are still interested in or eager to establish
their own identity by affiliating themselves to such groups. Answers can be
found by realizing that it may often be difficult to find one’s own identity—to
become one’s own self. While many will experience their release from the
hold of this or that group as liberation, others will experience it as being
cast into a void, as a loss of orientation, purpose, and belonging. It is for
this reason that Enlightenment thinkers have developed an ethic of being one’s
self, a line of thought that makes plausible why an individual should make an
effort to leave behind inherited affiliations and expose himself or herself
to the experience of not having any guidance from outside.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Kant defined enlightened morality as moral
autonomy, as an individual’s ability and willingness to define what is
right and wrong on the basis of his or her own reason. To simply accept moral
values from some established authority, some surrounding community, or from
an inherited tradition would indicate a serious lack of self-determination.
Following rules or making moral judgements as if one were on automatic pilot
is, in fact, the very opposite of being moral. An adult human being has an absolute
obligation to think and decide for himself or herself, and to take full responsibility
for all such decisions. That is the basic principle of Enlightenment individualism
as applied to Ethics.
With respect to a person’s identity the reasoning is essentially the same.
To passively accept the ways and thoughts of a group with its established traditions,
ideology, and allegiances is incompatible with the ideal of self-determination.
For a person who is young and dependent it is, of course, natural to grow into
a particular culture. Most people automatically adopt the religion that is practiced
around them, share the customs and habits of the ethnicity of which they happen
to be a part, or see the world from the viewpoint of their race—if race
has been made a matter of consequence in a society. If a person comes of age
without ever questioning naturally adopted beliefs, ways, and perspectives,
however, something essential has gone wrong. A young person who does not criticize
or doubt his or her cultural heritage, who does not develop the independence
of mind that permits a detached and objective study of the factors that define
his or her life, and who is incapable of extracting himself or herself from
inherited legacies—such a person must be seen as unduly immature: as a
physical adult who intellectually has remained a minor. That is the principle
of Enlightenment individualism as applied to personal identity.
When Kant defines enlightenment as a person’s “release from self-incurred
tutelage," he places a good deal of responsibility on every individual.
While many theoreticians prefer to blame repressive social and political conditions
for the lack of enlightenment among people, Kant attributes much of this lack
to the "laziness and cowardice" of the individuals themselves: "Laziness
and cowardice are the reasons why so many people, long after nature has released
them from external direction, like to remain under lifelong tutelage, and why
it is so easy for others to assume the roles of their guardians," he writes
in "What is Enlightenment?" And hinting at some of the motives that
may produce lazy and cowardly behavior he adds: “It is so easy to remain
a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a priest who has a conscience
for me, a physician who decides my diet, etc., I need not make any effort myself.”
Kant points out, in other words, that a lack of enlightenment and freedom in
a society may not only be caused by external coercion, but by inner, psychological
dispositions as well—a suggestion with which many other philosophers and
writers have since agreed. The Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, for example,
analyzes at great length how threatened people often feel by the prospect of
having to take charge and responsibility for their own lives. And George Bernard
Shaw once remarked: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people
dread it."
Most people, if asked, profess to value freedom; it is considered a basic value
of our culture. When psychologists and other observer take a closer look at
people’s actual behavior, however, it often appears that they rather dread
it indeed. Psychologists have pointed out, for example, that quite a few men
like the military as an institution because everything in it seems tightly prescribed
and rigidly enforced—by way of uniform dress codes, standard haircuts,
regimented schedules, machine-like marching in lockstep, strict hierarchies,
and an established chain of command where all orders are issued from above.
Personal initiative seems reduced to a minimum; in most situations obediently
following orders seems the virtue most called for.
Comprehensive purposes and strategic visions are defined by those higher up;
there is—at least in the minds of individuals who idealize the military
in this way--not much room for the kind of existential doubt and anxiety that
types like Hamlet experience. Ideally, a person’s unique and potentially
disruptive individuality will disappear in a smoothly functioning fighting machine
that assumes a life and identity of its own. The good soldier subordinates his
(or her) autonomy and life to the unit and develops the sort of unquestioning
obedience that makes the military an effective tool in the hands of commanders
and political leaders. Many experience the surrender of their personal autonomy
not only as honorable, but as emotionally satisfying as well--even though commanders
and politicians often make disastrous use of their obedient troops. Tennyson
in his "Charge of the Light Brigade" glorifies the self-sacrifice
of obediently attacking and senselessly dying soldiers: "Theirs is not
to make reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die."
The same inclination to relinquish voluntarily one’s freedom, individuality,
and independence of thought can also be observed on a much larger scale. After
his emigration from Nazi Germany, Erich Fromm wrote one of his most important
books: Escape From Freedom (1940). In it he tried to explain, among
other things, why a seemingly civilized society like modern Germany could vote
for and submit to an authoritarian political party like that of Hitler. An important
part of the answer Fromm offers was the willingness of large numbers of people
to trade in their personal freedom and autonomy for a sheltered position in
a powerful collective under the command of a domineering leader who promised
a glorious and fulfilling future for the nation. Millions of Germans manifestly
cared little for their individuality and self-determination, and they experienced
their total integration and disappearance in an organized mass as comforting,
empowering, and as a sort of salvation. (Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 film
“Triumph of the Will” is the famous visualization of that disappearance
of the individual in an organized, regimented mass.)
Fromm explains this “escape from freedom” as a response to the general
condition of modern society. In a world of huge and impersonal bureaucracies,
of crowded cities where people seem far more lonely and lost than in the villages
and small towns of yesteryear, of giant industries that use people like expendable
material, and of powerful economic forces that can wreak havoc at any moment,
and over which nobody seems to have any control, an individual person cannot
but feel isolated, powerless, disoriented, and threatened by ominous possibilities.
It is, according to Fromm, this feeling of pervasive alienation and helplessness
that makes people willing to give up their seemingly insignificant individuality
and to merge with something that is greater and more powerful than themselves:
"The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self
to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, and he tries frantically
to get rid of it and to feel security again by the elimination of this burden:
the self." (p.173)
The sense of this disappearance in and identification with a collective is not
just the normal desire to live and interact with other people, but a compensation:
individuals hope to receive and enjoy indirectly, as part of a victorious mass,
the recognition and respect that they cannot receive as the isolated social
atoms as which they find themselves in modern mass society. As Fromm puts it:
By becoming part of a power which is felt as unshakably strong, eternal,
and glamorous, one participates in its strength and glory. One surrenders one’s
own self and renounces all strength and pride connected with it, one loses one’s
integrity as an individual and surrenders freedom; but one gains a new security
and a new pride in the participation in the power in which one submerges.
(178)
The case of German fascism can be considered an extreme and perhaps somewhat
exceptional phenomenon; not every escape from freedom into some sort of collective
involves the criminal activities and horrendous enterprises that the Nazis engendered.
Yet, the psychological and social mechanisms that Fromm analyzed in connection
with the Third Reich are operative and significant in other contexts as well,
even in political democracies. Fromm points out that under the conditions of
modern mass societies it will always be tempting for individuals to renounce
their personal autonomy in favor of a collective identity that relieves them
of the necessity to think about and develop a meaningful existence themselves.
The ready-made mold of some cultural identity allows individuals to a large
degree to avoid existential doubts, moral worries, or the labor of having to
think things through for themselves. Membership in an established collective
provides weak and easily confused persons with a goal in life, an identity mask,
a socially approved orientation in the world, and a feeling of confidence that
modern individuals may otherwise not easily acquire.
A person who feels personally weak and insignificant can find comfort in belonging
to "the greatest nation on earth" or to some other superlative and
exclusive collective. An individual who has nothing much accomplished himself
or herself can feel "proud" to be of the same culture as geniuses
like Michelangelo, Shakespeare, or Bach. Someone who personally feels insecure
and confused can find solace and redemption in a community of believers who
assume that their faith is somehow superior to that of rival creeds or other
infidels. Too often in history have collectives served as a substitute for personal
growth and inner strength--and too often have these collectives provided a vicarious
sense of accomplishment for deficient individuals by putting down others--for
Enlightenment thinkers not to be weary of collective identities. For Enlightenment
thinkers there is in the end no genuine identity except a personal one, and
that is one of individual autonomy and inner independence from any collective.
All this is not to say that there cannot be communities or collectives that
are rational and beneficial, or that an autonomous individual cannot be a loyal
member of an association without betraying the principles of the Enlightenment.
A rational individual is, as Kant argued, always a social being, a being that
knows and respects the rights and needs of other autonomous individuals. A republic
that organizes the democratic self-government of a people, and that facilitates
the legitimate pursuits of its citizens, is a good example of a collective that
a rational individual can support without detriment to his or her personal autonomy.
There is also nothing wrong with such organizations as trade unions, racket
ball clubs, or stamp collector associations—as long as they are open regardless
of race, gender, creed, or national origin. Organizations can be pleasurable
and useful without causing harm or producing surrogate identities.
What Enlightenment thinking opposes are the collectives, traditions, and identities
that have been at the center of the wars, persecutions, and discriminations
of the past. World history is full of events where people killed, despised,
exploited, and otherwise hurt each other on account of their ethnic, religious,
racial, and cultural differences. There will neither peace nor justice, according
to Enlightenment thinkers, unless people learn to think of themselves honestly
as human beings, and not as members of this or that group. There will not be
an end to “the nightmare of history” until people develop personal
identities instead of accepting the identity masks provided by traditional collectives…
(From Jorn K. Bramann: The Educating Rita
Workbook, Copyright © 2006)
"Hester Street"
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