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title: Tocqueville - A very Short Introduction
tags: [history]

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# Tocqueville - A very Short Introduction
by Harvey C. Mansfield

List of Contents
Introduction: a new kind of liberal
1、Tocqueville's democratic providence
2、Tocqueville's praise of democracy
3、Informal democracy
4、Democratic despotism
5、Rational administration
6、Tocqueville's pride

#### Introduction: a new kind of liberal

Alexis de Tocqueville

* 「How do we define Tocqueville?」

A writer with great style, a social scientist with inclination, a historian of France and the US, a thinker.

:::info
*John Stuart Mill*
 -From Wikipedia
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873), usually cited as J. S. Mill, was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament, and civil servant.
One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", **he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control**.
Mill was a proponent of **utilitarianism**, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.

*On liberty*

On Liberty is a philosophical essay by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill. Published **in 1859**, it applies Mill's ethical system of utilitarianism to society and state. Mill suggests standards for the relationship between authority and liberty. He emphasizes the importance of individuality, which he considers prerequisite to the higher pleasures—the summum bonum of utilitarianism. Furthermore, Mill asserts that democratic ideals may result in the **tyranny of the majority**. Among the standards proposed are Mill's three basic liberties of individuals, his three legitimate objections to government intervention, and his two maxims regarding the relationship of the individual to society.

He favours the **harm principle**: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
He excuses those who are "**incapable of self-government**" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society"
Mill believed that "the struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history." For him, liberty in antiquity was a "contest…between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government."

Mill defined social liberty as protection from "the tyranny of political rulers". He introduced a number of different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to as social tyranny, and tyranny of the majority. Social liberty for Mill meant putting limits on the ruler's power so that he would not be able to use that power to further his own wishes and thus make decisions that could harm society. In other words, people should have the right to have a say in the government's decisions. He said that social liberty was "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." It was attempted in two ways: first, by obtaining recognition of certain immunities (called political liberties or rights); and second, by establishment of a system of "constitutional checks".

However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not enough:

Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.
:::

* 「Tocquewill presents as **a new kind of liberal** - compared to Mill. What does it mean by this name?」
 1、Old Liberalism was developed in the 18th century by figures like Thomas Hobbs, Baruch Spinoza and John Locke, who made it their first premise that man is naturally free. Ancient philosophers like Aristotle claimed that "man is by nature a political animal"
 2、Tocquewill disgrees with the classic liberalism and simply ignores them. But he seems to agree with Aristotle, althought he's not standing with philosophy at all.
 3、His new libralism means "freedom is the friend of religion and infused with pride as well as impelled self-interest"
 4、His new liberalims is a new political science, shown in his depiction of freedom as practiced in the America.
 `It seems that metaphysics prescribe the reality in a way that resists dynamics, while science, derived from the practice or the empirical evidence presents a random, but proved and consistent system. Therefore, its efforts on universality enforced on other paralleled strands provoke political wars since it's blind on its exceptionality (providence)."
 
* 「The content of the book - five parts」
 1、Democratic politics in Tocqueville's life.
 2、His thoughts on democratic self-government in America.
 3、His fears for democracy.
 4、The rational administrative and its relationship with democracy.
 5、Greatness.
 
* 「Why does Tocqueville matters today?」
 After the radical right was defeated in the World War II and the radical left lost its appeal in the nastiness of communist tyranny， moderate liberals came to the fore, above all Tocquewille. Americans celebrated him for his book and its implication in considering America as exceptional, by which America can be a model for all humanity.
 
* 「Why was Tocqueville underestimated」
 One reason is Tocqueville's eloquence. The other is the power of abstractions in a democratic society.
 
 `How to understand the tendency to abstraction in a democratic society?`
 
 ### Chapter One Tocqueville's democratic providence.
 
* Tocqueville's personal life
 1805 - 1859 
 He was born in an aristocratic family in Normandy but produced no heir to it and married Marie who is beneath himself.
* Tocqueville the statesman
  * 「Tocqueville's political life and how it influences his opinion on democracy」
    1、His first experience is under the Restoration monarchy and then he had to run office in democratic elections. His two principles included from the actual work: the democratization of politics is essentially and originally aristocratic; and learning politics by doing politics。 These two converges.
    `How to understand these two pinciples and their relatonship - try to develop something different`
    2、In 1837, he ran for office in the Chamber of Deputies in the regime of Louis-Philippe and got re-elected twice. He then was elected to the Constituent Assembly.....His political life ended by Louis-Napoleon.
  * 「Tocqueville's bias for pratice and soul for pride/greatness」
    Tocqueville does not believe the satisfaction and serenity of the soul exists and it's always restive. The principle good of human is hornor despite anything else. The love of distinction is essentially politics - the act of ruling - rather than literary. Holding office and writing converges in greatness.
    `Discuss about contemplation tradition on philosophy, the distinction of activity of literary and politics`
* Tocqueville the writer
  * 「Tocqueville's education」
    He received religious education at first but later developed "a universal doubt" from books of philosophy. The doubt came both against God and intellectuals.
    He approched libral thinkers of that time - Guizot and Benjamin Constant. He had his most favorates: Pascal, Montesquieu and Rousseau.
    He visited America in 1831-1832.
    ...
    Democracy in America was published in 1835 and 1840. The Old Regime and the Revolution was published in 1856.
:::info
French history in the long 19th century

French Revolution (1789–1792)
French First Republic (1792–1804)
First French Empire (1804–1814/1815)
Bourbon Restoration (1814/1815–1830)
July Monarchy (1830–1848)
Second Republic (1848–1852)
Second Empire (1852–1870)
Third Republic (1870-1940)
  Long Depression (1873–1890)
  Belle Époque (1871–1914)
:::
    
### Chapter Two Tocqueville's praise of democracy

「Tocquewille's attitude towards America's demorcracy」
A provident fact, praise rather than only judgement.

* The image of democracy
  「What is Tocquewille's democracy?」
     * Democracy is first a condition of equality.
     * When it comes to Puritans, it is described as "self-government" which deserves to be praised.
     * Democracy exists relative to aristocracy, individuals in motion to a fixed hierachy class of distinctions. It is a process dated from the opening of the ranks of church clergy to all.  
     `How to understand this fluidity that democracy creates?`
     * The point of departure of democracy is a certain society, not a logic of some theory.
     * Democracy is a social state not quite sociable. Democracy produces the so-called "state of nature"
     `How to understand the effects that democracy brought to the society: being great and being the same`
     * The social state is both a product of fact or law and a first cause of most social behavior. - the Sovereignty of the people: democracy is ruled by its social state as much as it rules itself.
     `How do we understand the relationship between Social state(social characteristics) and politics`
     `Is there any Autopoeiesis here?`
     * In American democracy, the people are the cause and the end of all things, like God. But it's not a theocracy because liberal politians set limits to democratic politics, preventing the strict regulation of mores of Puritans. Therefore, with this separation of man and god, liberty has a debt from religion and a claim against it.
:::info
Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Theocracy
by Flavius Josephus
Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity, ordained by Moses, in which God is sovereign and his word is law.
Taken literally, theocracy means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application.
In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a personal connection with the civilization's religion or belief. 
The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an ecclesiocracy. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation. 
Theocracy is distinguished from other, secular forms of government that have a state religion, or are influenced by theological or moral concepts, and monarchies held "By the Grace of God".
:::

* The Township

  * 「Why democratic people need associations?」
    Demorcracy enervates people, and deprives them of compulsory bonds; People need associations to feel strong (pride), which set forth people are not firstly in "natural state".
  * 「What is township in America?」
    Township is an intact form of government in America from bottom up.
  * 「How do people deal with the aristocracy in the associations?」
    People join in associations and bend themselves to those who are in charge - the elites or selectmen; They swallow their pride for achieving and find again pride in the collective endeavor with pleasure of being sociable.
    `Human being is adjustable and lack of santitude`
  * 「How does township in America teach its people self-givernment?」
     * It works from **bottom up with elections**, which satisfies petty ambitions and attaches its people to the government.
     * **Jury** teaches the people reign by making the people reign. Judging moderates the sovereignty of the people, releasing the inexorable irrational side of the sovereignty.
     `There seems a dialectic thinking here, as found in arguments like pride and equality`
     `How about procedural justice?`
     * **Decentralized administration** represented by the local freedom of township and jury enables people to keep the spirit of city. (inherited from England)
     * The **system of Federalism** is spontaneous and natural and should be owed to the elites.
     `What does federalism mean to democratic America? A guanrantee of vast development in future centuries? If so, political system has to take economic pros and cons and international power relationships into consideration, which is not found in Tocqueville's analysis still.`

* Associations and self-interest
  * 「The status of associations in demorcratic society」
     It take efforts due to individual independent of each other.
  * 「What is Tocqueville's association?」
     Any grouping of more than two people: marriage, club, business venture, party, nation, human race..
  *  「What is the distinction of political association and civil association」
     * Both are informal associations of "civil society" - realm between the individual and the state.
     * A civil association is one between those of a similiar interest; a political one is among dissimiliars.
     * 19th century American society civil at one point and political another, because Americans learn how to associate from associating in politics. It's an art, an effect emerging from the actual practice of association.
     `How to understand this political-civil associations?`
  * 「What is self-interest well understood?」
    * In the first place, one must think about self-interest - very practical - and not obliged to be selfless.
    * It is opposed to communitarianism (democratic participation) which requires altruism and selflessness out of the goal of common good. 
    * Sentiment on behalf of the community comes out of one's self-interest and is useful to it.
    `It's all about how we believe the structure of individual and public is built. The fundamental problem lies in that when we do something not ostensibly for ourself, is it well understood or is it mystical to us? The critical question is the oscillation between dimensions.`
    * Self-interest well undersood means sometimes the benefit is not immediately in one's interest.
    `But they don't understand also that sometimes the benefit will never come to them and it's beyond them. Therefore, it could be seen as a practical way to conquer the potential weakness of individualism but never solves the problem.`
    * Does self-interest contains virtues and honors?
  * 「How do democratic Americans think about forms?」
    * Forms stand for dignity, politeness, correctness, contrary to desires, action, sincerity, result, substance. Forms serve as a barrier between the strong and the weak, especially between the government and the governed, forcing the former to slow down and the latter to have time to reflect.
    * Democrats feel an instant distain for forms, which creat barriers and inequalities. However, this is exactly their virtue. Self-interest comes primarily for this disposition.
    `How do we understand the relationship between self-interest and practicality`
    * Self-interest undertood, is to live in a society where one is prevented from going directly to one's self-interest but compelled to do so legally or constitutionally or conventionally ot respectfully or formally.
     `So is this self-interest understood broken now? `
     `a different meaning for this self-interest understood: self-interest understood understood - since it's always my interest, it's my descision whatsoever. Like sort of post-American democracy or post-self-interest understood. Then what is really lacking today? religion? township? Maybe not only one pair of dialects.`
     ` Democrats need the forms most - maybe elections, juries and all other forms? How to understand?`
  * 「What's the relationship between self-interests and associations?」
      Self-interests support and undermine the associations.
     `This might be why American politics have dynamics and sometimes even full of rage. Self-interest understood is not a stable status compared to virtues of old world. It's an indeterminated status that relies on the actual situation. Briefly speaking, Would people be persuaded to believe in the benefits`
      The habit of freedom is even stronger than the love of the freedom.
  * 「What is the difference between mores and laws?」
     * Mores - habits of the heart, whole moral and intellectual state of a people. 
     * classical political philosophers would have spoken of law in a wide sense(nomos), both written and unwritten.
     * Libreral theory makes distinction between the two, to elevate laws made by a sovereign and derived from the consent of the people above customs that might hinder the decisions of the sovereign
     * Tocqueville agrees with this dictinction but elevates more on mores which sustains the law.
     `The relationships between mores and laws.`
  * 「How does religion work in American democracy?」
     * Religion is also mores. Tocqueville first takes religion as the root of mores to help maintain a democratic republic in America. A functional role, religion serves the politics. Religion sets limits to human sovereignty and therefore to the sovereignty of the people in a democratic society. 
     `what is the reciprocal of religion?`
     * And religion does this mostly through women, who stay outside the politics, and the clergy. Religion has to be independent to keep its purity. Together religion and family represent an indespensable nonpolitical supplement to politics that keeps it under restraint with the reminder of a higher and more intimate life than political life.
     * Americans believe religion is useful, but it would appear to be useful only if they believe in it becuase it is true, rather than as a pilitical institution.
     `It's like marriage or a modern theocracy. But still, it undergoes some suspicions.`
     `How does it campre to the Spinoza's eternity of the world.`
  * 「The consistency of Aristocracy and Democracy」
     * Religion is the most precious inheritance.
     * Aristocracy and Democracy are two "wholes".
     * The mixed regime is a chimera because in every society one alwalys discovers "one principle of action that dominates others."
     * Aristocratic cures for the absolute and partisan character of democracy.
  *  「Rights inherited from Aristocratic England」
     * Rights is not a basis of practice but a practice itself, from the practice of nobles who stood up to the king, perserving individual rights and local freedom.
     * Rights are derived from virtue, from "virtue introduced into the political world." That virtue would prompt one to risk one's security in the defense of liberty.
  * 「Anglo-American dual nation」
     * Tocqueville's liberalism relies on the nation as well as the social state, rather than the contract.
     * Its politics and religion, even its philosophy and morals, for example, the notion of self-interest well understood, came to America from England and characterize the dual nation of Anglo-America.
  * 「The sentiment of the pride」
     * Pride means you are concious of your self and hence above yourself - one element meaning of soul.   
     * American patriotism, made, out of self-government, rational, reflective, enlightened, pride mixed with being rich.
     * American patriotism, also the American Dream of hardwork rewarded, is irritable and annoying, only to praise.
     * Hobbs and Locke put self-reservation to the fore and declares pride in one's virtue is the enemy of liberty because it induces the desire to dominate others; and it is contrary to self-interest because a proud person easily becomes hot and fractious, abandoning calculation and charging forward imprudently.
     * Tocqueville disagrees. Pride is a vice and comprehended in self-interest well understood. The habit of calculating more against liberty than for it.
     * He observes that democracy acts against pride and tends to subdue it and democracy creates a pride of its own.
     * The soul can take a view of the self, an approving view in pride, a reproving one in shame. Liberalism tried to replace the old soul with the self. The liberal self was not capable of pride or shame and unlikely to be satisfied; it just wanted more. - the classical and Christian notion of an elevated soul.
     * Democracy degrades souls. The people obey existing powers out of fear rather than love and respect. Obedience from fear is acting out of urgent necessity, which degrades the soul because the people feel the shame of their base surrender to authority, even to democratic authority, and cannot respect themeselves and think themselves free.  
     `time to talk about meritocracy`
     `the auther seems wrong. It does not bring shame, which proves the existence of pride, but apathy.`
:::info
**Liberty**
Liberty, a state of freedom, especially as opposed to political subjection, imprisonment, or slavery. Its two most generally recognized divisions are political and civil liberty.
Civil liberty is the absence of arbitrary restraint and the assurance of a body of rights, such as those found in bills of rights, in statutes, and in judicial decisions. Such liberty, however, is not inconsistent with regulations and restrictions imposed by law for the common good. Political liberty consists of the right of individuals to participate in government by voting and by holding public office. Since the proletarian and socialist movements and the economic dislocations after World War I, liberty has been increasingly defined in terms of economic opportunity and security. In Anglo-American countries liberty has often been identified with constitutional government, political democracy, and the orderly administration of common-law systems.
In a more particular sense, a liberty is the term for a franchise, a privilege, or branch of the crown’s prerogative granted to a subject, as, for example, that of executing legal process. These liberties are exempt from the jurisdiction of the sheriff and have separate commissions of the peace. In the United States a franchise is a privilege, the term liberty not being used in such cases. The concept of liberty as a body of specific rights found in English and U.S. constitutional law contrasts with the abstract or general liberty enunciated during the French Revolution and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. However, modern liberty involves, in theory, both the support of specific rights of the individual, such as civil and political liberty, and the guarantee of the general welfare through democratically enacted social legislation.
::: 
:::info 
**democratic participation**

:::

:::info
**socialism and communism**
Both socialism and communism place great value on creating a more equal society and removal of class privilege. The main difference is that socialism is compatible with democracy and liberty, whereas Communism involves creating an ‘equal society’ through an authoritarian state, which denies basic liberties.

Democratic socialism in the west involves participating in democracy to seek an incremental reduction in inequality. It implies a mixture of public sector intervention and private enterprise.

Communism is a political and economic ideology – closely associated with the state Communism of the Soviet Union and China. It aimed at state control of the economy to attain greater equality – often at the expense of individual liberty.

George Orwell, who was a committed socialist, fought in the Spanish Civil War for a socialist-anarchist party on the side of the Republican movement. However, he was deeply critical of the Soviet-backed Communists who behaved more like the extreme right, with their authoritarian actions.
:::

:::info
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism. Although the community might be a family, communitarianism usually is understood, in the wider, philosophical sense, as a collection of interactions, among a community of people in a given place (geographical location), or among a community who share an interest or who share a history.[1] Communitarianism usually opposes extreme individualism and disagrees with extreme laissez-faire policies that neglect the stability of the overall community.
:::

### Chapter Three Informal Democracy

* 「What is informal democracy and formal democracy?」
   * formal democracy: constitional forms, townships and associations
   * informal democracy: 
     > the opinions, the prejudices, the interests, and even the passions of the people have **no lasting obstacles** to their will
     * Old liberalism (Federalists) device a combination system of people's representatives and seperation of powers, which is believed to refine and enlarge people's will.
     * Tocqueville disagrees.
* 「the informal instruments of its rule」
  * Political parties: evil inherent in free government. Parties are speaking about divisions over common interests affecting all groups equally. Informally, even in democracy, where the people are sovereign, there is a party that wants to restrict them - an aristocratic feature.
  `Why parties are evil?`
  * Free press: Government by the people is government by their opinions, which they choose: the power of the press is to formulate the opinions that people choose. The spirit of the juornalist in America by contrast to France, where he has more power, is one of coarse attack, appeal to passion, avoidance of principle, and scandalous revelations.
  * Political association: great tolerance. extreme freedom can correct the abuses of freedom.
  > the sovereignty of people implies the equal capacity of each and the moral force of all, but in fact it is the rule of the majority over each in name of all.
  `It is quite like how you would manage innovation and consistency.`
* 「the tyranny of majority」
  * Omnipotence is safe with God, but in the human sovereignty, brings possible tyranny, unless there is a guarantee. 
  * There's no guarantee in America, the majority is flattered by its coutiers and lives in perpetual adoration of itself.
  * Democratic despotism, is mild despotism, not torture and excution, but moral and intellectual domination, not hard but soft.
* 「Pride is inseperable from freedom」
  * Two most offensive instances of majority tyranny in America are the virtual extermination of the Indians and the enslavement of the black.
    * The three races are distinguished by the pride they show, or the lack of it
    * The White, man par excellence, man over nature, man can do anything.
    * The indian, the extreme limit of both pride and freedom, refuses white civilisation and remains aloof. He knows freedom, but he lives in the illusion of his nobility.
    * The black, knows how to preserve himself but cannot find dignity in being the possession of another man.
    `But the key is both of them are kept in conditioned freedom. It's not what they are lacking, but teh environment is limited. So only under a limited-resource frame, can the analysis of pride and freedom be meaningful`
  * **Reason needs to be linked with pride in order to produce freedom, for in democracy it can always seem reasonable to trade freedom for administrative efficiency.** But pride needs reason to temper its illusion and to bring it to submit to civilization. This is agianst Hobb's theory as pride and freedom are in conflict.
  * 「A case, why do Americans cannot abolish slavery and stop discrimination? Or what is wrong with liberal theory?」
     the whites do not see balcks to be fully human. A despot could abolish salvery in America, but democratic Americans takes their racial pride, which cannot be understood by liberal theory. The indians then shows that liberal theory takes the atrraction of civilisation for granted. The pride many Americans reveal in their prejudice must be turned to the pride of self-government.
  * Liberal theory thought they have conquered the human pride in the state of nature, while Tocqueville thought on democracy is absorbed with pride, and to find a remedy for lack of pride.
  `Slavery is unnatural not because we all equally begin in natural state but becuase it reverses our instinction of natual order. But for Europeans who enslave a different race, it's too natrual - it was ununderstandable. so it's not about waht is nature, but about the dynamics between different instictions, the pride and the equality.`
* 「The majority violence on thuoght」
  * "I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in American": It's tolerated, but nobody will listen.
  *  Three kinds of opinion: belief, in which most people live in religious time; doubt, in the democratic age; rational conviction, achieved by very few. When men doubt, they see no better opinion than their own, and feel no closer interest, which is likely to be a material interest wasily compatible with stubbornness, prejudice, and fixity of opinion. Democrats like to pride themselves on independence of thought, which is just the kind of indepence they display the least. A free press: a combat between talented writers, a stability of opinion.
  *  Science tries to produce rational conviction of a sort in the people, halfway between full knowledge and uninformed opinion - the irrational self-indulgence of the majority that it nourishes in the name of enlightment. Tocquville measures it agianst both a regime of censorship, and reason in the highest sense.
  *  Mills' opinion: intellectuals could direct society without actually governing it.
  *  Tocqueville's attitude towards reason: the highest reason represents the last refuge of the human pride. Humans are distinct from animals by their reason; this is the reasonable basis of pride. However, most humans use their reasons to take the pride in defending their prejudices. **Spreading prejudice is the occupation and calling of a free press.**

* 「Intellectuals and the public, who directs who?」
  * Tocqueville: more likely that intellectuals would be led by public opinion rather than lead it.
  * Democratic opinions: greater power because of forms of equality, but it does not seem to rule the democracy since it has no identifiable representative to whom one must listen. It is formed by intellectuals and so on, but** no one takes responsibility for it**.

* 「How does democracts deal with the obvious inequality?」
  * The thought of democracy is more powerful than the fact of inequality because it can create equality when it does not find it.
  `Is that also a virtue of any prescribed theory or konwledge or metaphysics?`
  * One's similars or semblables. Democracy is the rule of equals and unequals, both considering themselves similar to one another. It's a conventional equality rather than a nature. Yet the conventional equality of similars is not simply arbitrary,; it stands on the basis of the pride in human nature, by which each thinks himself important. For one can feel proud in having no superior as well as proud in being superior.
  `This is exactly how we think about ourselves.`
  * Pride is both flattered and humiliated in the working, depending on to whom he campares: to another individual, he's equal and pride in himself, but in front of the sum of those like him, he is overcome by the sensation of his own significance. He begins to distrust himself. **Democratic people neither have the time nor the taste to seek out new opinions**.
  `But we all know individuals in democratic society seek for identities, a compensation? `

* 「What does it mean by material well-being?」
  * economic opinion is determined by economic interest or class, by Marxism
  * Tocqueville maintains that the taste for material well-being arises out of democracy. It has a political rather than an economic cause, and does not come from capitalism or the spirit capitalism as Max Wber holds.
  * Equality, by some "secret force", makes the passion(not just a taste) for material enjoyments and "the exclusive love of the present" that goes with the passion predominate in the human heart.
  * Material well-being is in the middle between rich and poor, it spreads with the growth of the middle calss, it requires effort to achieve and is indulged only with anxiety. **It is a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion.** The taste for material well-being is honest and decent, but only because **it lacks great ambitions**.
`How to think about this differently? Entriprenuership or anything else?`
* 「What is Soul and how it influences Americans」 
  * soul is the opposite of material. Man has a taste for the infinite and a love of the immortal. The soul is not satisfied with enjoyments from the senses; it has needs of its own thta must be satisfied and that cannot be distracted for long before it becomes bored, restive and agitated.
  * One cannot understand everything as coming from the self. Nature is the source of this love, and nature, not man, has made the self. Self-interest in this capacious sense is bound to self by "material bonds," the human context, but its immaterial truth is above the self.
* 「Why is seeking material wellbeing so popular?」
  * Equality turns men to material goods because it overturns any aristocratic authority above them that would lead or **compel them to turn their imaginations to the future and to sacriﬁce their material interests for a long-term goal.** **Democrats live in the short term; they have their minds on the present. And what is in the present, visible to all without need for instruction or sacriﬁce? Material goods**. 
* 「Why does Tocquville despise materilsts?」
   *  The doctrine teaches men not to care for politics and morals. Materialists take inordinate pride in delcaring that men are nothing more than brutes, acting as "as proud as if they had demonstrated they were gods."
   *  The essence of lawgiver's art, is to appreciate the characteristic bent of human societies so as to see where to support the efforts of the citizens and where to hold them back.
   *  Now the only simple, general, practical means of teaching man that he has a special value and a special responsibility is to teach him that he has a soul and in particular that the soul is immortal. This means to teach religion. 

### Chapter four Democratic Despotism

* 「Two forms of majority tyranny - two democracies」
   Active oppression like black slavery and mild depotism in which the majority becomes a "herd of timid and industrious animals"; the first one is democratic America, and the second one is democracy itself.
   
 A tyrant (from Ancient Greek τύραννος, tyrannos), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to repressive means.[1][2] The original Greek term meant an absolute sovereign who came to power without constitutional right,[3] yet the word had a neutral connotation during the Archaic and early Classical periods.[4] However, Greek philosopher Plato saw tyrannos as a negative word, and on account of the decisive influence of philosophy on politics, its negative connotations only increased, continuing into the Hellenistic period.

The philosophers Plato and Aristotle defined a tyrant as a person who rules without law, using extreme and cruel methods against both his own people and others.[5][6] The Encyclopédie defined the term as a usurper of sovereign power who makes "his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws".[7] In the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, a new kind of tyrant, one who had the support of the military, arose – specifically in Sicily.

One can apply accusations of tyranny to a variety of types of government:

to government by one individual (in an autocracy)
to government by a minority (in an oligarchy, tyranny of the minority)
to government by a majority (in a democracy, tyranny of the majority)
* 「What is the content of Volume 2?」
   Civil society, the sentiments, opinions, and relations not directly political but still political, democracy as the way of life, the end of society. It shows how democracy looks with respect to its end or aim. The target is critics on the democratic intellect.
* 「The irristible democracy」
   Tocqueville: not to be resisted;
   
* 「What's the mistake of Decartes and his blind believer in America?」
   * Americans use one uniform method for intellectual inquiries, which is to rely on individual efforts and judgement, the very method of Descartes. They come to trust only themselves. But it is in America his precepts are "least studied and best followed". 
   `这其实说明了哲学是马后炮。`
   * Decartes's most famous teaching is to question authourity, has become an authority justifying the sovereignty of the individual. Decartes's philosophy of "clear and distinct ideas" boils down to the clumsy sovereignty of each nonphilosophical American.

* 「Argument on why the democratic mind is wrong?」
   * All intelectual, as opposed to instinctual or spontaneous, movement requires the use of one's own mind.
   * To use one's mind means doubting the authority of what one is told.
   * Yet if thinking is to produce action, one must stifle one's doubts.
   * No individual has the time or ability to think through everything for himself, and no society could survive without common action and common ideas.
   * So both society and individual must accept a "first foundation" on faith, in a true kind of enslavement, but a necessary "salutary sevitude" 
   * Reason cannot replace authority and establish the autonomy of the individual. All human reason can do is to change aristocratic authority into democratic authority.
   * Dmocracy is not created from the state of nature in which there is no authority, but rather by democracts who deny the authority of the anyone or any class above themselves.
   `So there are actualy two kinds of equalities - an inequality in fact and an equality in perception. Democracy creates this illusion.`
   * Each is overwhelmed at the same time with a sense of weakness and insignificance in camparison to the "great body" of all other individuals.
   * Democratic authority, therefore, has two opposite effects on the mind: bringing the mind to new thoughts in the denial of tradition and custom and at the same time inducing it to give up thinking in the face.
   `However, on the contrary, only this change may provoke new thoughts and new dynamics, though it's destined into stiffness`
   * From the need for belief, Tocqueville remarks that the democratic mind loves to generalize.
   `why?` 
   `Summary: democracy demolishes the authority, and does not want to believe in anyone but himself, however, he himself is not capable to know everything because of self-arrogance and shortage of time, so he generalizes by the name of reason, which is an extent of generalization more coarse and simple compared to aristocracy. Therefore, the press, and any means controlling the information, the academic community, the knowledge production program itself, becomes extremely important on both good and bad sides.`
   * Man need the convenience of gathering like objects under the same form.(categorization)
   * Aristocray have an instinctive distaste for generalities, preferring to consider men one or a few at a time, but democracts develop an ardent and lazy passion for them because they begin from the aparent fact that everyone near them is almost the same as they are - those like oneself, the semblables.
   `It's not only semblables, it's the attidute when they encounter a situation different from them, a value ostensibly lower or higher than theirs. Neither of these two situations may cater them.`
   * Religion helps Americans to think by delivering them from doubt. Religion imposes "salutary yoke on the intellect," and if it does not save men in the next world, it is useful to their happiness and greatness in this world. It provides answers to the greatest problems, without which men, lacking the ability to think on their own.
   * For most men, doubt leads to a surrender to chance, because doubt questions whether anything happens regularly or predictably.
   `For Toqueville, most men are unable to be using their minds, or to live in a healthy doubt, still a arisctocratic belief. Life is comprehensive, both random and eternal, which needs big thinking and practicing power to get through. `
   * 
   

  

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