Individualism, Conformity and
Community in U.S. Politics:
A Meditation on Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
Dr. Ron Schmidt
California State University Long Beach
Fulbright-Enders Visiting Research Chair,
Center for International Studies (CERIUM)
University of Montreal
Introduction
• Background: How I came to give this
talk.
• Background: Tocqueville in the U.S. –
Why?, When?, Where?
• My aim: using Tocqueville’s insights
to understand the interplay of
individualism and conformism in
American political life.
“Individualism” vs. “Egoism”
Individualism, in contrast, is a calm and
considered feeling which persuades each
citizen to cut himself off from his fellows and
to withdraw into the circle of his family and
friends in such a way that he thus creates a
small group of his own and willingly
abandons society at large to its own devices.
. . Egoism blights the seeds of every virtue,
individualism at first dries up only the source
of public virtue. In the longer term it attacks
and destroys all the others and will finally
merge with egoism. . .(Vol 2, Pt 2, Ch 2
Middle-class Individualism
Such people owe nothing to anyone and, as it
were, expect nothing from anyone. They are
used to considering themselves in isolation
and quite willingly imagine their destiny as
entirely in their own hands.
Thus, not only does democracy make men
forget their ancestors but also hides their
descendants and keeps them apart from their
fellows. It constantly brings them back to
themselves and threatens in the end to
imprison them in the isolation of their own
hearts. (Vol 2, Pt 2, Ch 2)
Commentary
• Do such “individuals” really exist?
• The “culture” of individualism as paradox
• The social construction of “self-made” and
“self-sufficient” individuals
• A. MacIntyre as more realistic to life as
lived.
Anxious Restlessness of Americans
It is a strange thing to see the feverish
enthusiasm which accompanies the
Americans’ pursuit of prosperity and the way
they are ceaselessly tormented by the
vague fear that they have failed to choose
the shortest route to achieve it. . . .
Restlessness (cont.)
In the United States, a man will carefully
construct a home in which to spend his old
age and sell it before the roof is on; he will
plant a garden and will rent it out just as
he was about to enjoy its fruit; he will clear
a field and leave others to reap the
harvest. He will take up a profession and
then give it up. He will settle in one place
only to go off elsewhere shortly afterwards
with a new set of desires. . . .
Restlessness (cont.)
Death steps in at last and brings him to a
halt before he has tired of this futile pursuit of
that complete happiness which continues to
elude him. (V2, Pt2, Ch13)
Source of Restless Anxiety?
The taste for physical pleasures must be
acknowledged as the prime source of this
secret anxiety in the behavior of
Americans and of this unreliability which
they exemplify every day. (V2, Pt 2, Ch
13)
The Road to Social Conformity
Since in times of equality no one is obliged to
lend his assistance to his fellow men and no
one has the right to expect any great support
from them, each man is both independent
and weak.
Road to Conformity (cont.)
These two conditions which one must not view
either separately or connected together give the
citizens of democracies very contradictory
urges. Independence fills him with confidence
and pride amongst his equals while his
vulnerability occasionally makes him feel the
need for outside support, which he cannot
expect from one of his own people since they
are all powerless and unsympathetic. . . . (V2,
Pt4, Ch3)
Aristocratic vs. Democratic
In contrast to aristocratic society:
In ages of equality, each individual is
naturally isolated with no hereditary friends
whose help he can demand, no class
whose sympathetic support he can rely on;
he is thrust easily aside and trampled
underfoot without redress (V2, Pt4, Ch7)
Conformity as Consequence
If, at the heart of such a [democratic] nation,
the influence of each individual is weak and
almost non-existent, the power of the mass
over each individual mind is very extensive.
Conformity (cont.)
In aristocracies, men often possess a
greatness and strength of their own.
Whenever they find themselves at variance
with the majority of their fellows, they
withdraw into themselves to find support and
consolation.
Conformity (cont.)
Such is not the case with democratic nations;
there, public approval seems as vital as the
air they breathe and being at odds with the
population as a whole is, so to speak, no life
at all. The masses have no need to use the
law to bend those who think differently from
them. Disapproval is enough. The feeling of
isolation and powerlessness immediately
overwhelms them and drives them to
despair.
Conformity (cont.)
Whenever social conditions are equal, the
opinion of all bears down with a great weight
upon the mind of each individual, enfolding,
controlling, and oppressing him. This is due
much more to the constitution of society than to
its political laws. As all men grow more alike,
each individual feels increasingly weak in
relation to the rest. . .
Conformity (cont.)
Since he can find nothing to elevate himself
above their level or to distinguish himself from
them, he loses confidence in himself the
moment they attack him; not only does he
mistrust his own strength but he even comes to
doubt that he should have rights and is close to
accepting that he is in the wrong, since the
greater number of his fellows assert this
fact.The majority has no need to compel him;
he is convinced by them. (V2, Pt3, Ch21)
Political Consequences – Centralized
Power & Uniform Legislation
Since each man sees little difference
between himself and his neighbor, he has
difficulty in understanding why a rule
applying to one person should not equally
apply to all the others. Privileges of the
smallest kind are, therefore, repellent to him.
The slightest differences in the political
institutions of the same nation pain him and
legislative uniformity seems the foremost
condition of a good government. (V2, Pt4,
Ch2)
And again . . .
• Democratic governments, then, “wear
themselves out imposing the same
customs and laws on populations which
have as yet nothing in common” (V2, Pt4,
Ch2)
• “It has never entered their [the Americans’]
heads that the same law cannot be
applied uniformly to all parts of one state
and all the men living in it” (V2, Pt4, Ch2)
Summing up:
The unity, the universality, the
omnipotence of society’s power, and the
uniformity of its rules represent the
outstanding feature of all the political
systems invented in our day. (V2, Pt4,
Ch2)
Contemporary Applications
Ethno-racial Diversity and Public
Policy
- Language Policy – Defending English in
an English-Dominant World;
- Affirmative Action Policy – “Equal
Opportunity” for “White” Males
Tocqueville’s Limitations
• What are limitations of Tocqueville’s
Analysis?
• Sources of individualism? Reconsider
realities. How can such a patently false
ideology survive in 21st Century?
• Tocqueville emphasized “social equality”
as core source of individualism, focusing
on social “moeurs”
Tocqueville’s Limitations (cont.)
• Social Equality as moeurs vs. Social
Equality as power resources.
• Example: G.W. Bush and moeurs vs. G.W.
Bush and power resources.
• What is missing in Tocqueville?
• One possible path to discovery:
Tocqueville’s prediction for democratic
despotism vs. realities.
Tocqueville’s Prediction
I wish to imagine under what new
features despotism might appear in the
world: I see an innumerable crowd of men,
all alike and equal, turned in upon
themselves in a restless search for those
petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill
their souls. Each of them, living apart, is
almost unaware of the destiny of all the
rest. . .
Predicting Despotism (cont.)
His children and personal friends are for
him the whole of the human race; as for
the remainder of his fellow citizens, he
stands alongside them but does not see
them; he touches them without feeling
them; he exists only in himself and for
himself; if he still retains his family circle,
at any rate he may be said to have lost his
country.
Predicting Despotism (cont.)
Above these men stands an immense
and protective power which alone is
responsible for looking after their
enjoyments and watching over their
destiny. It is absolute, meticulous, ordered,
provident, and kindly disposed. It would be
like a fatherly authority if, fatherlike, its aim
were to prepare men for manhood, but it
seeks only to keep them in perpetual
childhood; . . .
Predicting Despotism (cont.)
it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves
provided they have only enjoyment in
mind. It works readily for their happiness
but it wishes to be the only provider and
judge of it. It provides their security,
anticipates and guarantees their needs,
supplies their pleasures, directs their
principal concerns, manages their industry,
regulates their estates, . . .
Predicting Despotism (cont.)
divides their inheritances. Why can it not
remove from them entirely the bother of
thinking and the troubles of life?
. . . . I have always believed that this type
of organized, gentle, and peaceful
enslavement just described could link up
more easily than imagined with some of the
external forms of freedom and that it would
not be impossible for it to take hold in the
very shadow of the sovereignty of the
people. (V2, Pt4, Ch6)
Keys to Individualism’s Continuing
Power in U.S.
Key Institutional/Structural Changes:
• Limited-liability corporation;
• Legal rights of corporate “personhood”
(14th Amendment)
• Combination supports invisibility of
corporate power and continuation of legal
foundation for individualist ideology.
Ideology perpetuated via media, education,
politics.