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September 14, 2008, 12:21 PM ET
One Nation, Divisible
As the 2008 presidential campaign enters the backstretch, I’m increasingly reminded of Tocqueville’s analysis, in Democracy in America, of what people living in a democracy, in the American democracy in particular, are like. Even though he wrote more than a century and a half ago, his ability to predict our psychological state, in the mass democracy we’ve now become, is uncanny. I find I am interpreting almost everything going on in this campaign in the light of Tocqueville’s understanding of America. In my next few posts, I’ll be commenting on the current presidential campaign in light of Tocqueville.
For starters, I’ll begin by noting that Tocqueville not only observed, but predicted, that Americans distrusted, and would continue to distrust, ideas. I’ll discuss this particular notion in the following post, but here I want to simply note that to Tocqueville, the distrust of ideas in America is directly connected to his notion of the “tyranny of the majority”—i.e., that in America, a new kind of tyranny, different from the old-fashioned tyranny of monarchs and aristocrats lording it over everyone, would emerge in America in the form of the “opinions” of the majority.
Tocqueville argues that as long as the majority hasn’t made up its mind about something, there will be lots of discussion. But once a majority opinion forms, “everyone is silent.” The majority, he says, possesses both a “physical and moral” weight—i.e., they get their way both legislatively and, because of the all-too-human inclination to conform to others, they oppress those who try to speak up. To the majority, the minority constitutes nothing but opponents to be squelched.
This leads Tocqueville to draw his very famous conclusion, namely, that he knows of “no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.”
In this polarized election—Obama and McCain are, by most accounts, in a statistical dead heat—there are two “majorities,” if you will. Those who have made up their minds on the candidates hang around in their respective “Amen” quarters, rarely talking to anyone other than people who think the way they do—except to shout at them. Democrats for Obama and Republicans for McCain hardly ever talk with one another about their respective ideas, and instead—if my own experience is any indicator—look at one another with dismay, if not contempt.
So far, Tocqueville is spot on.
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