After Equality

Well aware that the aristocracy was rejected and always to be eliminated by increasingly equal social state, Tocqueville knew that there were not any stopovers between aristocracy and democracy. The gradual and progressive development of equality of conditions is a providential fact. It has partly become the reality, and it escapes every day from human power. However, the dogma of democracy and its progress may pose dangers threatening the primary good of human liberty and Tocqueville felt feared. After equality and in the pursuit of it, how to bridge the cracks?In this dissertation, I do not intend to make comprehensive observation about Tocqueville’s rich ideas, but rather care primarily about his political reasoning on democracy. In my opinion, this interpretation itself is very interesting and valuable. Moreover, in the existing writings, no one has done such a job systematically. To this end, I will make my overall analysis based on the text interpretation and their self-consistency. At the same time, in order to obtain an overall grasp of Tocqueville’s democratic thoughts, I will make efforts to make these themes which seem familiar understandable and intelligible by a close reading of the texts.Such understanding begins from the analysis of basic concepts of Tocqueville. In Tocqueville’s view, compared to modern democracy, both the ancient democracy and the old regime of France belong to the aristocracy. There are two opposing social states:one is characterized by its equality of conditions, and the other is characterized by inequality; the former is democracy, and the latter is aristocracy. Therefore, in Tocqueville’s works, this distinction between them is the basic category and equality is the core meaning of the concept of democracy.The development of equality is irresistible. It’s even from the will of God. Thus, it would only remain for people to accommodate themselves to the social state that Providence imposes on them. For Americans, when Tocqueville looked back on their history, they were found born equal. That is to say, their social structure from the outset was based on a whiteboard. In contrast, in aristocratic times, the inequality of conditions was the fundamental characteristic and at the same time all kinds of privileges based on the hierarchy happened to be the shell of freedom of the nobles. Therefore, in the American Revolution there was no task of destroying the feudal structure, but it rather to maintain and confirm the existing principle of the sovereignty of the people. And in France, out of the hatred that men bring to privilege, people destroyed both the idea of individual rights and the love of local freedom while making the principle of equality win in the use of a violent revolution.In the United States, when the American Revolution broke out, the principle of popular sovereignty went out of the town and eventually took over the government. It became the law of laws. At the same time, the similarity of democratic men makes that each person’s spiritual world belongs only to himself. But authority must always be found somewhere in the intellectual and moral world. It necessarily has a place. People believe in the mass. Therefore, the common opinions make the principle of the sovereignty of the people become daily facts. This sympathy, however, constitutes actually a threat to liberty. Because the existence of differences indicates a crisis of identities, people’s love of equality makes it difficult to tolerate the differences. The democratic man goes to the other extreme and that is the insistence on uniform. As a result, to have a good government has become his desires.For democratic people, the first and most intense passion is the love of this very equality. Thus, even to the formation of master-servant relationship, which is very old and unequal from the definition, the only legitimate way is contract. In equal societies, any non-temporary and non-cancellable relations in the form of command and obedience can not exist. As for the racial inequality and the emergence of the manufacturing aristocracy in these societies, they are only exceptions and would eventually follow the logic of equality.However, the equality of democracy will face its borders. On the roles of women and men, the Americans both wisely retain the traditional division of labor between them, and think certainly that there are no differences in intelligence, personality and values between them. At the same time, a democratic education protects women from the perils with which the institutions and mores of democracy surround them. Therefore, with their wisdom, the Americans balance the excessive development of the instinct of democracy when influencing the natural differences between men and women.In the matter of religion, for the secular happiness of Americans, they are banned from thinking the unlimited social power by religions. But as it’s just here, conscious of the actual effectiveness of religion, the Americans are made produce hypocritical belief. And it is the practice of regulating themselves by introducing voluntarily a power from outside that is precisely the example of souls being imposed excessive social power by democracy. For Tocqueville, however, while beliefs or religions stemming from humanity, this kind of relationship between religion and democracy is thought to be the natural state in democratic centuries. The contrary happened in France. Politics and religion were not symbiotic. The French Revolution carried out a political revolution in the form of a religious one. However, two such diametrically opposed modes actually only illustrate the same truth that religion is only part of the political order to be healthy and lasting.As a democratic revolution, the root of the French Revolution was still equality. However, the most important promoters were the absolute monarchies. In the transition from feudal inequality to democratic equality, they expanded the process of social democratization through a systematic erosion of political powers once belonged to the nobles. Eventually, the Revolution displayed thoroughly that how unsuitable the political principles of the hierarchy were for the facts of a democratic society. However, the most powerful bond that united the old regime to the Revolution together was the concentration of power.And revolution had not been only the once. Under the shining of the increasingly obvious social problems, the revolutions in1848born of socialism challenged Tocqueville unprecedentedly. But again, these revolutions did not make the people of France become a free nation, but brought a kind of widespread misunderstanding and fear over democracy. In fact, however, the revolution or social unrest is not the nature of democracy. Democracy and revolution is not the same, and the revolutionary democracy is just one form of democracy.When the concept of democracy analyzed, we find that the justice of democratic equality changes the meaning of freedom:its gravity tends towards equality. Making equal freedom certain is equal to be convinced of equality first, because only freedom which covers all is equal, and then such freedom can be justifiable. Moreover, as to the reasonableness of equal democracy, it is not only that it’s fair, more importantly, but it is consistent with human nature. That is to say, the advent of democracy coincides with the emergence of sentimental individualism. To Tocqueville, it therefore decides an exact concept of liberty in a modern sense, and the maintenance of special rights in aristocratic societies is bound to give way to the recognition of the universal rights of humans. Always, people have a much more ardent and much more tenacious love for equality than for liberty. The love of this equality agitates them in democratic societies.Simultaneously, every central power that follows these natural instincts loves equality and favors it, for equality singularly facilitates the action of such a power, extends it and assures it. Therefore, centralization will be the natural government. Moreover, the centralized power is particularly apt to link itself with the popular sovereignty together. A new type of despotism would be established, which is to be particularly feared in democratic ages. It would not only oppress men, but in the long run it would rob from each of them some of the principal attributes of humanity.However, the inequality of human minds created by nature will always be there. In this sense, inequality is natural, and equality is against nature. Hence, democracy tends to tame nature while denied by it. On the other hand, democracy is not only justifiable, but it is consistent with human nature. Thus, there is no third way between aristocracy and democracy.For this tyranny, democratic man has only one choice:to keep the excessive development of democracy under continual restraint within a democratic society. The example of this new political science is in the United States. The Americans successfully demonstrate the skills of interaction among equal individuals. And no one sacrifices his will and his reason, but his will and his reason are applied to making the common enterprise succeed. Only in this way can liberty be maintained. Specifically, it is by artificially creating associations, in which people must interact with each other, that the central power which is easily seen as the sole and necessary support for individual weakness can be replaced with them. At the same time, only in those countries where people well understand liberty can the associations promote the prosperity of their own countries. That is because ignorant democracy is unthinkable. Thus, in order to moderate democratic instincts effectively, the intellectual of democracy is needed, and it also belongs to the democratic political science and art. However, compared to the education of books, the real knowledge comes from experience. Therefore, autonomy is indispensable. And, in fact, in terms of democracy, the open ruling class itself requires and has the ability to develop the ruling capacities of the governed. Eventually democracy is needed to cure the excessive development of democratic instincts. So, do not give up the hope of adjusting democratic institutions through the laws and mores and it’s just one of the reasons why democracy can be regarded as a friend of liberty.