Tocqueville Democratic Art: Coexist Of Equality And Freedom

Democracy would be the necessity and the God’s will, having the natural legitimacy, butin this new era which the equality serves as the primary characteristic, democracy containsunknown danger while it bringing joy to people. For this dual character of democracy,Tocqueville conducted wildly and deeply research in the way of combination of history andreality, political and society, with the ambition ’’creating new political science". Along theroad that pioneer set up, people could see the versatility of this broad and profounddemocratic political science, making the ruler and ruled living under the equality of conditionknows what we should hope and what we should fear for democracy. For the people withequality of condition, if they really want to come true what they hope and avoid fears, thenmust learn how to use democratic art patiently. For this, how to making the equality ofcondition as the fact and the freedom as the purpose coexist in the body of man whosecondition is equality is the key of democratic art.This dissertation based on a new era of Tocqueville revealed, the writer comprehendeddemocratic political science from the aspects of equality and freedom. In the essay, the authorfirstly demonstrates the meaning of equality and freedom, then explains the differentproperties of equality and freedom in detail from the perspective of individual. In thesedifferent properties, there is mutual confliction on individual with equality of condition.People either seize equality forgetting the freedom or abuse of freedom. If equality andfreedom coexist in harmonious, people must learn to love real freedom through artificialpolitical freedom. This dissertation consists of four Parts except for introduction andconclusion.The first part regarded’’ a new era " which Tocqueville put forward at the beginning ofthe work as the background, defining their basic meaning respectively by illustrating equalityand freedom’s related content. Equality as a fact, is the inevitable trend of historydevelopment. With the development of history, inequality of condition was destroyed by historical process and the new age of equality of condition was opened up at the same time.Tocqueville historical survey and Guizot’s conception of history all illustrated this point. Inthe front of the fact that equality of condition, democracy is the freedom mixing with equality.However Tocqueville freedom is different from any thinkers’ before him, becauseTocqueville here freedom includes both the freedom of natural persons and the freedom as apolitical man. These aspects are complementary each other and indispensable.On the basis of the first part, the second part was emphasized the properties of equalityas fact and the freedom as purpose on people in democratic society. As a fact, equality ofcondition created a unique social condition in which people tend to get rid of the attachment.At the same time, the equality of condition has changed the people’s thoughts on honor andhas affected people’s views on the Relationship of Servant and Master, father and son,brothers and sisters within the family. In short, it seems that democracy cultivate a kind ofperson with special temperament. This kind of people are eager for liberty, on the one hand,they hope to attain their total equality though the free, even if the inequality created by Godhimself; on the other hand, they have a keen feeling on Material goods and believe in ’’perfectibility of human being " so that they were interested in industry and commerce.However, such an inappropriate love for freedom arouses the social vitality but also containpotential crisis.In the third part, the confliction between equality and freedom which resulted fromunique nature of equality of condition and inappropriate love for freedom makes equality andfreedom to coexist together difficultly. The confliction exhibited from macro and microaspects. The macroscopic aspects include relaxation in social ties, people prefer to indulge inprivate life rather than join into the collective. When collective tends to be weakness and thesocial contacts are reduced, the new type of autocracy will catch off guard. The macroscopicaspects include the prevailing of individualism and individual’s jealousy and anxiety.In the fourth part, in view of the problem that caused by the confliction between equalityand freedom, the writer put forward a solution that is political freedom. The tensions betweenequality and freedom originated in ’’ inappropriate love for freedom ". In order to eliminatethe tension and truly enjoy the benefits of democracy, it is necessary to use association,secondary group, news papers, religious and other resources existing in the democraticsociety to refresh political freedom. In the long run, people living in the democratic society will enjoy the benefit of equality and learn to love correct freedom, and finally reach into thestate in which equality and freedom coexist in harmonization.Of course, this dissertation mainly focused on the theoretical level and the purpose aimsto improve the comprehension of Tocqueville democratic thought, because whether we canenjoy the freedom in the society with equality is not certain yet. We can only wait and see,after all, democracy is still on its way and its fate is not finalized.