Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville
Chapter III: Individualism Stronger At The Close Of A Democratic
409 words | Chapter 25
Revolution Than At Other Periods
The period when the construction of democratic society upon the ruins of
an aristocracy has just been completed, is especially that at which this
separation of men from one another, and the egotism resulting from it,
most forcibly strike the observation. Democratic communities not only
contain a large number of independent citizens, but they are constantly
filled with men who, having entered but yesterday upon their independent
condition, are intoxicated with their new power. They entertain a
presumptuous confidence in their strength, and as they do not suppose
that they can henceforward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of
their fellow-creatures, they do not scruple to show that they care for
nobody but themselves.
An aristocracy seldom yields without a protracted struggle, in the
course of which implacable animosities are kindled between the different
classes of society. These passions survive the victory, and traces of
them may be observed in the midst of the democratic confusion which
ensues. Those members of the community who were at the top of the late
gradations of rank cannot immediately forget their former greatness;
they will long regard themselves as aliens in the midst of the newly
composed society. They look upon all those whom this state of society
has made their equals as oppressors, whose destiny can excite no
sympathy; they have lost sight of their former equals, and feel no
longer bound by a common interest to their fate: each of them, standing
aloof, thinks that he is reduced to care for himself alone. Those, on
the contrary, who were formerly at the foot of the social scale, and who
have been brought up to the common level by a sudden revolution, cannot
enjoy their newly acquired independence without secret uneasiness; and
if they meet with some of their former superiors on the same footing as
themselves, they stand aloof from them with an expression of triumph and
of fear. It is, then, commonly at the outset of democratic society that
citizens are most disposed to live apart. Democracy leads men not to
draw near to their fellow-creatures; but democratic revolutions lead
them to shun each other, and perpetuate in a state of equality the
animosities which the state of inequality engendered. The great
advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of
democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution; and that
they are born equal, instead of becoming so.
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