Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America | Primary Source Close Reads Explained

0:00 When we study government, what are we really seeking to understand? There is, of course, a big question of how. How does the government work? How are individuals elected? How do laws get made? For this, we usually look at institutions like Congress or the President. We also explore activities of government like regulation or law enforcement. And of course, we examine the process of elections.

0:21 All of these are important, but they can also feel mechanical. When we really dig into these things, we end up asking ourselves why? Why these institutions? Why are they designed this way? And why do they function as they do? Alexis De Tocqueville was interested in these questions in much more. In his book Democracy in America, he sought to examine American society to see if he could find some answers.

0:45 What he found provides an interesting look into American society that is still relevant today. Alexis De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat from the province of Normandy in Northern France. De Tocqueville grew up in France in an age after the French Revolution and the restoration of the monarch. He believed the age of monarch and aristocracy was coming to an end in wish to go to the United States to see how the young republic functioned.

1:09 He hoped to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the United States so that he could influence post-revolutionary France. In 1831, de Toqueville, along with Gustave de Beaumont, embarked on a nine-month 7,000 miles tour of the United States. During their travels, they studied everything about American life.

1:29 From these experiences, Toqueville wrote Democracy in America, which is an analysis of Americans, American government, and American life that endures to this day. One question he was particularly interested in was how American society influenced American government. This social aspect was one he took seriously. Part of his analysis focused on what he called civil society.

1:51 Let’s take a look at what De Tocqueville said and see if we can figure out what civil society is and why he thought that it mattered. De Tocqueville published Democracy in America in two volumes: the first in 1835 and the second in 1840. We’re going to look at chapter five from the second volume to see where

2:14 De Tocqueville talked explicitly about civil society. Remember, our question is, what is civil society and why does it matter? We’ll start with the what is it? De Tocqueville starts Chapter 5, which he calls on the use that Americans make of associations in civil life by saying he’s not seeking to look at political associations, but instead something else.

2:34 And what that something else is, is what he’ll call civil society. So he says that here is a question only of the associations that are formed in civil life in which have the object that is in no way political. The political associations that exist in the United States form only a detail in the midst of an immense picture that the sum of associations presents there. So what De Tocqueville is saying is

2:56 that our lives, as we experience them, are not only political. Our social lives are not just dictated by the way the government functions, but instead, there are all these other things that we’re involved in, that we gather together, that we join together to accomplish things with that aren’t necessarily a part of the government. And that was something that was interesting to him,

3:16 and he thought had an influence on the way that the government function. He goes on to detail what these are. Tocqueville says Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. It says they get together for religious, moral, grave, and futile, very general, very particular, immense, and very small. Americans use associations to get feds, to found seminaries, to build inns,

3:37 to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries. What he’s talking about is all of the things that Americans were gathering together in the 1830s to try to either address issues within their communities that they thought needed to be addressed or solved, or possibly looking at ways of advancing ideals or things that they loved or throwing, he calls them fets,

3:59 but really he’s talking about parties, gathering together to celebrate something. All of these were individuals associating or gathering together and creating some club or some a group that would address these things and moving them forward. So today you might think of these as like our rotary clubs or Kuanas or different local associations of a Chamber

4:20 of commerce or business associations or even things like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or any time that we’re gathering together within society to try to address or build some character or do something, we do that on our own. And that’s interesting. And he notes here that everywhere, he says at the end, everywhere that at the head of a new

4:40 undertaking, you see government in France and a great lord in England. So in Europe, there was oftentimes nobility that would be the heads of different kinds of associations, but it was always associated with some aristocratic or governmental or pseudo-governmental figure. And here in the United States, it was individuals gathering together to try to associate with each other to solve a challenge or to provide

5:04 an opportunity or to celebrate or to do something. And here he’s pointing to that as a liveliness. There’s something going on there that is of interest to him that when he’s thinking about democratic society, of people being equal, of being represented in government, something about them joining together, even independent of that government, to address these issues,

5:24 not turning to the government to do it, but doing it of their own desire, their own you might say, to try to associate these things. And that to him is of critical importance. So he goes on to say, In America, I encountered sorts of associations, which I confess I had no idea. I often admired the infinite art, which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal

5:46 and the efforts of many men to get them to advance to it freely. The language here can get a little tricky, but he’s almost baffled by the number of associations that he was finding in the United States. There were so many, he couldn’t even tell what they all were, what they all did. But they all had these two ingredients. They were working toward a common goal and they were advancing to it freely.

6:08 There’s no compelling people to try to accomplish these things. There’s no one forcing people to be a part of these associations. They gathered together freely on their own, and they worked to advance that common goal. We take a step back and we want to say, Well, what is civil society according to Tocqueville? Well, I saw three different elements here. It’s groups of people, so they’re associations. They’re all gathering together to try to do something.

6:30 They’re working towards non-political goals, so they’re trying to accomplish something that isn’t a political end, but it’s something that they see in their own community that they want to try to accomplish. He mentioned schools, for example, or sending out missionaries. So perhaps it’s a religious goal or a moral goal advancing some idea that you like. But he talks about celebration, so you could see it as a cultural group.

6:51 Maybe it’s someone celebrating a holiday from their home country that they had migrated to the United States from, or maybe their grandparents or grandparents had migrated from, but it’s something they keep alive. And then finally, it’s that common goal that was important. So they’re working towards that common goal and they’re doing so freely. They’re not being compelled to do it, but they have a singular goal and they’re

7:13 working towards it together to try to accomplish it. So why does this matter? Why do we care? For studying government, what is the point of looking at it in civil society? Well, he goes on to try to address this and he says, In a democratic people, meaning in a democracy, all citizens are independent and weak. And here he just means, this week in terms of, I have one voice and one vote. There’s a lot of people out there

7:34 in the nation, so I can’t address all these problems on my own, but I can gather people together to try to work towards it. They can do nothing by themselves, he says, and none of them can oblige those like themselves to lend them their cooperation. They therefore fall into impotence, meaning just weakness if they do not learn to aid each other freely. Alone, it’s hard for me to accomplish

7:55 something, but together as a group, we can begin to work towards a common goal and really make a difference in our community. If men who live in democratic countries had neither the right nor the taste to unite their political goals, their independence would run great risks, but they could preserve their wealth and their enlightenment for a long time. Whereas if they did not acquire the practice of associating with each

8:15 other in ordinary life, civilization itself would be imperiled. A people among whom particular persons lost the power of doing great things in isolation without acquiring the ability to produce them in common would soon return to barbarism. That’s a lot. What’s he saying? He’s saying that by uniting, people can continue to do great things and that they will be able to continue

8:37 to produce those things because they are freely associating. Again, this can’t be compelled because you would lose the certain essence of what it is that they’re doing here. If you just mandate that people do something or force them to do something, it’s not the same as in freely associating, because when they freely associate, they’re choosing to do it. They’re reflecting their own desire or

8:58 the importance of whatever something is by freely associating to try to do that. And De Tocqueville thinks that that’s really important when it comes to democracy, because in a sense, what they’re practicing is democratic government in these associations. When they turn and then work towards politics, it’s those interests that then get represented in a particular way. And so civil society forms the groundwork

9:19 for what the government is helping to maintain that free association. So government ought to help ensure that that free association isn’t disturbed in some way by a particular type of tyranny or some law that would prevent that association from happening. But it also allows them to voice their interests in a way that they get represented in their

9:40 communities and in the government in a way that is particularly productive. This is only one chapter of Alexis to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. There’s a lot more packed into his analysis of the way that American life was functioning in the 1830s, and we’re going to continue to dig into that. I hope you’ll continue to check out more of our videos, and we’ll see you next time. Oh, no, the video is over.

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