Alexis de Tocqueville

Defection is the desertion of one's country or cause in favor of an opposing one, but it can come in many different ways. Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America writes a novel about America’s first emigrants who defected from Europe and successful created New England townships to display their ideas of defection. In “Two Young Men Who Went West”, Tom Wolfe shares a success story of a young man who also also found success through defection. In both these works, defection builds the pathway…

first instead of thinking of the group as a whole. When it comes to voting, citizens are very politically apathetic, which is not the most ideal behavior in a direct democracy, but is more suitable under representative democracy. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, Americans tend to have the same views that go under representative democracy: liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, the rule of law, nationalism, and capitalism. Americans believe in the right to be free, as long as…

“What Alexis de Tocqueville saw in America was a society of immigrants, each of whom had begun life anew, on an equal footing. This was the secret of America: a nation of people with the fresh memory of old traditions who dared to explore new frontiers, people eager to build lives for themselves in a spacious society that did not restrict their freedom of choice and action” (Kennedy, p. 2, 2008) This spoke to me as a significant passage because, I think that this was the crux of what a lot of…

we are born into plays a vital role in our achievement. Some are born with a lot of privilege, starting within strides of success, while others are born without privilege, making success seem unattainable. In his book, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville argues that all men are equal in a democracy, and that all can achieve their ambitions, completely disregarding the role of…

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and various selections in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Antislavery Writings (specifically, his “Address on the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies,” “The Fugitive Slave Law,” “The President’s Proclamation,” his “Lecture on Slavery,” and lastly his “Address to the Citizens of Concord on the Fugitive Slave Law”) discuss the deleterious effects of conformity on the American mind, and on society as a whole. Both authors discuss the…

wondering if this new form of government would be able to endure the test of time. One of these inquisitive Europeans who examined the American democracy was Alexis de Tocqueville. In the latter years of the 1830s, Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America which analyzed how a democracy functions and the effects it has on its citizens. In the book, Tocqueville argued that an aristocratic form of government could be seen as advantageous when compared to a democracy. One of his leading arguments…

In fact, it is so awe-inspiring, that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a whole book about it. The opportunities for growth, the culture that surrounds people to constantly strive for success, and the fixation on progress that is ingrained into the average American citizen’s mindset is special. Tocqueville understood that the practices of improvement in America was an uncommon trait. And although there are some who claim…

society, we have paid little attention to key schools of philosophy. This is part of Alexis de Tocqueville’s assertion that while we act within a set of cultural rules, we have done very little to challenge or discuss what our core values actually are. We rely instead on the self, and the “indefinite perfectibility” of man – the concept that we are capable of and should strive for unlimited progress. Tocqueville first views the subject through the eyes of an aristocratic society that focuses…

According to Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, a democratic society has various characteristics such as individualism and a single-minded pursuit of material wealth. These two characteristics can cause certain dangers to a democratic society such as a despotic and absolute government and also unhappiness. Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America presents a behavior that occurs in democratic America. This behavior is called individualism, which is a “reflective and…

Domestic Manners of the Americans, Alexis De Tocqueville and Frances Trollope analyze perspectives on the status of women, the pursuit of wealth, and American’s assertions of social equality. Both authors share viewpoints in the sense that American women are different than European yet contrast in the aspect of their independence. Tocqueville and Trollope share many opinions on what impact the pursuit of wealth has throughout the nation. As for social equality, Tocqueville focuses on the equity…