Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Introduction
Tocqueville asserts that Democracy is and has been for some time now, been the writing on the wall, and that progression towards it will continue inexorably as if it were driven by divine decree. Therefore, it would be wise to prepare for democracy by studying it in its extreme form as it is expressed in America.

Tocqueville defends his lack of citations:

In many instances I might have supported my opinion by citing the names [of persons]. . .When information was confided to me, I wrote it down immediately, but these notes will never leave my files. I would rather hinder my work’s chance of success than add my name to the list of travelers who repay the generous hospitality of their hosts with embarrassment and chagrin.

Is this a worthwhile tactic to get information he feels he might not have otherwise received or might the work suffer too much in posterity?

DIA has been called a darling of the left and the right. How is this possible? Will Tocqueville be able to meet his intention of not:

. . .serving or opposing any party.

Vol 1: Chapter 1
More than just a simple travelogue, what effect might the description of America, its land, size, rivers, endless wilderness, and both the mysterious past inhabitants as well as the current indigenous population would have on both a reader in France and on the formation of a democracy? Does Tocqueville make America seem exotic? Is it too large, too exotic, or unique enough that its particulars might exclude other countries from developing a similar democracy?

Tocqueville suggests by analogy that learning the origins and early experiences of a a people will affect their later development into a nation. He then characterizes what the early colonists had in common, their motives, beliefs, mores, opinions, laws, and early forms of government. He suggests common language played a crucial part. Diversity does not seem as highly regarded as it is today, but how does Tocqueville implicitly suggest diversity also played a part?

Tocqueville asserts the southern colonies were made up of doomed gold seekers, a lower class of people, and farmers, who adopted slavery, which would lead to certain immediate problems as well as other problems down the road. In contrast, the "New England" states were made up entirely of the well-to-do families who were ordered, moral, and better educated who immigrated for their ideals and not for greed or profit.

Tocqueville implies that in New England:

Puritanism was not just a religious doctrine. In several respects it coincided with the most absolute democratic and republican theories.

I missed an easy listing of these attributes; what are they?

Tocqueville says of the Puritanical penal code, drawing heavily on the bible:

Never was the death penalty more frequently prescribed by statute or more seldom enforced.

Why were these laws created, but rarely enforced? Are events like the fictional The Scarlet Letter and very non-fictional Salem Witch Trials really rare exceptions to most sentences? We are told:

The men who framed these penal codes were primarily concerned with maintaining the moral order and sound mores of their society. They therefore repeatedly intruded upon the realm of conscience, and virtually no sin was exempt from the scrutiny of the courts.

Should we wonder that many of these laws are considered unconstitutional today?

I have often noted to myself that America's reaction to issues often appears excessive. The Reeve translation best sums up Tocqueville's reasons for this in his comment on certain puritanical civil penal laws:

These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of two excesses.

America, it seems, could use a little more Aristotle. Tocqueville then makes his first big point in his ongoing theme of the crucial importance of lowest levels of government to America

In America, by contrast[to most European nations], the local community was organized before the county, the county before the state, and the state before the Union.

We are also informed of the ironic origin and importance of public education in America to protect the people against one of Satan's biggest weapons, ignorance.

Tocqueville loves presenting paradoxes and then resolving them somehow. How does he resolve this one?

I do not think that there is any other country in the world where, as a proportion of the population, the ignorant are so few and the learned still fewer.

Finally, how does Tocqueville distinguish between those laws that are Puritan in origin and and those which are English in origin? Does it help make sense of John Adams' quote in Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli that, The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.Does Tocqueville draw an adequate distinction between the harsher, religious and morality driven local civil laws and the more intellectual and philosophically driven constitutional law to come that they are grounded against?

Chapter 3: Social State of the Anglo-Americans
Tocqueville asserts the social state of the early Americans driving their democratic nature was anti-aristocratic sentiment, mostly in the New England colonies. The West included great landowners that imported aristocratic tendencies which eventually failed, while the South, aided by slavery, created and empty aristocracy of rich landowners without patronage, but would produce some of the greatest leaders of the American revolution yet to come. The final straw for aristocracy in America was the rejection of the old laws of inheritance and the drive toward equality. He does not say the word, but I recall letters between Adams and Jefferson that discuss doing away with primogeniture as the way to rid the country of aristocracy and the inept leadership and despotism that it brings.

What does Tocqueville mean when he says there is no middle ground between the sort of equality where everyone is a slave without rights vs. the sort of equality where everyone is free and has rights?

Patrice wrote: "the word democracy bothers me. the founders did not want a democracy. mob rule. we are a constitutional republic. in a democracy if the majority wants to steal your car they can. in a constitutiona..."

He also confuses capitalism with democracy sometimes, I think. He conflates the two without noting important distinctions. Land ownership, individual property rights, commerce, and trade, are all elements of capitalism, but he throws them in the democracy bucket along with laws passed by "everyone" (not true, by the way) which is an element of democracy. He also mentions the elimination of nobility, but that strikes me as a prerequisite.

David wrote: "What does Tocqueville mean when he says there is no middle ground between the sort of equality where everyone is a slave without rights vs. the sort of equality where everyone is free and has rights?"

Which, of course, isn't true. He's staring right at the proof it isn't true. Slaves (no rights at all) and women (some rights) alongside free men (full panoply of rights). He's suffering from a kind of social and political bias, focusing on what is important to him and his politics while completely missing the weakness in his own argument.

What he means is there is no aristocracy with special rights in America, because there are no laws protecting and institutionalizing those rights.

True.

Of course, Americans are busy replacing the institution of aristocracy with the institution of slavery, another rights denying institution, and he completely misses it (because it isn't important to his politics?). Women also didn't have equal rights.

We can say that's just how people thought back then, and that would be true, but it doesn't change the fact that that middle ground he says can't exist exists right where he's pointing and saying it doesn't.

And T. is a bright guy. Makes me wonder what blind spots we all have.

Introduction: l’égalité des conditions. Oh my, this weeks’ reading gives us so much to consider. Just the Introduction would have been more than enough. Let me start with the first sentence.

Of all the novel things which attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of social conditions.

In the French original Tocqueville is struck by the equality of conditions - the word 'social' is added by the translator. He (Bevan) must have wondered, what precisely 'l’égalité des conditions' means. Legal condition (estate), economic condition (wealth), social condition (status), political condition (power), intellectual condition (education), moral condition (virtue)? Or, should we assume that Tocqueville uses the plural with a purpose and that, at this point at least, it is his intention to be imprecise?

In the short historical essay that follows he (Tocqueville) argues that modern history shows an inexorable development from a primitive situation in which all power depends on landownership to an ever more complex situation in which power has multiple sources (religion, trade/money, knowledge). Leading to an ever greater equality of conditions (or simply 'equality'). Given these multiple sources it seems that Tocqueville is indeed thinking of some kind of conglomerate of all the elements mentioned (and probably a few others).

A problem with this 'inclusive' interpretation of 'conditions', is that it blurs the line between cause and effect, leading to a certain circularity of arguments. For instance, when Tocqueville, in his second sentence, states that this equality has profound effects on attitudes, laws, style of government, habits. In short, on social conditions. But maybe that just means that equality, once started somewhere, tends to pervade the whole body social.

Anyway it would seem that democracy is more than the political expression of equality, it is almost a tautology, or, the same as equality. Why can’t we change words for numbers?

Tocqueville does not mention freedom (yet). For him equality/democracy apparently does not include freedom. At least not necessarily. That is important, and it touches Patrice’s (implied) question how to define democracy in the first place.

Depending on who is stealing Patrice’s car, she may be thinking of alternatives like 'socialism' or, on the contrary, a too permissive community leaving thieves at large. In general however, it seems to me that in the US democracy is more often understood or represented (in a negative way) as 'mobocracy' (the unlimited rule of the majority). While in Europe we have a stronger association between democracy and constitutionality, limiting the power of the majority.

That may have something to do with past excesses of populism here in Europe. Though of course both constitutional limits and mob rule may be seen as threatening liberty. An American may question democracy, and a European might agree, but would rather use the word 'populism'. In Europe everyone - even Putin - calls him/herself a democrat, one way or the other.

So it is important to realise that 'democracy' is a concept without a clear and agreed definition, and that we keep room for different interpretations, while figuring out where precisely Tocqueville stands in this discussion.

Patrice wrote: "the word democracy bothers me. . ."

It is always good to come to terms with the author. There are some variations in the term, democracy, that we should be aware of as a starting point. What do you think some of the early colonists had vs. what it transformed into along the way to today?

Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία dēmokratía, literally "Rule by 'People'") is a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue. In a representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature. In a constitutional democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association. "Rule of the majority" is sometimes referred to as democracy. Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

The Wikipedia page lists quite a few more variants, some of them are a little surprising.

Wendel wrote: "Tocqueville does not mention freedom (yet). For him equality/democracy apparently does not include freedom. At least not necessarily. That is important, and it touches Patrice’s (implied) question ..."

He addresses liberty briefly in the introduction, once in the context of slavery:

But men of high and generous character are now to be met with, whose opinions are directly at variance with their inclinations, and who praise that servility and meanness which they have themselves never known. Others, on the contrary, speak of liberty as if they were able to feel its sanctity and its majesty, and loudly claim for humanity those rights which they have always refused to acknowledge.

And once in the context of religion:

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate bondage, and the meanest and most servile preach independence...

He is not speaking specifically of America here, but may as well be.

Patrice wrote: " even 100
percent of the population has no right to take your car. i find his use of the term confusing. maybe it has to do with the french revolution where the mob ruled? the reign of terror was the result and that is exactly what the founders wanted to avoid. ."

Tocqueville seems to be rather even-handed on this subject, at least in the Intro. He sees the problem you describe, but he sees it in general terms, rather than as a product of democracy;

The division of property has lessened the distance which separates the rich from the poor; but it would seem that, the nearer they draw to each other, the greater is their mutual hatred and the more vehement the envy and dread with which they resist each other's claims to power; the idea of right does not exist for the other party, and force affords to both the only argument for the present and the only guarantee for the future.

Is anyone, besides myself, reading this book for the first time?
My primary takeaway from the opening chapters is the significant difference in purpose and outlook between the New England Puritans and the Virginia fortune seekers. I agree with some others that equality is a tricky word to use. Obviously, the author is not including: women, indentured immigrants, slaves and Indians when he uses the term. I'm curious to see what is said in future chapters about the Indians. (He has already described their language as being pompous.) Back to equality, the author does say somewhere that he does realize that the Creator has not made all men equal, that there is an obvious, bell curve (my words) in the capacities and abilities of any substantial collection of human beings; which may lead to the notion that if we are not by nature all equal, maybe we will strive for a more egalitarian community where we will all be equal before the law. I thought the author's remark about how he had never met a society more in love with money was noteworthy; and that the concomitant remark about anti-intellectualism was interesting too.

I think it is safe to say here that the big deal regarding the democracy in America for Tocqueville, even above freedom and liberty, is equal conditions, even though it is painfully obvious to us that these equal conditions still needed to expand significantly at the time to be more inclusive.

A glance at Appendix H: Summary Of The Qualifications Of Voters In The United States As They Existed In 1832, may provide some context and insight on how equal conditions are to be understood by the author.

Why does Tocqueville dote on equality of condition so much more than freedom or liberty? Per Tocqueville's assertion above, equality does not seem to depend upon freedom; a population can be equally free or equally a slave. Is freedom dependent upon equality?

Perhaps Tocqueville is being honest with himself knowing that with democracy on the way, he will one day soon reminisce over his own lost aristocratic status?

Patrice wrote: "freedom and equality can be in opposition to each other. Venezuela is not free but enforced equality has made everyone miserable. i have spoken to many former soviet citizens who escaped enforced e..."

I guess it depends what you mean by "equality" because there are some who would argue that there is no equality in either Venezuela or Russia--enforced or otherwise.

Maybe it will help think of equality as setting the boundaries for freedom/liberty.

[Thomas] Jefferson underscores the normative function of liberty in a letter to fellow republican Isaac Tiffany (April 4, 1819), in which he distinguishes between liberty and rightful liberty: “Of liberty then I would say, that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will, but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
Holowchak, M. Andrew. Thomas Jefferson: Uncovering His Unique Philosophy and Vision . Prometheus Books. Kindle Edition.

David wrote: "Tocqueville defends his lack of citations."

I thought it absolutely the right call--- for several reasons...in no particular order.

T wasn't operating as any sort of journalist or reporter or what passed for one in the early 19th century.. those with whom he spoke likely had the expectation---unless T informed them otherwise--- that their private conversations would remain private. I VERY much admire him in this.... One of the most concerning points in the early chapters (to my thinking) was "the penal laws... constantly penetrate into the domain of conscience" (p. 38)… OMG! It's like The Thought Police! Pass the laws you think best for your society, but a person's thoughts and private conversations are off limits, thinks I. There may be a class aspect operating here as well; a gentleman would keep such conversations private.

Also, I DO think that T would have had franker, more informative conversations if the parties engaging knew that these were informative/"background" conversations...

Also, were names mentioned, some of those people might have been politically or socially embarrassed. T did use the word "confided."

Also, many or most of the names probably would have been unknown in France. The names of unknowns would have carried no weight and would have distracted from the points he wanted to make.

Also, I don't believe he was writing for posterity, but for his own time and his own country.

Adelle wrote: "David wrote: "Tocqueville defends his lack of citations."

I thought it absolutely the right call--- for several reasons...in no particular order.

T wasn't operating as any sort of journalist or..."
I agree, Adelle. I think your example of a journalist's anonymous source is right on.

At 23 … Patrice wrote: "i think we call one freedom and the other license. when Moses freed the slaves he gave them the law so they could live as free men."

Yes. I'm going to mangle this quote and I don't remember who said it --- no citation --- " There is no man less free than one who is slave to his passions."

Doing what you want is not freedom. Nor does it generally contribute towards building a stable society in which citizens/inhabitants can try to build their lives and raise their families. Like Mom said, "What if everyone did it?" So we have laws, hopefully applicable to all...i.e. equality before the law, to constrain our actions.

Adelle wrote: "Also, I don't believe he was writing for posterity, but for his own time and his own country."

True, but one may always wonder if someone significant supplied him with anything surprising or unexpected.

I also wonder if the people he interviewed really had something to hide in what they were telling him? I will have to keep this in mind while reading the rest of the book and see if he tells us of some opinion that would have been frowned upon or had some political or social repercussions. If you see such an opinion as we progress, call it out.

Adelle wrote: "So we have laws, hopefully applicable to all...i.e. equality before the law, to constrain our actions."

In his letter mentioned above, Jefferson goes on to add:

I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often the tyrant’s will, and is always so when it violates the right of an individual.” The sentiment of those definitions is responsible free activity—that is, the freedom to do what one wants so long as one does not contravene the rights of others to do what they want to do.

Holowchak, M. Andrew. Thomas Jefferson: Uncovering His Unique Philosophy and Vision . Prometheus Books. Kindle Edition.

Mark wrote: "...My primary takeaway from the opening chapters is the significant difference in purpose and outlook between the New England Puritans and the Virginia fortune seekers...."

One of the delightful, if at times overbearing (and questionable), books that makes this point is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, where Fischer, in considerable detail, describes differences between the backgrounds in England (and the Netherlands) from which these two groups (and two others that he identifies) largely derived. In a rather wild speculation, I wondered if a germ for Fischer's work came from his reading Tocqueville....

Adelle wrote: "..." There is no man less free than one who is slave to his passions." ..."

Not sure how relevant to this discussion, Adelle, but stream of consciousness reminds me of another aphorism: "There is no man less free than one who is slave to his possessions."

Patrice wrote: "there is so much Rousseau in this book. he mentions the general will that will make everyone cooperate. how romantic! i think Madison was so much more realistic when he wrote, in federalist 10, tha..."

Thank you for mentioning Rousseau, Patrice. Knowing that Tocqueville grew up in France near the end of what had been mightily turbulent years (descriptions of his mother's PTSD-like responses to the threats to her own life and that of her husband, as well the loss of members of the extended family to the guillotine, remind of analogous experiences we know from later eras), I decided, if I am going to understand where our author is coming from, I needed to know a little more about French history. The two Enlightenment philosophers called out in the Great Courses lectures on the French Revolution are Voltaire and Rousseau. I don't know Rousseau at all, sort of label him as "romantic." But I also listened to Irshad Manji last night, in talking about her new book Don't Label Me, speak to the dangers in communicating and digging deep into understanding when we "label" -- that labeling can lead to false boundaries and stereotypical assumptions, rather than openness to understanding.

From the Chronology Entry for 1836 included in the LoA editions:

Tocqueville reads Machiavelli’s Florentine History, which he describes as a “learned lecture on the art of crime in politics,” as well as works by the 17th-century Catholic bishop and famous pulpit orator Bossuet, whom he admires; by Voltaire, whom he resents as illiberal and anti-democratic; by Plato; and by the Church fathers. (Later that year, Tocqueville writes to Kergorlay: “there are three men with whom I live a little daily, they are Pascal, Montesquieu and Rousseau.”)

Tocqueville, Alexis de. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America (LOA #147) (Library of America) (p. 893). Library of America. Kindle Edition.

Patrice wrote: "btw, lily, i believe Rousseau grew up in switzerland, not france. i think he was a calvinist. how could he not idealize nature in switzerland?"

Patrice -- I just scanned the Wiki entry for Rousseau, which of course means I still know virtually nothing about the man and his contributions. But it was a fascinating few minutes. You might find doing such the same? (I noted a couple of references to his influences on Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense.)

Patrice wrote: "...dinesh d souza..."

His wiki entry is interesting, too.

David wrote: "...Is this a worthwhile tactic to get information he feels he might not have otherwise received or might the work suffer too much in posterity?..."

It's not clear to me yet, but my sense at the moment is that much of that information did get into notes and letters, many of which have survived for later generations of scholars, but were protected from "real time" political backlash.

Patrice wrote @32: "i think the French, to this day, admire and glorify the people who live in nature rather than civilization...."

What I hear more often is the opposite: the French as dependent on the comforts of their salons, utterly divorced from and afraid of nature. That was the culture Rousseau rebelled against, disgusted as he was by a polite society that had made fun of his clumsiness. The noble savage, invented long before Rousseau, was just a plaything, but he (Rousseau) was the real thing: the Indian of Ermenonville.

Of course these are simplifications, prejudices, labels. Not to be taken too seriously. Yet without them we can understand things only in a holistic way - which is beyond me. My thinking depends on labels, I just try to write them with a pencil, not in ink. In that vein I suspect that T., though also a romantic of sorts, had actually very little in common with Rousseau. That in his eyes the (holistic) concept of a General Will was an abomination. Let's wait and see.

From the introduction: The gradual unfurling of equality in social conditions is, therefore, a providential fact which reflects its principal characteristics; it is universal, it is lasting and it constantly eludes human interference; its development is served equally by every event and every human being.

'Word historical' developments became all the fashion in T’s days (Hegel, Marx, but also: Manifest Destiny). For T. this development is directed by the hand of God, and that is not just a figure of speech. The vista before him filled him with a 'religious terror': Any desire to halt democracy would then appear a struggle against God himself …

Yet, that was what his head told him, not his heart. T. did not care much for equality. His private sentiments appear in his romantic description of the aristocratic past. A time, he believes, of superior culture and, somehow, regardless of all abuses, a time of social harmony: At that time, society beheld inequality and unhappiness but men’s souls were not humiliated.

So while Rousseau directs his romantic imagination towards an imagined nature, T prefers to dream about an imagined past. An even greater difference: Rousseau presents his pipe dream as a blueprint for the future, but T realises that his ideal is gone with the wind. To make the best of the future we need to think, discover the laws of a new political science, not to dream. But can we really divorce ourselves from our dreams?

Thomas wrote @11: "He is not speaking specifically of America here, but may as well be. .."

Yes, after explaining how he discovered in America his world historical law governing the development towards equality/democracy, he turns his attention to France, past and present. But while the Americans made a success of democracy, the French produced a Robespierre. And may do so again. There is a shrill note in T's writing here. The second half of the introduction has the character of a rant, everything is wrong in France.

The essence may not be immediately clear, but the source of the general malaise must be, in T's view, an unnatural opposition between equality and Christianity. When Christians fear equality, reason and sentiment must speak with different tongues and become estranged, souls are humiliated. People he feels should be his moral allies are his intellectual opponents and vice versa. Everything is upside down, France is tearing apart.

His rant is sublime and I can’t help quoting at some lenght:

Men of religion fight against freedom and the friends of freedom attack the religions; some noble and generous spirits praise slavery while some dishonorable and servile souls advocate independence; some honorable and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress while some unpatriotic and immoral men become apostles of civilization and education!
Have all centuries resembled our own? Has man always looked out upon a world like our own, where nothing is consistent, where virtue is without genius, genius without honor, where the love of order is joined to an inclination for tyranny and the holy worship of liberty to a disdain for the law, where conscience casts a dim light upon human actions and where nothing any longer seems to be prohibited or permitted, honest or shameful, true or false?
Am I to believe that the Creator made man to leave him struggling endlessly with the intellectual wretchedness that surrounds us? I cannot think so. God is preparing a calmer and more stable future for European societies; I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.

Again T says he puts his trust in God - but he seems to lack the quiet confidence this conviction should give him. Thinking about France he is a tormented man.

David wrote: "I think it is safe to say here that the big deal regarding the democracy in America for Tocqueville, even above freedom and liberty, is equal conditions, even though it is painfully obvious to us t..."

Tocqueville had an interesting view on equality, which not always coincide with what we mean by equality. For him, it may mean everything from (more or less) equal distribution of wealth to what we would call democracy per se. No wonder that he esteemed it above freedom and liberty.

He may spend a lot of time on mores and beliefs but, generally, de Tocqueville is materialistic in his view on social evolution. Geography and distribution of wealth are primal causes that form societies.

Wendel wrote: "Again T says he puts his trust in God - but he seems to lack the quiet confidence this conviction should give him. "

Very true, indeed. I think in him reason and sentiment 'speak with different tongues', but what is the sentiment in this case: trust or lack of confidence?

Alexey wrote @43: "... equality ... No wonder that he esteemed it above freedom and liberty. .."

I believe T. had mixed feelings (head & heart) about equality, while in our present week's serving he only speaks about freedom in the French context - and then as the the holy worship of liberty ...

Cphe wrote: "Didn't the Puritans migrate to America to escape religious persecution?..."

So our (U.S.) grade school texts have always taught us. But many of the Puritans also belonged to that emerging class of commerce that was helping break up the feudal structures of Europe.

Cphe wrote: "Didn't the Puritans migrate to America to escape religious persecution?
"

More the idea. It's a good question as to who was persecuting whom. Perhaps each took their turn.

Puritans felt sorely afflicted by many English people who possessed neither their virtues nor their zeal. Puritan rhetoric depicted England as awash in thieves, drunks, idlers, prostitutes, and blasphemers.

(...)

The Puritan vision appealed to many pious and propertied people weary of economic upheaval, crime, and poverty of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Puritan magistrates strictly enforced the long-neglected laws against gambling, blasphemy, adultery, poverty, and Sabbath-breaking. And Puritans longed to purify the churches by ousting all conspicuous sinners and by inviting members to monitor one another for consistent morality and sound theology. The zeal however dismayed most English people, who preferred Anglicanism and the traditional culture characterized by church ales, Sunday diversions, ceremonial services, etc.

Eventually . . .

During the 1620s and 1630s . . . most bishops enforced the new Anglican orthodoxy, dismissing Puritan ministers. Church courts prosecuted growing numbers of Puritan lay people [and] censored Puritan tracts. Faced with the growing power of the king and his bishops, SOME despairing Puritans considered emigrating across the Atlantic.

-- Alan Taylor
American Colonies: The Settling of North America

My understanding is that the Pilgrims went to Holland to escape persecution in the name of the established Church of England. But they didn't like their children growing up Dutch, so they emigrated to America where they could found a new society and persecute according to the dictates of their own conscience.

Roger wrote: "My understanding is that the Pilgrims went to Holland to escape persecution in the name of the established Church of England. But they didn't like their children growing up Dutch, so they emigrated..."

Yes, the Separatists (Mayflower) were radical Puritans -- later called Pilgrims -- and their route was England -->Leiden-->Plymouth, New England. The later Massachusetts Bay colony -- the much larger colony -- was colonized by non-separating Puritans, and they came directly from England, I believe.

Toqueville is consistent with what I learned in my public school days. The Puritan's escaped religious persecution in England to retain their religious identity in the Netherlands and then left the Netherlands for America to retain both their English and religious identities. I remember being dismayed too at the colonial intolerance Tocqueville describes here that I can understand but only judge now as hypocritical:

Elsewhere, legislators totally oblivious of the great principles of religious freedom that they had claimed for themselves in Europe imposed fines intended to frighten people into attending religious services and often went so far as to mandate severe punishment or even death for Christians who wished to worship God in some way other than their own.26

26: Under the penal code of Massachusetts, any Catholic priest who set foot in the colony after being expelled was subject to the death penalty.

It am reminded of. . .

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Orwell, George Animal Farm. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Jul 1, 2009
https://books.google.com/books?id=nka...

And from this root grew democracy which he admired most.

David wrote: "It am reminded of. . .

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Orwell, George Animal Farm. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Jul 1, 2009"

"Equality of Conditions" reminds me of the above quote, and not just for religions. I'm wondering if T. is generalizing to point that important distinctions and contradictions are being passed over?

David wrote: "Toqueville is consistent with what I learned in my public school days. The Puritan's escaped religious persecution in England to retain their religious identity in the Netherlands and then left the..."

The way I look at it is religious tolerance wasn't so much an embracing of a noble idea as it was a fear of what might happen to you if a religion other than yours became dominant. A kind of learning from past tragedies. Better safe than sorry.

Definitely, true. Strangely, with pilgrims this did not worked in this way. They tried to retain there dominance and religious purity. This is not a better safe than sorry way.

Ah, the uncompromising ideologue. Where would we be without him :)

People, whom de Toqueville credited creation of the American Democracy, does not seem to be good in learning from the past. They fled religious persecution in Europe to create not a society free from persecutions but one in which they would surely be persecutors. I could remember parable of tree and fruits but here it worked in different way.

We seem to have found, or are focusing our conversation on two of the very important issues: tolerance and equality. Plato says, somewhere in the Laws I think, and to paraphrase very crudely, that if we took all the wealth and all the property in the city and divided it up into equally portions for all the citizens, that in seven years time it would all be back in the hands of a few. And as far as religious tolerance is concerned has it ever been anything more than a dream?

Both are important issues, I agree, but I'm also thinking a lot about T's teleological view of history. He says it is providential, that history in the U.S. had an end design -- democracy and equality of conditions. And he's doing his best to show how it all fits together.

I don't believe in teleological history, providential or not. To me that's something bad historians do. Any set of events can lead to different consequences, and arguing that, no, they could only have led to the consequence we got, is nonsense.

My concern is T is writing his own teleological history, interpreting real-life events in such a way that they could only have created democracy and equality of conditions. And I'm wondering what resides just under the surface of his narrative that he's swept under there for a reason.

When it comes to "freedom of religion" is there a difference between persecution and intolerance?

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Both are important issues, I agree, but I'm also thinking a lot about T's teleological view of history. He says it is providential, that history in the U.S. had an end design -- democracy and equal..."

if I am understanding you correctly, I felt T stopped short of teleological history but blurs the line over to it by using it as a metaphor to stress his point of the inevitability of democracy. It may be a translator issue, but the subtle additions of as if, and seem tantamount to make the difference. I think a passage being referred to here is this one:

If, after a lengthy period of observation and sincere meditation, people were to become convinced that the gradual and progressive development of equality was at once their past and their future, the process would immediately take on a sacred character, as if it were an expression of the sovereign master’s will. To wish to arrest democracy would then seem tantamount to a struggle against God himself, and nations would have no choice but to accommodate to the social state imposed on them by Providence.

David wrote: "Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Both are important issues, I agree, but I'm also thinking a lot about T's teleological view of history. He says it is providential, that history in the U.S. had an end des..."

IMO, T mentions providential history too many times, and not just as metaphor, for him not to believe in it. For example, the inexorable march from Feudalism to democracy is providential according to him, and we better come up with a political science to make the best use of it, IIRC. T has laid his cards on the table.

I don't see the quote above as an abandonment of providential or teleological history. I see it as an explanation of what can happen when a series of events get rolling, how it can catch people up in it, and how it can be looked at by those participating. And then when it's all over interpret the events as providential. I think he's describing himself without realizing it.

Given the era, that history might be explained away as divine providence isn't surprising. But we live in a different era, and it wouldn't hurt to see what might be lurking under the bedsheets.

But it's also early, and maybe I'll come around to that view.

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "But we live in a different era, and it wouldn't hurt to see what might be lurking under the bedsheets..."

And if "providential or teleological" matters insofar as the validity of overall observations are concerned?