Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Democracy in America
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Week 11: DIA Vol 2 Part 1 Ch. 5 -16
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Chapter 8 HOW DEMOCRACY SUGGESTS TO THE AMERICANS THE IDEA OF MAN’S INFINITE PERFECTIBILITYTocqueville proposes the characteristic that sets man apart from animals is the concept of improving or perfecting himself. In aristocracies, citizens are condemned to their ranks and advancement in human perfection is restricted. By contrast, in democracies human perfection presents itself in the mixing of former classes, customs, laws, ideas. Finally, a good word for diversity. This idea of constant renewal and improvement was reflected in a sailor’s comments explaining that ships did not need to last long, because improvements in navigation were so frequent, they were made obsolete in the need for newer ships.
David wrote: "This idea of constant renewal and improvement was reflected in a sailor’s comments explaining that ships did not need to last long, because improvements in navigation were so frequent, they were made obsolete in the need for newer ships. ..."That sounded more like business school, marketing, the technology industries, and the commercial (profit making) advantages of planned obsolescence than a dogma of perfectibility. (Yes, I know at least the first three largely came later. But I smiled at how T set the stage.)
David wrote: "It is my understanding anti-Catholic prejudices were not demonstratively overcome until the election of JFK in 1960...."It is just possible that some of those same prejudices yet today under-gird some of the resistance to migrations from South America.
Chapter 9 HOW THE EXAMPLE OF THE AMERICANS DOES NOT PROVE THAT A DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE CAN HAVE NO APTITUDE FOR SCIENCE, LITERATURE, OR THE ARTSTocqueville notes that America seems to lag behind when it comes to the sciences and the arts. He blames this condition on the Puritans
The religion preached by the earliest immigrants and bequeathed to their descendants — a religion simple in its forms of worship, austere and almost savage in its principles, and hostile to outward signs and ceremonial pomp — naturally offers little encouragement to the fine arts and is only reluctantly tolerant of literary pleasures.He further defends America by saying this is not due to equality of conditions dumbing the nation down, but because America is still satisfied as an extension of England to borrow English sciences and apply them as needed in the pursuit of material gain, as well as their arts. He also seems to think once America has borrowed all of the technology that it can, It will then need and focus more on research and scientific theory. I think this has brought up enough times now that we can sum it up as American pragmatism.
I was most struck by this observation:
I cannot accept the idea that America is separate from Europe, despite the ocean that divides them. I regard the people of the United States as the portion of the English people charged with exploiting the forests of the New World, while the rest of the nation, granted more leisure and less preoccupied with life’s material cares, can indulge in thought and develop the human mind in every way possible.As for science, I am surprised he does not mention Benjamin Franklin, a sensation in France, and his groundbreaking experiments in electricity.
Chapter 10 WHY AMERICANS DEVOTE THEMSELVES MORE TO THE PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF SCIENCE THAN TO THE THEORYTocqueville continues with application of American pragmatism, that practical needs in the pursuit of material gains drive a thriving applied science, and scientific theory cannot be far behind in order to support further advances. Then he concludes with a warning the need for science to remain vigilant against barbarians at the gate.
for if there are peoples who allow the torch of enlightenment to be snatched from their grasp, there are others who use their own feet to stamp out its flames.Chapter 11 IN WHAT SPIRIT AMERICANS CULTIVATE THE ARTS
Briefly we are reminded that modest wealth, absence of excess, a universal desire for well-being and a taste for enhancing the convenience of life rather than a taste for embellishment drives a preference for the useful over the beautiful. He goes further and explains that producers in aristocracies sought to sell very expensive products to a few customers, but democratic producers sell things more cheaply to everyone. Does anyone sense any influence, or lack of influence from Adam Smith? Tocqueville suggests this low quality, high volume mentality also affects the fine arts in the same way
Chapter 12 WHY AMERICANS BUILD SUCH INSIGNIFICANT AND SUCH GREAT MONUMENTS AT THE SAME TIMEMy question concerning this chapter is, why?
Chapter 13 THE LITERARY ASPECT OF DEMOCRATIC CENTURIESTocqueville reports that bookstores in America are composed of reprinted European elementary texts, followed by religious books, followed by political pamphlets
American parties do battle not with books but with pamphlets, which circulate with incredible rapidity, survive for a brief time, and then die.Hidden among this main bulk of books is small sampling of European literature and most of those are British works which many Americans treasure these books, even if they have little time to devote to them evidenced by his observations of copies of Shakespeare found in remote pioneer homes. Domestic literary works are writing in the British style but are so inaccurate they are not popular in Britain and the sale of any book in America heavily depends on its popularity in Britain. Tocqueville concludes that Americans have no literature of their own, beyond domestic journalists.
He says this current lack of literary works is not the fault of democracy alone and surprisingly he blames all of the equal but different, educational backgrounds, varying degrees of enlightenment, and intellects differing from previous generations and even themselves from moments before making it impossible to craft works that appeal to a general mass market. In a nutshell, America does not know what it wants to read or write about yet.
There is also American pragmatism and good old escapism that causes American readers to:
insist on facile beauties that yield of their own accord and can be enjoyed immediately. Above all they require surprise and novelty. Habituated to practical life, to competition and monotony, they have need of intense and rapid emotions, sudden illuminations, and glaring truths or errors to wrench them out of their own lives and plunge them instantly and almost violently into the heart of the subject. Need I say more? Who cannot guess what is to follow?My guess is, Harlequin Romances and pulp fiction, although I create my own paradox because I like pulp fiction?
Why did Tocqueville omit mention of Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper whose prominence should have at least been aided by the mere fact of being present on an admittedly short list of contenders?
Chapter 14 ON THE LITERARY INDUSTRY
Tocqueville seems to be saying here that the democratic tendency for high volume and low cost, and thus lower quality, carries into the literary industry.
Chapter 15 WHY THE STUDY OF GREEK AND LATIN IS PARTICULARLY USEFUL IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES
Books from antiquity are not only valued for their ability to prop us up, but in a democracy, they serve to balance the high volume and lower quality of works that are the norm.
Tocqueville then says, in summary of these literary chapters that classics are not and should not be the focus of a democracy and reserved for the excellent schools and students:
It is obvious that in democratic societies individual interest as well as the security of the state requires that the education of the majority be scientific, commercial, and industrial rather than literary.
Chapter 16 HOW AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS CHANGED THE ENGLISH LANGUAGEWhat is the old joke? America and Britain, two countries separated by a common language?
We learn of the British complaints of how the Americans change the language.
1. Words were appropriated from mechanical arts or business.
2. English words were given new meanings.
3. Sometimes American combine words in a way the English would not.
I wish we had been given some examples.
Aristocracies are slow to change their language because they are relatively stable with few new things coming into being. In contrast, Democracies need a more fluid language to cover the frenzy of change that is always occurring. Therefore, some words are retired, repurposed, or new words are introduced.
Tocqueville also explains American’s have had little exposure to Greek and Latin root languages and therefore ignore the rules of etymology when creating new ones.
American pragmatism raises its head again as Tocqueville also complains of the democratic tendency to simplify things by generalizing them or speaking abstractly making their meaning less precise and harder to follow. I think it is funny that I find myself thinking the same thing at much of Tocqueville’s writing. But he did try to warn us that the French are even more passionate about generalizations than the Americans. Is he right to complain or can some of this be written off by the fact he is a foreigner whose English was not flawless?
David wrote: "...1. One of the most familiar weaknesses of the human mind is the wish to reconcile contrary principles and buy peace at the expense of logic. . ."Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Michele wrote: "David wrote: "...1. One of the most familiar weaknesses of the human mind is the wish to reconcile contrary principles and buy peace at the expense of logic. . ."Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
(view spoiler)
(Sorry, Michele. My French is non-existent. I hope Google is accurate in its translation.)
There's a note in my edition saying that AdT's MS has a note in the margin identifying Irving and Cooper (and one other writer unfamiliar to me) as having genuine merit and deserving to be read in Europe.
Roger wrote: "There's a note in my edition saying that AdT's MS has a note in the margin identifying Irving and Cooper (and one other writer unfamiliar to me) as having genuine merit and deserving to be read in ..."I had heard a rumor about Irving and Cooper being mentioned in some of his notes or letters, thanks for confirming it. My question still stands. Why did he leave them out? Is he trying to make his generalization a stronger one by omitting some details, or does a claim to literary achievement needs more than just two writers?
David wrote: "He goes further and explains that producers in aristocracies sought to sell very expensive products to a few customers, but democratic producers sell things more cheaply to everyone. Does anyone sense any influence, or lack of influence from Adam Smith?"I'm not sure about the influence of Adam Smith (haven't read WON myself), but a couple of passages from this chapter jumped out at me. Particularly, when AT states "Thus democracy not only tends to direct the human mind toward the useful arts, it brings artisans to make many imperfect things very rapidly, and the consumer to content himself with these things."
While it is not clear to me that AT isn't merely entangling democracy with capitalism, his point is well taken these days, what with mass produced art. I immediately think of Thomas Kinkade prints.
Yet, at other times, it seems like we're not in danger of what AT warns about. Our L.A. Times had an interesting article, just today, entitled "The $91-million sale of a cheesy Jeff Koons statue shows the need for a wealth tax" .
Interesting stuff.
David wrote: "Chapter 8 HOW DEMOCRACY SUGGESTS TO THE AMERICANS THE IDEA OF MAN’S INFINITE PERFECTIBILITYTocqueville proposes the characteristic that sets man apart from animals is the concept of improving or p..."
At the end of chapter 8, AT recounts an encounter with an American sailor, and then in the following paragraph, states "In these words pronounced at random by a coarse man concerning a particular fact I perceive the general and systematic idea according to which a great people conducts all things."
I don't know about all of you, but this one sentence seems like it is betraying a supremely flawed methodology for generalization, particularly in a work such as this. Did anyone else get a bit nervous reading this?
Kyle wrote: "I don't know about all of you, but this one sentence seems like it is betraying a supremely flawed methodology for generalization, particularly in a work such as this. Did anyone else get a bit nervous reading this?"In this case I saw the sailor's statement as less of yet another suspicious generalization than an analogy for, or even an example of, the concept of infinite perfection born of the constant renewal and improvement from perpetual change.
David wrote: "...the concept of infinite perfection born of the constant renewal and improvement from perpetual change. "Probably totally a non sequitur, but this whole conversation reminded me of this article by Christopher Hutchens in which he includes this quotation from Sir Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics at Cambridge University and who "also holds the pleasingly archaic title of Astronomer Royal":
“Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun’s demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
I'm no fan of dear Mr. Hutchens, but I do enjoy at times his ability to cut through to some amazing insights (even if this is a quoted one). But I will also say, as much as I sometimes squirm in the face of Tocqueville's generalizations, especially given the global developments of the years since 1840 and of human evolving understanding of history and in the sciences, I am increasingly enjoying observing that young mind of his struggle with what to record at his particular point in living.
David wrote: "Chapter 13 THE LITERARY ASPECT OF DEMOCRATIC CENTURIES"Reading T's notes on the future of literature in America immediately brought to mind today's movie and television programming, not to mention YouTube. For readers, substitute viewers; for books, substitute media.
"Authors will aim for rapidity of execution rather than perfection of detail. Short texts will be more common than long books, wit more common than erudition, and imagination more common than depth. An uncultivated, almost savage, vigor will dominate throught, whose products will frequently exhibit a very great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will seek to astonish rather than to please and to engage the passions rather than beguile taste.
"The ever-growing multitude of readers and their constant need for novelty ensure that even books that readers hold in low esteem will sell."
Mohammed made not only religious doctrines, but also political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and scientific theories descend from heaven and placed them in the Koran. The Gospel, in contrast, speaks only of the general relationships of men with God and with each other. Beyond that, it teaches nothing and requires no belief in anything. That alone, among [747] a thousand other reasons, is enough to show that the first of these two religions cannot long dominate during times of enlightenment and democracy, whereas the second is destined to reign during these centuries as in all others.This paragraph it's quite funny, because it proves that the right religion is precisely the religion that he follows. What would he thing if he lived in our era? When he says the golpel he is talking about the New Testament, isn't? because the Old Testament has a lot of "political maxims, civil and criminal laws".
Rafael wrote: "Mohammed made not only religious doctrines, but also political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and scientific theories descend from heaven and placed them in the Koran. The Gospel, in contrast, sp..."Yes, the Gospel (etymologically "good news") refers to the teaching of Christ.
Maybe GR has a new bug because this thread did not appeared as "a new comment was added" to me.Thank you, Roger.
A sidebar of some of the founder's views concerning the arts.In all such instances, Jefferson’s focus is on useful beauty. America is not to be a plushy or lavish country. What is so undesirable about extravagance? Jefferson’s concern is that aesthetic overindulgence will work against his republican political reforms and moral aims. Aesthetic indulgence—too much art and too many useless items—is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge, and when doing so, they do so at the expense of the unwealthy, which are the majority. Jefferson’s political reforms, in keeping with his moral aims, are targeted at an equitable distribution of wealth that does not privilege the wellborn or the progeny of the wealthy. His aim is to allow for a rough equality of opportunity, where virtue and talent, not wealth and good birth, will rise.
The notion that aesthetic indulgence works against republican government is a sentiment which might be dubbed the paradox of aesthetic cultivation and was shared by many American’s of republican bent. “The more elegance,” wrote John Adams to his wife, “the less virtue, in all times and countries.” Though the arts were capable of refining taste and enhancing understanding, they could also, if overdone or done badly, “seduce, betray, deceive, deprave, corrupt, and debauch.” In short, over-cultivation of aesthetic sensibility can readily lead to political instability and moral obliquity. Over-cultivation was also indicative of superfluous wealth and luxury, and thus was, in keeping with the four-stage theory of social maturation accepted during the time, symptomatic of social decay.
Holowchak, M. Andrew. Thomas Jefferson: Moralist (pp. 36-37). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
David wrote: "In all such instances, Jefferson’s focus is on useful beauty. America is not to be a plushy or lavish country. What is so undesirable about extravagance? Jefferson’s concern is that aesthetic overindulgence will work against his republican political reforms and moral aims. Aesthetic indulgence—too much art and too many useless items—is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge, and when doing so, they do so at the expense of the unwealthy, which are the majority. ..."For many of us who have visited Monticello, what a lovely, soft irony in those words, a gorgeous home in a rather spectacular setting, once maintained by slaves. Given my other indulgences, I probably could, but for all its appeal, I have never acquired the replica of the Jeffersonian book-reading turntable that I have coveted. Yes, I am implying "aesthetic indulgence" is a very relative term, not just to the builders of those sod houses of the prairie or to survivors of the bread lines of the Great Depression or those abandoned cabins T saw, but in everyday lives across many economic strata.
If unfamiliar with that revolving bookstand: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1545298...
(Yet Walmart and China have certainly altered the dynamics, too.)
And
Chapter 6 ON THE PROGRESS OF CATHOLICISM IN THE UNITED STATES
I found everything to disagree with in these chapters, but I do not doubt it is a belief he shared with those he observed professing it. He starts by stating the direct correlation between equality and the belief in a single god. I don’t know which of the following ideas I find most disagreeable but they clearly come as a pair to those who surrender this part of their lives to a religious authority:His concluding ideas here is that the clergy respects the separation of church and state and religion shores up the weaknesses of equal conditions in a democracy by combating isolation and the vulnerabilities of material pleasures and the attractions of unity and organization of the catholic Church, allowing its past political indiscretions are forgiven, will eventually win over the Christian population that has not fallen into doubt.
It is my understanding anti-Catholic prejudices were not demonstratively overcome until the election of JFK in 1960.Chapter 7 WHAT MAKES THE MIND OF DEMOCRATIC PEOPLES RECEPTIVE TO PANTHEISM
Tocqueville suggest that pantheism subsumes God and the universe into a single whole in the same way democracy has subsumed the individual into a single mass of equals. While these two unifying effects may seem to be a similar and thus a seductive match, it should be resisted in order to maintain man’s true greatness. It is a wonder that Tocqueville, who praises the founding fathers on their enlightenment ideas applied to politics, did not detect or contemplate the effect of the pervasive deist sentiments implicit among them.