Autor: Mansfield, Harvey C.

Buch: Tocqueville

Titel: Tocqueville

Stichwort: Tocqueville; informelle Demokratie 3 - Gleichheit und Ähnlichkeit;

Kurzinhalt:

Textausschnitt: Equality and similarity

48a Behind informal institutions is the informal sovereignty of public opinion. In this Tocqueville agrees with Mill, but he is far less optimistic. Mill believed that public opinion could be led by intellectuals like himself, exuding enlightenment, but Tocqueville, while agreeing that the few are more enlightened than the many, thought it more likely that intellectuals would be led by public opinion than lead it. They would not be listened to if they tried to lecture and exhort in the manner of Mill; they would be compelled to serve public opinion. Democratic intellectuals such as Mill tend to be more democratic than the democratic people, while reserving an exception for themselves as instructors of the people. True, Tocqueville himself seeks to “instruct democracy,” as he says in the introduction to Democracy in America. But he does so through candid analysis of its virtues and faults, mixed with muted praise, rather than by arguing for democracy and blaming its opponents. Without indignation he calmly contrasts democracy with aristocracy. (Fs)

48b Public opinion has greater power in democracy than in aristocracy because in the former all are equal or thought equal. No individual or group has more authority than the people, so no one can stand up visibly against them, as happens easily in an aristocracy. The rule of public opinion is in accord with the democratic social state, the Tocquevillean concept that is both prior to politics and determined by politics. Though public opinion in fact rules in a democracy, it does not seem to rule because it has no identifiable representative to whom one must listen. It is, to be sure, formed by intellectuals, politicians, and journalists, but since all claim to follow it, no one takes responsibility for it. When public opinion changes, replacing favor with disfavor or vice versa, it does so without explanation, as it is not accountable to anyone. Some may try to interpret public opinion, but public opinion will not say whether they are correct. Its sovereign decisions are not subject to reason, and one cannot object to them that they are inconsistent or short-sighted. Public opinion will be heard but will not listen when it does not wish to. (Fs) (notabene)

49a Democratic public opinion rests on equality, but the nature of this equality needs to be considered. How does democracy deal with obvious natural inequalities? In a democracy each person thinks himself equal to everyone else. The thought of equality is more powerful than the fact of inequality because it can create equality when it does not find it. Your neighbor may be richer than you, but if you think of him as your equal, that is what he becomes. Tocqueville uses the notion of one’s similars (semblables), or those like oneself, to denote the creative power of democratic public opinion. Your neighbor is not exactly your equal but is someone like you, despite being more or less rich or beautiful or intelligent. Therefore you can treat him as equal, which means that his inequalities do not confer any authority on either him or you. (Fs) (notabene)
49b One must apply the notion of semblable to Tocqueville’s statement that the democratic revolution is bringing greater equality of condition, a statement some readers object to because it seems to overlook obvious inequalities that continue in what we call “democracy.” But what we call democracy is democracy. Democracy is the rule of equals and unequals, both considering themselves similar to one another. People perceived equal are equal in fact as opposed to equal in the abstract, an equality seen rarely if ever, and conceived by liberal theorists as the state of nature. Tocqueville replaces the so-called natural equality of man with the conventional equality of those who think all others are like themselves. Yet the conventional equality of similars is not simply arbitrary; it stands on the basis of the pride in human nature, by which each thinks himself important. For one can feel proud in having no superior (democracy) as well as proud in being superior (aristocracy). (Fs) (notabene)

50a When you bow to public opinion, you are not bowing to a particular person or group that might seem to be in authority over you. The vagueness of public opinion not only protects it from being accused or held accountable but also permits it to be an authority without feeling like one. Similarity in a democratic people makes democracy feel natural even though it is in good part conventional. While accepting the distinction between human nature and human convention, Tocqueville does not try to sharpen it in the manner of liberal theory, opposing the two as if they were hostile to each other, but instead he blends what is given with what is made. (Fs) (notabene)

50b Pride is both flattered and humiliated in the working of democratic public opinion. When one individual compares himself to another, he feels proud that he is the equal of each, but then when he compares himself to “the sum of those like him,” a vast body of people, he is overcome by the sensation of his own insignificance. Thus general opinion “puts an immense weight on the mind of each individual,” enveloping, directing, and oppressing him. The more people resemble one another, the weaker one person feels in face of all the others. He begins to distrust himself when he finds himself in disagreement with the majority, so that the majority “does not need to constrain him: it convinces him.” That is why great revolutions are rare in democracy, Tocqueville says. Democratic peoples have neither the time nor the taste to seek out new opinions; they stay with the familiar despite its faults regardless of the humiliation they suffer because they are subject to the majority. (Fs)