Democracy in America

Tocqueville remains preoccupied with what he calls “mores”—what we might term cultural practices, social norms, and habits. In aristocracies each social group has its own concept of these things: “Thus the men who compose it do not resemble everyone else; they do not have the same manner of thinking or of feeling, and they scarcely believe themselves to be a part of the same humanity” (535). What mutual aid was offered was out of obligations that existed between classes, not a universal social bond.

Equality in democracy results in a growing sense of common humanity, and Tocqueville turns to legal structures to bolster this argument. In democracies penal codes are generally “milder” between citizens but stricter for slaves (537). International norms also become “milder” as people recognize that foreign nations are made up of people like them (539).

As he considers everyday social interactions, Tocqueville argues that rigid English social structures actually produced less “constrained” behavior; two English people know exactly how they should behave with one another (539). As these have broken down, anxiety and uncertainty result. The lack of these structures in America produces different results, as “strangers willingly gather in the same places and find neither advantage nor peril in freely communicating their thoughts to each other” (540).

Rules of etiquette are another casualty of democratization—as people become more equal these rules become “mixed and confused” (541), and results in Americans rarely assuming they are being demeaned by someone else’s conduct. This is magnified by democratic politics, as the “political institutions of the United States constantly put citizens of all classes in contact and force them to pursue great undertakings in common” (542).

Arrival in Europe disquiets Americans as they are aware they do not have clear position in the class hierarchies around them. Observing his social interactions with American expatriates, Tocqueville states, “He weighs your least moves, questions your glances, and carefully analyzes all your discourses for fear that they contain some hidden allusions that wound him” (543). Americans then overcompensate by striving to emphasize their personal wealth or their ties to the Founding Fathers or early settlers. Thus, American ease and comfort in socialization is a product of environment and is not innate.

The growing sense of fellow feeling that Americans experience, Tocqueville concludes, leads them to readily help each other in times of crisis. This is fully compatible with American individualism, as “experience is not slow to teach them that although they do not have an habitual need of assistance from others, some moment almost always arrives when they cannot do without it” (545). Community bonds arise out of necessity and shared vulnerability.