After Tocqueville · Democracy in America (1840)
In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville described a new form of despotism — one that had never existed before, for which existing political vocabulary had no name.
Not the despotism of tyrants. Something softer, more comfortable, and perhaps more permanent. A society in which citizens have retreated into private pleasure and comfort, surrendered public self-governance to administrative bureaucracy, and remain technically free while being practically managed.
“It is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.”He wrote this about 19th century America. Read it again.
15 questions. How far has it gone in your society — and in yourself?
15 questions · About 5 minutes