reading books recommended by stephen breyer: part two (democracy in america)

Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville)

Hello! I have returned! Because I am just so considerate and sensible, I have split up my veritable treatise on Stephen Breyer books into two parts. You do not want to read everything I have to say about Democracy in America tacked on to everything I have to say about The Plague and In Search of Lost Time. 

(You may have already read my review of this book on goodreads, in which case you should skip to the subheading "judging stephen breyer for liking this book" if you are interested in hearing even more of my opinions).

Democracy in America is a 900 page political treatise about, well, democracy in America. I don't think you should read it. I liked it a lot, but I don't recommend it. The target audience is so specific. The conditions under which you should read this book are the following: you are so interested in politics. You love American political culture (or learning about it, anyway) so much. You would like to read 900 pages about this subject. This probably does not describe you, and that's okay. We all have our obscure interests, and they are probably all different.

If I met someone who had read and enjoyed this book, I would marry them like that. Their personality does not matter. Actually, the only person I know of who has read and enjoyed this book is Stephen Breyer, and I would not marry Stephen Breyer, so conditions apply, I guess.

Anyway! Democracy in America is a fun romp through the American political universe in the 1830s. Well, it isn't a fun romp, really, but I enjoyed it. Our intrepid author/narrator Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, visited the U.S. in the 1830s and had such a lovely time he wrote a book about it. That's the premise. It's pretty straightforward. But there are a lot of really interesting insights that I'm going to spend far too long talking about.

Democracy in America has two volumes, and they're really different. Volume one is about American government, and volume two focuses more on American society. But I am going to talk about volume two first because I started this blog post and then I realized I had forgotten that volume one existed.

equality of conditions: what does that even mean?

Alexis says towards the beginning of Democracy in America that a major phenomenon that affects American sociopolitical culture is "equality of conditions." That's, like, one of his major theses. He doesn't, however, explain what he means by that. So this book becomes 50% political treatise and 50% trying to figure out what the heck Alexis means by the phrase "equality of conditions."

It is important to note that women and ethnic/religious minorities did not have political rights back in the day, but Alexis persistently thinks of white Christian men as the default kind of American, so he does not let this inconvenient fact get in the way of his thesis. He does spend a good amount of time talking about the oppression of people of color in a really long chapter which is only moderately racist, and he briefly talks about women in America, but when he is not specifically talking about women and people of color, it is pretty clear that he is talking about white Christian men and only their equality of conditions.

At first, I thought that equality of conditions meant that white men enjoyed relative economic equality, that is, American society has never been constituted by a tiny aristocracy that has everything and the impoverished masses who have nothing. And Alexis does mean this, but he's also talking about social mobility and the consequences that stem from that. Being rich and being poor, he says, are not immutable characteristics. The rich can become poor and the poor can become rich. And because rich and poor aren't castes or rigid social classes, the rich and the poor are treated equally in a lot of ways: by society, by each other, and in terms of their political rights. And that's the heart of "equality of conditions." 

So, according to Alexis, "equality of conditions" means that your socioeconomic status does not preclude you from participating fully in society. The rich and the poor aren't discrete social classes, and that contributes to homogeneity in America, which has broad social consequences.

alexis cannot imagine a peaceful pluralistic democracy

Now, remember, this is one of Alexis's central theses, and maybe the most important one: relative socioeconomic homogeneity (and the average American's perception of this homogeneity) is a foundation stone of American democracy and society. A lot of things stem from this. Because the rich and the poor don't see each other as being so different, they see their interests as similar, and they are willing to live under the same government. Americans feel more kinship and sympathy for each other. They are more friendly and agreeable. 

(Oh, this "equality of conditions" also allegedly means that Americans really like money and material goods because, since socioeconomic status is so mutable, there's no permanent aristocratic leisure class. Like, if you're rich, you may well have once been poor or middle class, and you know you could become poor or middle class again, so you still care a lot about money. And if you're poor or middle class, you have a decent shot of moving up in the world, so you're inclined to be really focused on money and social mobility. But that's not so relevant here.)

The secret sauce, as it were, for American democracy is homogeneity. And so far I have been talking about economic homogeneity, but Alexis extends this to racial, philosophical, and religious homogeneity as well. To give you some examples real fast, he thinks slavery is a problem, but he doesn't see how black people can be integrated into American society and predicts a huge race war in the South. He sees liberty as being fundamentally tied up with Christianity (i.e., one must be Christian to appreciate liberty), and he refers to atheists as "the natural enemy of the people" because their ideas cannot be tolerated among a free people.

There's a quote that I think summarizes Alexis's opinion really well:

"I cannot accept the proposition that men constitute a society simply because they recognize the same leader and obey the same laws. Society exists only when men see many things in the same way and have the same opinions about many subjects and, finally, when the same facts give rise to the same impressions and the same thoughts. Once the question is framed in this way, anyone who studies what is happening in the United States can easily see that, even though its inhabitants are are divided among twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they nevertheless constitute a single people. Indeed, he may even reach the conclusion that there is more reality to the state of society that exists in the Anglo-American Union than in certain European nations, even though the latter are governed by a single set of laws and subject to a single ruler. Although the Anglo-Americans have several religions, they all look at religion in the same way . . . . If we turn our attention from political and religious ideas to the philosophical and moral opinions that regulate everyday actions and guide conduct in general, we find the same agreement.

The upshot is that Alexis finds it hard to conceive of a reasonably functional pluralistic democracy. I don't have anything else to say about that. It's just weird to read about as a citizen of a reasonably functional pluralistic democracy.

america is great because america is good

When I was googling why the phrase "nation of joiners" appears nowhere in my book (it turns out Alexis de Tocqueville never used that phrase; I feel lied to), I found an article about how Bill Clinton misquoted Alexis de Tocqueville in a speech as saying "America is great because America is good." And it's true that Alexis never said that, but it's actually a really good summary of stuff he did say. 

I guess a more apt phrase might be something like "America is special because Americans are boring" because Alexis only really makes value judgements about slavery and atheists (both of which, everyone knows, are bad, and similar amounts of bad). 

Americans, Alexis claims, are really lukewarm in every way. There are no brilliant minds, but almost everyone is reasonably educated. (Personally, I think that Alexis had always been around super educated aristocrats when he went to America, so meeting people who didn't know every philosopher was weird to him and skewed his perception.) Americans are rarely heroic, but they're broadly sympathetic and charitable. There is no great American art, but there's a lot of pretty okay art. 

Alexis thinks this pattern occurs because there's no aristocracy that centers their lives around immaterial values; there's just a lot of normal members of the middle class with normal obligations. Remember my paragraph long parenthetical about how America has no aristocratic leisure class and everyone cares about money and material things? That's a big part of it. A lot of European philosophers were aristocrats; if you don't have super educated people who like to think and write all day (and have the time), you don't have a lot of great thinkers. If everyone cares more about material things than abstract values, no one sacrifices themselves for dreams and ideas (but if everyone is the same social class, they feel more sympathetic and charitable to each other). 

I think this is Alexis's other major thesis (America is special because Americans are boring). I could be missing one. I took notes, but a lot of them are stuff like (these are direct quotes) "the crowd do be wise" and "tbh i was mostly asleep during this chapter" and "i think my dad is pretty cool although he is currently waging a fruitless battle with an air conditioner" in illegible cursive. 

So, those are Alexis's two major theses: everyone is super equal, and everyone is super boring. I think the first thesis is pretty good, and the second one is trash.

the first thesis is pretty good and the second one is trash

Sorry this is getting so long! Actually, I'm not sorry because I enjoy having opinions. But if you're still reading, you're a legend, and I appreciate you. 

I like Alexis's first thesis a lot. Not the part about homogeneity being vital to the survival of American democracy, the part about the similarity between the rich and poor being important. I guess I'm an American exceptionalist, not because I think that America is perfect and so much better than every other country, but because I think that America is unique in good ways. Like—relevantly—we don't have an aristocracy and we never have. I mean, we have wealth inequality, and that sucks, but there has never been a class that got special privileges under law by virtue of their generational wealth. No one gets to be more important (at least in theory) than anyone else because their family is rich. You have the same legal and political rights no matter what class you are. A lot of countries are like that today, but how many have always been more or less like that? How many of them were founded on ideas like that? I think it's neat, anyway.

The second thesis is trash. I don't know, maybe Americans were all boring in the 1830s, but that's not true anymore. I really think that Alexis only knew aristocrats in France so he was confused when he met normal Americans. We have great thinkers. We have heroes. We have good art. Alexis alleges at one point that we don't have theater. We have Broadway, what does France have?? 

I had a friend who thought Alexis de Tocqueville was a woman when I brought up that I was reading this book. Alexis was not a woman. If Alexis was a woman, he might have been less likely to assume he knew everything about everything. 

now i am going to talk about volume one and it's going to be shorter, i swear

If you have ever read one of my Western Civ papers, you will know that I love talking about how great democracy is at every opportunity. So part one was, as the kids say, my jam.

A lot of volume one is just explanation of how the American political system works: the federal government vs the state government, the court system, legislatures, stuff you learn in AP Gov. But Alexis also talks about how fragile democracy is, and what citizens need to do to protect it.

In chapter five of part one, Alexis explains how local government works and how important it is. He points out that a lot of administrative roles—law enforcement, taxation, local development—are filled at the local level. Average people can run for local office, and voters have more direct control over the levels of government that affect them the most. When the people have direct control over who carries out administrative tasks, they have more ownership of their government than if everything important was decided by huge, inaccessible national elections.

I also rather enjoyed chapter six of part two, which talks about some of the societal advantages caused by democratic government. Ordinary people have more respect for the rule of law, the government adheres to the will of the people, society is more prosperous, and the average person is better off. But people also have more dignity, and pride in themselves and their country. Something important is gained when the people own the government.

Throughout volume one, Alexis talks all the time about how weak the federal government is and how strong state and local governments are. And that's strange to read about because it's not really true anymore. The federal government has a lot more power, and lots of people don't participate in local government anymore—the voter turnout rate nationwide for local elections is, like, 20%. While I was reading Democracy in America, those changes really stuck out to me. I wonder how many of the problems with modern American political culture would be solved if local and state governments had more power, and if voters participated more at those levels of government.

Something that really resonated with me was when Alexis said in part two chapter nine that living in a democracy requires people to take ownership of their government. He was writing this book in the context of increasing liberalization and democratization in Europe, and he hypothesized that if the common people didn't take control of their political system, they would succumb to despotism. I think that applies in modern America, too. If the average person doesn't care about politics, it makes it really easy for a small elite group or an aspiring dictator to seize control. It's easy to steal what no one guards.

Anyway, here's my favorite quote from this whole book:

The people reign over the American political world as God reigns over the universe. They are the cause and end of all things; everything proceeds from them, and to them everything returns.

Maybe that's an exaggeration, and maybe it always has been, but I'd like to believe it's true.

 

some more of my personal thoughts on this book

The trouble with Alexis de Tocqueville is that he makes so many sweeping generalizations. Americans are all the same. Americans are prone to feeling pity. American women are smart and sensible (that one is true). Americans are not easily offended. Americans only care about money. Americans are self-absorbed. And he has no evidence. He just says things. And you'll think "oh, this claim is reasonable, this is a good point," but you actually have no idea if it is a good point or if you just have Unfounded Claim Stockholm Syndrome. If there had been even one (1) public opinion poll in this book, I would have loved it. Immediate five stars. Not just because public opinion polls are the way to my heart, but because this book needed one (or ten, or several dozen) desperately.

Alexis is also just... wrong. A lot. Not only does he make broad, unverifiable assumptions about things that he has no special knowledge of, he also makes predictions that are just wrong. Like, the federal government hasn't gotten weaker, and additional states being added to the union hasn't sown division on account of residents of each state being too different to live under the same government. The race war he predicted didn't materialize. Notably, we have a reasonably functional peaceful pluralistic society. It is sort of fun when he's wrong, though. I enjoy anachronisms.

Oh, and he also likes to say the same thing in several different ways for several sentences. I brought this book to the dentist, and my mom was reading the introduction because she was bored while the dental hygienist was stabbing my gums repeatedly. (You might think, oh, it's her job to clean under your gums, and I thought that too, I thought maybe I was just imagining that she was being especially stabby. And then she caught my lip. With the pokey tooth-scraper. Don't worry, it didn't hurt). My mom said she thought she was going crazy because Alexis would just say broad claims in slightly different ways for a whole paragraph. This is a feature, not a bug. Or, it is a bug because it's bad and dumb, but the whole book is like this all the time.

Despite my gripes and objections, I really enjoyed Democracy in America. I've been reading it for almost a month now, and although some parts are more trash than others, it's enjoyable on the whole. It's a nice book to read before bed. The prose isn't too bad. It's fancy, but it's not impenetrable. Alexis has a lot of really interesting ideas. Some of them are better than others. This book made me think. It made me think about the advantages and disadvantages of democracy. It made me think about the founding ideals of our country. It made me think about how democracies are fragile, and it made me think about the responsibilities that citizens have to maintain democracies. Stephen Breyer said that American democracy is "a kind of miracle." There were a lot of points in this book that really made me reflect on the accuracy of that statement (it is an accurate statement).

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

judging stephen breyer for liking this book

It is clear to me—primarily because I read this interview—that Stephen Breyer really likes Alexis's emphasis on the benefits of the people owning to government and his insights on how policy is decided by ordinary people. Everything comes from them, and to them everything returns. Stephen Breyer is a big fan of democracy, which is a good thing in a judge.

I find it strange that he hasn't commented on Alexis's disdain towards pluralism. Stephen Breyer is a huge fan of pluralism! He thinks it is an integral part of who we are as a country. You should read his opinion in Carson v. Makin if you think this is cool.

There isn't a lot here to judge, I guess. This is a book about democracy in America, which is basically Stephen Breyer's job. It makes sense to me that he likes it. 

some concluding thoughts

Overall, I would say that Stephen Breyer has good taste in books, although I don't understand why his favorite books are so pretentious Frenchman-heavy. I had a good time with this project. Maybe after this I will reread Making Our Democracy Work (the best book by Stephen Breyer).

I can't decide whether I liked Democracy in America or The Plague better, although The Plague is the one I would recommend to other people if you are interested in that sort of thing. I would not recommend you read In Search of Lost Time unless you have crazy levels of reading comprehension and are bored with normal sentence structures.