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Alexis De Tocqueville: The Dangers Of Democracy In America

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Democracy in America is a literary masterpiece written from the perspective of a visitor to America who was able to combine his ability to see America as a member of European aristocracy with his first hand experiences of democracy in the States. This visitor, a French noble known as Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America in 1831 in order to study American prisons and examine the form of democracy which the newly founded United States had adopted as their mode of government. Tocquville was fascinated by the democratic foundations of America because he perceived that many of the nations of Europe would soon follow suit by abolishing the aristocratic aspects that had dominated European society for centuries and replacing the feudalistic standards …show more content…

Speaking about majority rule and its dangers in Democracy in America, Tocqueville stated, “I am therefore of opinion, that social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its course, and give it time to moderate its own vehemence”. Tocqueville acknowledged that majority rule gave power to a greater portion of the people, but that it undeniably suppressed the voices of minorities and underrepresented certain parties and factions. According to Tocqueville, majority rule had the potential and the tendency to plant weeds of tyranny that, unless identified and removed, would overtake the beautiful garden bed of democracy. Tocqueville describes the difficulty of remedying the advancement of “tyranny of the majority” because the principles that cause this negative and disastrous political phenomenon are the same principles that democracies are founded on and revolve around throughout their existence. The very principles and values that swell the bosom of mankind with aspirations of liberty, freedom, and equality can be the ultimate cause of their societal individuality. Looking to the future of America, Tocqueville firmly believed that the ultimate undoing of America and most democratic entities would be in the demeaning and degrading of the transcendent and noble attributes and traits of democracy by the tyrannical acts of the ruling

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