Political philosopher Harvey C. Mansfield spoke at Notre Dame on Wednesday afternoon on how to interpret Alexander de Tocqueville’s famous commentary, “Democracy in America.” A world renowned philosopher, Mansfield is a professor of government at Harvard University where he has taught since 1962.
Central to Tocqueville’s work, written in 1835, is the idea that “democracy is not without an alternative,” Mansfield explained. In fact, the whole book contrasts the “two types of social states” — democracy and aristocracy.
“In democracy, we choose to see all human beings as alike,” Mansfield said. “In aristocracy, they choose to see human beings as separate and distinctive.”
Tocqueville was the perfect man to explore these ideas, Mansfield said.
“Tocqueville, of course, was well placed. He was an aristocrat, born in 1805 after the French Revolution,” Mansfield said. “So he knows aristocracy and democracy.”
Mansfield detailed how the revolutionary nature of democracy presents new challenges for how to govern practically.
“Democracy means everybody is equal,” Mansfield said. “When everybody is equal, no one stands out. No one is an authority, so government still is necessary, and when government makes a command, people say, ‘Why command? We are all equal.’ Democrats naturally treat authority with suspicion but they still have to obey.”
This contradiction “degrades the soul” of democrats, Mansfield said, as they are forced to act against their own ideals, creating the central problem of democracy that Tocqueville explores.
“They’re obeying an authority that they don’t regard as legitimate,” Mansfield said.
Mansfield explained that in order to deal with this contradiction, Tocqueville realized American democracy contains certain “aristocratic” features that allow its democracy to exist.
Perhaps the most visible way in which this takes place is the structure of the American government, Mansfield said. He stressed while the idea of government positions seemingly goes against the democratic ideal of equality, the fact that the people choose their leaders dispels this notion.
“These people in [government] are not perfectly equal. Democracy, in order to govern itself, even at the lowest level, … requires offices. Offices establish formal inequalities, but they don’t challenge the principles of democracy,” Mansfield said, adding that a politician is “not better than you, he’s just in an office which gives him authority over you, so you can obey him without degrading your soul.”
The very idea of law also plays into the notion of aristocratic means supporting democratic ends, Mansfield said. In this system, the people follow laws because they have a say in crafting the law that rules over the law — the Constitution.
“Constitutional law is made by the people, ordinary law is made over the people,” he said.
In the end, Mansfield said that “what the people want, they will get.”
Tocqueville came to the conclusion that juries, too, while seemingly existing above the law, are actually a means to ensure laws are employed in a democratic manner, Mansfield said.
“Juries teach Americans how to rule. Having a law doesn’t mean settling an issue. You have to see individual circumstances,” he explained.
These aristocratic, somewhat undemocratic institutions, Mansfield explained, are ultimately aimed at the end goal of democracy.
“The people are the cause and the end of all things,” Mansfield said. “Democracy is not only a form of government, but an end.”
This unorthodox format was deemed by Tocqueville to be necessary for democracy to properly function, Mansfield said.
“There is never a complete or perfect fit between form and matter, between democracy and human nature, and therefore, the form is always arbitrary to some extent,” he said. “It is all democracy, but it can have aristocratic aspects, not so-called, not identified as such, but which improve democracy.”
Harvey C. Mansfield lectures on Tocqueville at Notre Dame
Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield presents a lecture titled “How to Read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.”
