WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.839 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are doing 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:05.240 something a little bit different. Usually we 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:07.740 look at a specific event or, you know, a modern 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.119 trend, something ripped from the headlines. But 00:00:10.119 --> 00:00:13.259 today we're essentially sitting down. with a 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:15.660 time traveler. That is a very evocative way to 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.300 put it. And honestly, it's not really an exaggeration. 00:00:18.359 --> 00:00:20.780 It feels true, doesn't it? I mean, we are looking 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:22.899 at a man who walked around the United States 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:26.399 in the 1830s. Yeah. We're talking about a world 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:31.420 of muddy roads, stagecoaches, steamboats, the 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:34.399 very, very early frontier, a world where the 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:37.780 telegraph was barely even an idea. Right. A completely 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:40.060 different planet in some ways. And yet when you 00:00:40.060 --> 00:00:43.520 read his work today. Here in the 2020s, it feels 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:45.159 like he's scrolling through a Twitter feed or 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:47.899 watching the evening news. It's uncanny. It is. 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:50.700 He predicted the Cold War. He predicted the specific 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:53.640 kind of isolation and anxiety we feel in modern 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:56.039 life. He even, and this is the really spooky 00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:58.820 part, predicted the rise of a soft kind of tyranny 00:00:58.820 --> 00:01:00.979 that looks suspiciously like the algorithm driven, 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:03.619 convenience obsessed world we live in now. He 00:01:03.619 --> 00:01:06.780 absolutely did. He saw the seeds of our future 00:01:06.780 --> 00:01:09.859 in the soil of the 1830s. We are, of course, 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:12.250 talking about Alexis. to talk, Phil. The French 00:01:12.250 --> 00:01:15.750 aristocrat who came to America and wrote basically 00:01:15.750 --> 00:01:18.390 the ultimate book on it, Democracy in America. 00:01:18.569 --> 00:01:21.769 Exactly. And while he is often cited, you know, 00:01:21.769 --> 00:01:24.269 usually by politicians who want to sound smart 00:01:24.269 --> 00:01:27.049 or pundits who pull a single quote out of context 00:01:27.049 --> 00:01:30.209 to prove some point, the reality of who he was 00:01:30.209 --> 00:01:32.870 and what he actually saw is so much more complex 00:01:32.870 --> 00:01:35.159 and so much more interesting. so that's our mission 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:38.340 today to unpack how this man who came from a 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:40.540 family that was nearly wiped out by the guillotine 00:01:40.540 --> 00:01:43.819 in france became the ultimate explainer of democratic 00:01:43.819 --> 00:01:46.680 liberty but not just the good stuff no we aren't 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:47.900 just doing the highlight reel right we're going 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:50.099 to get into the messy stuff too we have to because 00:01:50.099 --> 00:01:52.659 the same man who wrote so eloquently about liberty 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:56.420 also held some very dark, often overlooked and 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:59.620 contradictory views on colonialism and race. 00:01:59.780 --> 00:02:01.840 OK, so we're looking at his biography, his major 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:04.420 works like Democracy in America, the Old Regime 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:06.700 and the Revolution, and also his travel writings 00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:09.840 on places like Algeria and Ireland. It's a massive 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:11.719 stack of sources today. We've got the biography, 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:14.879 the letters, the travel journals. So tone setter 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:17.419 for you, the listener. Imagine a guy looking 00:02:17.419 --> 00:02:20.919 at the chaos of Jacksonian America. I mean, the 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:23.599 rough manners, the constant elections, tobacco 00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:26.860 spitting, and somehow seeing the future of the 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:29.300 entire world. And importantly, he wasn't just 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.659 an observer. He wasn't just, you know, a tourist 00:02:31.659 --> 00:02:34.000 taking notes for the fun of it. He was a man 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.680 on a mission. He was trying to save France. He 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:38.580 was looking for a way to stop his own country 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:41.039 from making the same bloody mistakes it had made 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:43.560 in the past. OK, let's unpack this. Section one, 00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:47.020 the aristocrat who sailed west. And we really 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:48.680 have to start with where he came from because 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:52.680 his family background, it sounds absolutely terrifying. 00:02:52.979 --> 00:02:55.479 It was traumatic, to say the least. Alexis de 00:02:55.479 --> 00:02:58.560 Tocqueville was born on July 29th, 1805 in Paris 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:02.319 into an old aristocratic Norman family. But to 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:04.780 understand his psyche, his whole mindset, you 00:03:04.780 --> 00:03:06.620 have to look at the generation just before him. 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:08.879 He was the great grandson of the statesman Mel 00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:11.199 Zerbes. And for those who aren't up on their 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:14.740 French Revolution history, Smith Zerbes, he did 00:03:14.740 --> 00:03:17.740 not have a happy ending. No. He was a defender 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:21.060 of King Louis XVI, and for that loyalty, he was 00:03:21.060 --> 00:03:24.639 guillotined in 1794. Wow. And it wasn't just 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:27.639 him. Tocqueville's own parents, Irv and Louise, 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:31.259 they were imprisoned during the Terror, the bloodiest, 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.180 most paranoid phase of the French Revolution. 00:03:33.319 --> 00:03:35.620 They were on the list, scheduled to be executed. 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:38.039 So they were on death row, basically. They were. 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:39.979 They were in prison, watching their friends and 00:03:39.979 --> 00:03:41.840 family members being taken away to the guillotine, 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:44.539 day after day, knowing their turn was coming. 00:03:44.990 --> 00:03:46.969 Talk about a close call. I mean, how did they 00:03:46.969 --> 00:03:49.870 survive? Pure luck. They only escaped the guillotine 00:03:49.870 --> 00:03:52.229 because the man in charge, Maximilian Robespierre, 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:56.490 he fell from power in 1794. Ah, okay. Robespierre 00:03:56.490 --> 00:03:58.590 was overthrown and executed himself just days 00:03:58.590 --> 00:04:00.389 before Tocqueville's parents were scheduled to 00:04:00.389 --> 00:04:03.710 die. So they survived, but the trauma just, it 00:04:03.710 --> 00:04:05.550 never left them. And that must have completely 00:04:05.550 --> 00:04:08.289 shaped Tocqueville's childhood. Completely. He 00:04:08.289 --> 00:04:10.689 grew up in a world that felt incredibly fragile. 00:04:11.050 --> 00:04:13.800 He heard these stories constantly. There is this 00:04:13.800 --> 00:04:16.300 one famous detail that his father's hair turned 00:04:16.300 --> 00:04:18.500 pure white overnight in prison from the stress. 00:04:18.779 --> 00:04:21.519 White hair. How old was he? He was only 24 years 00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:23.819 old at the time. That is an incredibly vivid 00:04:23.819 --> 00:04:27.879 image. White hair at 24. Yeah. So when Tocqueville 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:30.899 looks at the people or the mob later in his life, 00:04:31.019 --> 00:04:34.360 he's not just thinking about voters or, you know, 00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:37.100 demographic statistics. He's thinking about the 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:40.360 force that almost annihilated his entire family. 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:42.620 Precisely. It gave him this profound sense of 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:45.879 the fragility of liberty. He realized that democracy 00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:48.300 wasn't just a political system. It was a tidal 00:04:48.300 --> 00:04:50.639 wave. It was this force of nature that could 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:53.500 so easily turn into tyranny if it wasn't handled 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:56.209 with extreme care. So he wasn't a Democrat by 00:04:56.209 --> 00:04:58.670 nature. Not at all. He was an aristocrat by birth 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:00.629 who was smart enough to realize that aristocracy 00:05:00.629 --> 00:05:02.769 was dead and he needed to understand what was 00:05:02.769 --> 00:05:05.990 coming next. OK, so fast forward to 1831. He's 00:05:05.990 --> 00:05:08.089 a young man, about 25 years old. He's working 00:05:08.089 --> 00:05:10.509 as a lawyer, a magistrate. But the political 00:05:10.509 --> 00:05:14.569 situation in France is messy again. It's always 00:05:14.569 --> 00:05:17.250 messy. The July monarchy has just taken over 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:20.939 and he's not a fan. He felt trapped. He wanted 00:05:20.939 --> 00:05:23.720 to get away, to see something new, and maybe 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:25.660 just let the political dust settle back home. 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:29.620 So he and his lifelong friend, Gustave de Beaumont, 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:32.060 they came up with a plan. But they couldn't just 00:05:32.060 --> 00:05:34.319 say, hey, we're going on a gap year to find ourselves, 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:37.060 right? They needed a reason. No, no. They needed 00:05:37.060 --> 00:05:39.360 an official reason to get a leave of absence 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:43.220 and, more importantly, government approval. So 00:05:43.220 --> 00:05:45.079 they pitched a mission to the French government. 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:47.540 They would go to the United States to examine 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:50.040 its prisons and penitentiaries. A prison tour. 00:05:50.139 --> 00:05:52.259 That was the cover story. It sounds kind of dull 00:05:52.259 --> 00:05:54.800 to us now, but at the time, it was a very legitimate 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:58.620 cover. Prison reform was a huge debate in Europe. 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:01.060 The Enlightenment had changed how people thought 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:02.860 about punishment. It wasn't just about dungeons 00:06:02.860 --> 00:06:05.740 and torture anymore. The new idea was about rehabilitation. 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:08.879 And the U .S. was the laboratory for this stuff. 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:11.360 It was. It was experimenting with brand new systems, 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:13.699 and France wanted to know if they should copy 00:06:13.699 --> 00:06:16.949 them. So it was the perfect excuse. So off they 00:06:16.949 --> 00:06:21.089 went. They landed in 1831. Can we just pause 00:06:21.089 --> 00:06:22.610 for a second on that trip? I want to understand 00:06:22.610 --> 00:06:24.889 the logistics. This wasn't a quick flight. What 00:06:24.889 --> 00:06:27.189 was the crossing like? The crossing was brutal. 00:06:27.350 --> 00:06:30.670 They sailed on a ship called the Hav. It took 00:06:30.670 --> 00:06:34.569 37 days. 37 days. And they ran into storms that 00:06:34.569 --> 00:06:37.889 were so bad, Tocqueville, being the kind of curious 00:06:37.889 --> 00:06:40.449 intellectual he was, actually tied himself to 00:06:40.449 --> 00:06:42.610 the mast at one point just to watch the waves. 00:06:42.810 --> 00:06:45.209 He was sick. He was exhausted. That really sets 00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:46.870 the scene. And what about New York when they 00:06:46.870 --> 00:06:50.050 finally got there? New York in 1831 wasn't the 00:06:50.050 --> 00:06:52.529 metropolis we know. It was a boomtown for sure, 00:06:52.709 --> 00:06:55.129 but there were pigs literally roaming the streets. 00:06:55.310 --> 00:06:58.290 It was chaotic. But what struck him immediately 00:06:58.290 --> 00:07:00.500 was the energy. He wrote home saying, I have 00:07:00.500 --> 00:07:02.959 never seen a people so full of life. And on the 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:05.699 prison focus, why prisons? What specifically 00:07:05.699 --> 00:07:07.899 were they looking at that was so new? The Americans 00:07:07.899 --> 00:07:10.160 had two rival systems that the whole world was 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.120 watching. The Auburn system and the Philadelphia 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:15.500 system. The Philadelphia system was total solitary 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:19.920 confinement. 24 -7. You sat in a cell, you had 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:23.639 a Bible, and you worked alone. The idea was penitence. 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:26.730 Silence and isolation would cure you. That sounds 00:07:26.730 --> 00:07:29.430 like psychological torture. Oh, it was. It drove 00:07:29.430 --> 00:07:32.490 men insane. Tocqueville interviewed prisoners 00:07:32.490 --> 00:07:34.810 who were just begging for death or any kind of 00:07:34.810 --> 00:07:36.949 human contact. And the other one, the Auburn 00:07:36.949 --> 00:07:39.910 system. That was in New York. There, prisoners 00:07:39.910 --> 00:07:42.230 worked together during the day in large workshops 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:45.170 and factories, but under a rule of total silence. 00:07:45.449 --> 00:07:47.529 So you're working next to hundreds of other people 00:07:47.529 --> 00:07:49.769 hammering away, but if you even whisper, you 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:52.829 get whipped. Exactly. Communal work, but absolute 00:07:52.829 --> 00:07:55.980 silence. Tocqueville favored the Auburn system, 00:07:56.259 --> 00:07:58.579 but only slightly. He was pretty skeptical of 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:00.800 both. He saw that while the bodies were being 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:02.879 disciplined, the souls weren't necessarily being 00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:06.579 cured. But this focus on structure, on how institutions 00:08:06.579 --> 00:08:09.899 shape human behavior, that's the warm -up act 00:08:09.899 --> 00:08:12.519 for democracy in America. Right. And while they 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:13.980 did visit the prisons and they actually wrote 00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:15.879 the report, it's called the penitentiary system 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:18.160 in the United States. Yeah. They did so much 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.160 more. The itinerary for this trip is just incredible. 00:08:21.379 --> 00:08:23.160 They were everywhere. Yeah. They didn't just 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:25.180 hang out in Boston and New York. They traveled 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:27.660 widely and under really difficult conditions. 00:08:27.899 --> 00:08:29.459 You went to the East Coast cities, obviously. 00:08:29.540 --> 00:08:31.540 Of course. But then they went out to the frontier, 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:33.970 which at that time was Michigan. Which is just 00:08:33.970 --> 00:08:36.950 wild to think about. Michigan as the Wild West. 00:08:37.269 --> 00:08:39.529 It was. It was heavy wilderness. They had to 00:08:39.529 --> 00:08:42.129 hire Native American guides. They were fighting 00:08:42.129 --> 00:08:45.049 off swarms of mosquitoes. They met other Native 00:08:45.049 --> 00:08:47.789 Americans in the forests of Saginaw. It was a 00:08:47.789 --> 00:08:51.049 real adventure. And from there? They took steamboats 00:08:51.049 --> 00:08:54.129 down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers all the 00:08:54.129 --> 00:08:56.289 way to New Orleans. That steamboat journey must 00:08:56.289 --> 00:08:58.789 have been incredible. I mean, the mix of people 00:08:58.789 --> 00:09:01.899 on those boats, you'd have... Rich planters, 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:06.559 poor farmers, slaves, immigrants, con men. It 00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:08.879 was a perfect microcosm of American society. 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:12.120 And it was dangerous, too. Steamboats blew up 00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:14.620 all the time. And after New Orleans. They took 00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:16.860 stagecoaches through the muddy, terrible roads 00:09:16.860 --> 00:09:19.879 of the South, back toward the East Coast. And 00:09:19.879 --> 00:09:22.240 they even made a side trip up to Quebec and Canada. 00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:24.460 And the whole time, Tocqueville is just taking 00:09:24.460 --> 00:09:28.179 notes. Furiously. Constantly. Extensive notes. 00:09:28.299 --> 00:09:30.639 He's interviewing everyone he can. He's talking 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:32.519 to former presidents like John Quincy Adams. 00:09:32.659 --> 00:09:34.980 But he's also talking to shopkeepers, lawyers, 00:09:35.299 --> 00:09:38.039 farmers, even people in the street. So he returned 00:09:38.039 --> 00:09:40.980 to France after nine months. And the result wasn't 00:09:40.980 --> 00:09:44.120 just the prison report. No. Beaumont, his friend, 00:09:44.279 --> 00:09:46.460 wrote a book called Marie or Slavery in the United 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:48.879 States, which was a novel focused on the racial 00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:51.980 caste system. But Tocqueville, Tocqueville wrote 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:55.139 the masterpiece. Democracy in America. Published 00:09:55.139 --> 00:09:58.019 in two volumes, the first in 1835, the second 00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:00.940 in 1840. And it was an instant classic because 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:03.480 he somehow managed to explain America to Europeans 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:05.799 better than Americans could explain it to themselves. 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:08.580 So let's get into section two here. Let's decode 00:10:08.580 --> 00:10:11.580 democracy in America. What was the big aha moment 00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:14.299 for him? Why was America so different from Europe? 00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:17.539 He saw that Europe was trapped. It was stuck 00:10:17.539 --> 00:10:20.639 in this fading but still powerful aristocracy 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:23.360 where your social class determined everything. 00:10:24.099 --> 00:10:28.460 But America, America was consumed by what he 00:10:28.460 --> 00:10:31.399 called middling values. Middling sounds like 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:34.100 an insult to our ears, you know, like mediocre. 00:10:34.799 --> 00:10:37.139 But he didn't necessarily mean it that way, did 00:10:37.139 --> 00:10:39.639 he? Not entirely, though he definitely had mixed 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:41.500 feelings about it. What he meant was the middle 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:44.059 class. The ethos of the middle class was everywhere. 00:10:44.419 --> 00:10:46.840 And he was especially fascinated by the work 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:49.639 ethic. How so? Well, in Europe, especially among 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:51.559 the upper class, having to work for money was 00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:54.519 seen as crass. It was vulgar. You had land. You 00:10:54.519 --> 00:10:56.779 had a title. You didn't labor for a living. Right. 00:10:56.940 --> 00:10:59.159 It's that old idea that a gentleman doesn't get 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:01.019 his hands dirty. It's like on Downton Abbey where 00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:02.580 they look down on the cousin who actually has 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:05.399 a job in the city. Exactly that. But in America, 00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:08.259 Tocqueville saw that labor was honorable. Even 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:10.559 the wealthy worked. In fact, the prejudice was 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:13.080 the other way around. If you were idle in America, 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:16.120 you were the outcast. You were viewed with suspicion. 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:18.860 And he traced this whole dynamic back to something 00:11:18.860 --> 00:11:22.570 really specific. Inheritance laws. This is one 00:11:22.570 --> 00:11:25.110 of those details in the book that sounds so boring, 00:11:25.190 --> 00:11:28.409 like legal code stuff, but he argues it's the 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:31.309 key to the entire American character. It is absolutely 00:11:31.309 --> 00:11:33.769 fundamental to his argument. In Europe, they 00:11:33.769 --> 00:11:36.289 had laws of primogeniture. Primogeniture. It 00:11:36.289 --> 00:11:38.710 means the eldest son inherits the entire estate, 00:11:38.990 --> 00:11:42.230 the land, the castle, the money. It all stays 00:11:42.230 --> 00:11:45.230 intact. This keeps the family wealth concentrated 00:11:45.230 --> 00:11:48.129 for centuries and creates a permanent aristocracy 00:11:48.129 --> 00:11:50.429 that doesn't need to work. But America had gotten 00:11:50.429 --> 00:11:52.909 rid of that. Right. In America, estates were 00:11:52.909 --> 00:11:55.070 split among all the children's sons and daughters. 00:11:55.809 --> 00:11:57.809 Tocqueville observed that this system broke up 00:11:57.809 --> 00:11:59.950 large fortunes within a single generation or 00:11:59.950 --> 00:12:02.389 two. So if you have a massive farm and five kids, 00:12:02.570 --> 00:12:05.070 suddenly you have five medium farms, and the 00:12:05.070 --> 00:12:07.590 next generation you have 25 small farms. Exactly. 00:12:07.690 --> 00:12:10.029 It forced every generation to get back to work. 00:12:10.149 --> 00:12:13.129 It created this constant churn of wealth. The 00:12:13.129 --> 00:12:15.250 rich could become poor, and the poor could in 00:12:15.250 --> 00:12:17.690 theory become rich. At the very least, the rich 00:12:17.690 --> 00:12:19.909 couldn't just... sit on their inherited laurels. 00:12:19.929 --> 00:12:22.610 It creates that hustle culture, that feeling 00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:24.529 that you can't stop swimming or you'll sink. 00:12:24.970 --> 00:12:27.129 Precisely. And this leads to another one of his 00:12:27.129 --> 00:12:30.909 key observations, this middling concept. In France, 00:12:31.009 --> 00:12:33.370 if you were born a peasant, you were a peasant. 00:12:33.490 --> 00:12:35.889 You knew your place. You weren't stressed about 00:12:35.889 --> 00:12:38.429 making it because, well, you couldn't make it. 00:12:38.509 --> 00:12:42.009 The system was fixed. But in America, Tocqueville 00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:45.009 saw universal anxiety. He called it restlessness. 00:12:45.350 --> 00:12:47.809 The restless spirit. I remember that phrase. 00:12:48.129 --> 00:12:51.490 He said Americans are grave and almost sad, even 00:12:51.490 --> 00:12:54.110 in their pleasures. Wait, sad in their pleasures? 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:56.610 Why would they be sad while having fun? Because 00:12:56.610 --> 00:12:58.210 they're always worried they're missing out on 00:12:58.210 --> 00:13:00.269 something better. He describes them building 00:13:00.269 --> 00:13:02.809 a house, but before the roof is even on, they 00:13:02.809 --> 00:13:05.009 sell it to move west for a better opportunity. 00:13:05.649 --> 00:13:08.169 They plant a field, but they leave before the 00:13:08.169 --> 00:13:10.850 harvest. They're constantly chasing the next 00:13:10.850 --> 00:13:13.909 best thing. He predicted FOMO. Fear of missing 00:13:13.909 --> 00:13:16.690 out. He literally did. That's a perfect description. 00:13:17.110 --> 00:13:19.850 He saw that when everyone is theoretically equal, 00:13:20.009 --> 00:13:23.149 when the barriers to success are removed, it 00:13:23.149 --> 00:13:25.990 means that if you fail, it's your fault. Oh, 00:13:26.049 --> 00:13:29.250 that hits hard. In an aristocracy, if I'm poor, 00:13:29.490 --> 00:13:31.509 it's because the system is rigged against me. 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:34.190 In a democracy, if I'm poor, it's because I'm 00:13:34.190 --> 00:13:36.889 a loser. Exactly. And that psychological burden 00:13:36.889 --> 00:13:40.230 creates a constant low -level hum of anxiety. 00:13:40.789 --> 00:13:54.370 He wrote, That is just profound. It's the treadmill 00:13:54.370 --> 00:13:56.690 of happiness. Yeah. And it links directly back 00:13:56.690 --> 00:13:58.970 to that other core idea, the tension between 00:13:58.970 --> 00:14:01.470 equality and liberty. Yes. I think most people 00:14:01.470 --> 00:14:03.470 today in democratic societies, we think those 00:14:03.470 --> 00:14:05.210 two things are best friends. They go hand in 00:14:05.210 --> 00:14:08.169 hand. But Tocqueville said, not so fast. This 00:14:08.169 --> 00:14:10.529 is his most famous and maybe his most important. 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:13.519 Tension. He argued that while Americans love 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:15.720 liberty, they are absolutely obsessed with equality. 00:14:16.299 --> 00:14:19.500 For them, equality is the dominant passion. He 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:21.179 used a really strong phrase for it, didn't he? 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:23.879 A depraved taste. He did. He warned of depraved 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.299 taste for equality. By that, he meant a danger 00:14:26.299 --> 00:14:28.659 that the weak will want to drag the strong down 00:14:28.659 --> 00:14:30.799 to their level rather than rise up themselves. 00:14:31.179 --> 00:14:34.220 The tall poppy syndrome. Exactly. He feared that 00:14:34.220 --> 00:14:37.039 people would eventually prefer equality and servitude 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:40.600 to... inequality and freedom wow let's unpack 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:43.179 that he's saying we'd rather everyone be miserable 00:14:43.179 --> 00:14:45.799 together as long as we're equal then see someone 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:48.840 else succeed more than us in his darker moments 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:51.720 yes that was his fear but i want to clarify something 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:54.240 here because this often gets misquoted you'll 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:56.539 see memes on the internet saying americans are 00:14:56.539 --> 00:14:59.659 so enamored of equality The actual text is more 00:14:59.659 --> 00:15:02.799 nuanced. He's analyzing the human heart in democratic 00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:06.139 ages, not just Americans. He says this passion 00:15:06.139 --> 00:15:09.759 for equality is ardent, insatiable, incessant, 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:11.919 and invincible. Invincible, that's a strong word. 00:15:12.059 --> 00:15:14.279 A very strong word. He says people will endure 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:18.000 poverty, enslavement, barbarism, but they will 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.039 not endure aristocracy. Equality is the one thing 00:15:21.039 --> 00:15:23.299 they will not give up. This brings us to another 00:15:23.299 --> 00:15:26.080 word he basically redefined for the modern world. 00:15:27.110 --> 00:15:30.230 Individualism. Yes. Today, when we say individualism, 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:32.809 we usually mean it's a good thing. Being unique, 00:15:33.009 --> 00:15:35.210 expressing yourself, being a maverick, you know. 00:15:35.269 --> 00:15:37.549 Right. Wearing a crazy hat, doing your own thing, 00:15:37.649 --> 00:15:40.850 starting a company in your garage. Exactly. But 00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:43.629 for Tocqueville, individualism was a very dangerous 00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:47.269 thing. He defined it as a calm and considered 00:15:47.269 --> 00:15:50.990 feeling that disposes each citizen to isolate 00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:53.990 himself. from the mass of his fellows. So it's 00:15:53.990 --> 00:15:56.289 not about being unique. It's about withdrawal. 00:15:56.450 --> 00:15:58.710 It is 100 % about withdrawal. It's the citizen 00:15:58.710 --> 00:16:00.789 who says, you know what? I'm just going to focus 00:16:00.789 --> 00:16:02.889 on my family, my close friends, my business, 00:16:03.070 --> 00:16:05.330 and I'm going to leave the greater society to 00:16:05.330 --> 00:16:07.860 look after itself. He retreats into his own small 00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:10.220 private circle. That sounds, well, it sounds 00:16:10.220 --> 00:16:12.159 like most people I know. The whole, I just want 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:14.759 a grill for God's sakes meme. And that's why 00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:17.139 Tocqueville is so relevant. He saw this happening 00:16:17.139 --> 00:16:20.799 in the 1830s. And he warned that this individualism 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.779 dries up the wellspring of public virtue. It 00:16:23.779 --> 00:16:26.259 eventually just merges into plain old egoism. 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:28.539 And if everyone withdraws into their private 00:16:28.539 --> 00:16:31.120 bubble, who is watching the state? Who is taking 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:33.139 care of the community? Exactly. It creates a 00:16:33.139 --> 00:16:35.789 vacuum. And a vacuum that tyranny is more than 00:16:35.789 --> 00:16:38.169 happy to fill. So what was the cure? Did he have 00:16:38.169 --> 00:16:40.090 a solution or was he just doom scrolling through 00:16:40.090 --> 00:16:43.269 the 19th century? He did have a solution. And 00:16:43.269 --> 00:16:45.970 it was something he marveled at in America. The 00:16:45.970 --> 00:16:49.190 cure was associations. Associations. You mean 00:16:49.190 --> 00:16:51.789 like clubs and groups? Exactly. Yeah. He was 00:16:51.789 --> 00:16:53.549 just amazed at how Americans formed associations 00:16:53.549 --> 00:16:56.409 for everything. Religious groups, temperance 00:16:56.409 --> 00:16:58.950 societies, political clubs, commercial groups, 00:16:59.350 --> 00:17:02.250 literary circles, volunteer fire departments. 00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:04.859 You name it, they had a committee for it. He 00:17:04.859 --> 00:17:06.819 has that great quote where he says, Americans 00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.559 of all ages, all conditions, all dispositions 00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:12.519 are constantly forming associations. Yes. He 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:14.420 saw that by working together in these voluntary 00:17:14.420 --> 00:17:18.299 groups, Americans overcame that selfish, individualistic 00:17:18.299 --> 00:17:21.380 withdrawal. These associations forced them to 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:23.859 pay attention to the wider world and to the needs 00:17:23.859 --> 00:17:26.369 of their neighbors. He called it Self -interest 00:17:26.369 --> 00:17:28.990 properly understood. Self -interest properly 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:30.750 understood. That's a key phrase. What does that 00:17:30.750 --> 00:17:33.430 mean exactly? It means realizing that helping 00:17:33.430 --> 00:17:35.430 the community actually helps me in the long run. 00:17:35.670 --> 00:17:38.450 It's not pure selfless altruism. It's a kind 00:17:38.450 --> 00:17:41.230 of smart selfishness. By all of us chipping in 00:17:41.230 --> 00:17:43.589 to build a road, we all get to use the road. 00:17:44.190 --> 00:17:46.589 By forming a club, we all get stronger and have 00:17:46.589 --> 00:17:49.170 more influence than we would alone. So the Rotary 00:17:49.170 --> 00:17:51.849 Club saves democracy. In Tocqueville's view, 00:17:51.950 --> 00:17:55.200 yes. Absolutely, because it forces you to interact 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:57.039 with your neighbors and solve problems together 00:17:57.039 --> 00:17:59.039 without waiting for the government to come in 00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:01.380 and do it for you. It builds social fabric. It 00:18:01.380 --> 00:18:03.380 builds trust. Okay, so that's the social state. 00:18:03.559 --> 00:18:06.339 But now we have to turn to the dark side. Section 00:18:06.339 --> 00:18:10.160 three, the dark side of democracy. Because he 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:12.539 didn't just see happy clubs and busy workers. 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.880 He saw new forms of tyranny that were totally 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:18.480 different from the old kings and emperors. This 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:20.819 is where he really puts on his prophet hat. And 00:18:20.819 --> 00:18:22.940 he starts with... The tyranny of the majority. 00:18:23.259 --> 00:18:25.720 And to be clear, he's not just talking about 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:27.660 the majority winning an election and passing 00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:29.779 laws the minority doesn't like. No, it's much 00:18:29.779 --> 00:18:32.700 deeper and more insidious than that. He's talking 00:18:32.700 --> 00:18:36.000 about thought control. In the old days, under 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:38.500 a king or the Inquisition, they might burn your 00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:41.660 books or throw you in a dungeon. But your mind, 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:45.279 your soul, was still free to hate the king. Right. 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.980 You could be a martyr for your beliefs. But in 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:58.839 a democracy... And he used this powerful metaphor 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:02.400 of a fence. A formidable fence, he called it. 00:19:11.789 --> 00:19:13.809 And what happens if you step outside the fence? 00:19:13.890 --> 00:19:15.950 You don't go to jail, right? No. And that's the 00:19:15.950 --> 00:19:18.430 brilliance of his observation. You don't face 00:19:18.430 --> 00:19:20.750 an inquisition. You aren't tortured. Instead, 00:19:20.910 --> 00:19:22.869 you face all kinds of unpleasantness and everyday 00:19:22.869 --> 00:19:24.970 persecution. You have to go cancel. It is the 00:19:24.970 --> 00:19:27.509 19th century version of getting canceled, 100%. 00:19:27.509 --> 00:19:30.509 He says a career in politics is closed to you 00:19:30.509 --> 00:19:32.769 forever because you offended the only power that 00:19:32.769 --> 00:19:35.809 holds the keys. He says of the dissenter, he 00:19:35.809 --> 00:19:38.849 yields, he bends, and finally he completely withdraws 00:19:38.849 --> 00:19:41.329 into silence. And this kind of pressure, it promotes 00:19:41.329 --> 00:19:44.690 mediocrity. Yes. He believed this culture of 00:19:44.690 --> 00:19:47.829 majority rule stifles genius. He thought that 00:19:47.829 --> 00:19:50.250 people with superior intellect see that the public 00:19:50.250 --> 00:19:53.329 doesn't want to hear hard truths or complex ideas 00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:56.250 that challenge the comfortable majority opinion. 00:19:56.950 --> 00:19:59.500 So what do they do? They either hide away in 00:19:59.500 --> 00:20:02.119 small intellectual circles or they go into business 00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:04.599 to make money, leaving politics to the people 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:06.720 who are willing to flatter the majority. That 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:10.099 explains a lot about modern politics, frankly. 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:11.960 Let's look at that specific quote you mentioned 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:14.900 to me earlier because it's so shocking. I know 00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:17.359 of no country in which there is so little independence 00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:20.680 of mind and real freedom of discussion as in 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:22.880 America. That was a bombshell thing to say about 00:20:22.880 --> 00:20:25.480 the land of the free, even then. How did he justify 00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:28.349 such a strong statement? He justified it by looking 00:20:28.349 --> 00:20:30.710 at the press and public opinion. In France at 00:20:30.710 --> 00:20:32.869 the time, you had different factions. You had 00:20:32.869 --> 00:20:35.569 royalists, Republicans, Bonapartists. They all 00:20:35.569 --> 00:20:37.130 had their own newspapers. They hated each other. 00:20:37.190 --> 00:20:39.250 But they argued. There was a clash of ideas. 00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:42.470 In America, he saw more of a mass opinion. Once 00:20:42.470 --> 00:20:44.349 the majority decided something, say religion 00:20:44.349 --> 00:20:47.430 is good or democracy is the best system, it became 00:20:47.430 --> 00:20:50.170 taboo to seriously question it. It became a kind 00:20:50.170 --> 00:20:52.650 of secular dogma. And this connects to his other 00:20:52.650 --> 00:20:56.950 terrifying vision. Soft despotism. I want to 00:20:56.950 --> 00:20:58.950 drill down on this because this is the part of 00:20:58.950 --> 00:21:00.390 the book that feels like it was written last 00:21:00.390 --> 00:21:02.630 week. It's like a horror movie screenplay. It 00:21:02.630 --> 00:21:05.490 is a truly chilling vision. He argues that the 00:21:05.490 --> 00:21:07.990 despotism of the future wouldn't look like the 00:21:07.990 --> 00:21:10.890 Roman emperors. It wouldn't be violent or cruel 00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:13.630 in the traditional sense. It would be soft. It 00:21:13.630 --> 00:21:16.029 would be mild and paternalistic. Paint the picture 00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:18.710 for us. What does soft despotism look like, according 00:21:18.710 --> 00:21:21.329 to him? He envisions a future with a multitude 00:21:21.329 --> 00:21:25.000 of men, all equal and alike. constantly circling 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:27.380 around in pursuit of petty and paltry pleasures. 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:30.319 They are focused entirely on themselves, their 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:32.619 families, and their immediate material comfort. 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:35.339 And what's above them? Above them stands an immense 00:21:35.339 --> 00:21:38.900 protective power, the state. But it's not a mean, 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:41.000 oppressive state. It's a state that wants to 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.380 keep them happy. It provides for their security. 00:21:43.480 --> 00:21:45.359 It supplies their necessities. It facilitates 00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:47.420 their pleasures. It directs their industries. 00:21:47.640 --> 00:21:50.319 It sounds like a parent, the helicopter parent. 00:21:50.579 --> 00:21:53.200 That is the exact metaphor he uses. He says the 00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:55.440 state becomes like a parent, but with one terrible 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.420 difference. A parent prepares a child for adulthood. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:02.000 This power, he says, seeks, on the contrary, 00:22:02.180 --> 00:22:06.119 to keep them in perpetual childhood. Yes. It 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:08.640 doesn't break their will. It softens it. It bends 00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:11.740 it. It guides it. It rarely forces men to act, 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:14.960 but it constantly opposes their acting. It doesn't 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:17.869 tyrannize, but it compresses. enervates, extinguishes, 00:22:17.869 --> 00:22:21.170 and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced 00:22:21.170 --> 00:22:23.450 to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious 00:22:23.450 --> 00:22:25.390 animals of which the government is the shepherd. 00:22:25.529 --> 00:22:28.230 That is just terrifyingly accurate to how we 00:22:28.230 --> 00:22:30.509 discuss the welfare state or even just consumerist 00:22:30.509 --> 00:22:33.230 apathy today, the idea of swapping real freedom 00:22:33.230 --> 00:22:36.009 for comfort and security. It's the grand trade 00:22:36.009 --> 00:22:38.519 -off. We ask the government to solve every problem, 00:22:38.619 --> 00:22:41.400 to smooth every rough edge of life. And in exchange, 00:22:41.579 --> 00:22:44.220 we give up our agency, our autonomy. We stop 00:22:44.220 --> 00:22:46.759 being citizens and we start being clients or 00:22:46.759 --> 00:22:49.839 dependents. And he saw this possibility in the 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.119 1830s when the federal government was absolutely 00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:54.099 tiny. It had, what, a few thousand employees? 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.099 That's the genius of his extrapolation. He saw 00:22:57.099 --> 00:23:00.039 the internal logic of equality and where it could 00:23:00.039 --> 00:23:02.579 lead if it was left unchecked. He saw that if 00:23:02.579 --> 00:23:04.759 everyone is equal. and therefore individually 00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:07.740 weak, they will naturally look to the one big 00:23:07.740 --> 00:23:10.819 power, the state, to protect them and provide 00:23:10.819 --> 00:23:13.019 for them. Speaking of predictions, let's move 00:23:13.019 --> 00:23:16.059 to section four, the profit of geopolitics and 00:23:16.059 --> 00:23:19.039 race. Because if soft despotism wasn't enough, 00:23:19.259 --> 00:23:22.259 he also basically predicted the Cold War. This 00:23:22.259 --> 00:23:24.099 is one of those passages that just makes you 00:23:24.099 --> 00:23:25.880 check the publication date to make sure it's 00:23:25.880 --> 00:23:28.500 real. It's at the very end of the first volume 00:23:28.500 --> 00:23:31.140 of Democracy in America. He looks at the global 00:23:31.140 --> 00:23:33.900 map of his time. And he sees two giant players 00:23:33.900 --> 00:23:37.000 emerging from the pack. He does. He says there 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:39.500 are now two great nations in the world, which, 00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:41.940 starting from different points, seem to be advancing 00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:45.259 toward the same goal. The Russians and the Anglo 00:23:45.259 --> 00:23:47.660 -Americans. And he contrasts their methods perfectly. 00:23:48.349 --> 00:23:50.250 It's incredible. He says the American struggles 00:23:50.250 --> 00:23:52.849 against the obstacles of nature. The adversaries 00:23:52.849 --> 00:23:55.250 of the Russian are men. The American combats 00:23:55.250 --> 00:23:58.089 the wilderness and barbarism. The Russian civilization 00:23:58.089 --> 00:24:01.369 with all its arms. The American relies on personal 00:24:01.369 --> 00:24:04.049 interest and allows the force and reason of individuals 00:24:04.049 --> 00:24:07.109 to act. The Russian concentrates all the power 00:24:07.109 --> 00:24:10.329 of society in one man. One has liberty for its 00:24:10.329 --> 00:24:13.049 principal needs of action. The other servitude. 00:24:13.500 --> 00:24:16.079 And then the kicker, the final line. Their starting 00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:17.799 point is different and their courses are not 00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:20.599 the same. Yet each of them seems called by some 00:24:20.599 --> 00:24:23.759 secret design of providence one day to hold in 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:26.119 its hands the destinies of half the world. Written 00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:29.680 in 1835, over 100 years before the Cold War really 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:32.619 kicked off. That is just spooky. It's geopolitical 00:24:32.619 --> 00:24:35.849 foresight of the absolute highest order. He understood 00:24:35.849 --> 00:24:39.589 that mass, scale and resources would define the 00:24:39.589 --> 00:24:42.509 future and that the old fragmented powers of 00:24:42.509 --> 00:24:44.730 Europe like France and Britain were on their 00:24:44.730 --> 00:24:47.950 way out. But he also looked inward at the racial 00:24:47.950 --> 00:24:50.609 dynamics inside America. And this is where his 00:24:50.609 --> 00:24:53.430 picture gets very, very bleak. He didn't buy 00:24:53.430 --> 00:24:55.549 into the optimistic idea that everything would 00:24:55.549 --> 00:24:57.569 just work itself out. Not at all. He devoted 00:24:57.569 --> 00:24:59.650 a massive chapter, the longest in the entire 00:24:59.650 --> 00:25:02.690 book, to the three races in America, the white, 00:25:02.829 --> 00:25:05.599 the Negro and the Indian. And he saw nothing 00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:07.980 but inevitable conflict. Let's start with his 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:10.980 view on slavery and black Americans. He hated 00:25:10.980 --> 00:25:12.980 slavery, right? He was an abolitionist. He was 00:25:12.980 --> 00:25:15.279 a staunch abolitionist. He believed slavery was 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:17.740 a profound evil, not just for the enslaved, but 00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:20.119 also for the enslaver. But he was incredibly 00:25:20.119 --> 00:25:22.299 pessimistic about what would happen after slavery 00:25:22.299 --> 00:25:24.539 ended. And he noticed something really weird, 00:25:24.579 --> 00:25:26.579 something counterintuitive about prejudice in 00:25:26.579 --> 00:25:28.799 the North versus the South. He did. He wrote 00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:30.980 that racial prejudice was actually stronger in 00:25:30.980 --> 00:25:32.720 the northern states that had abolished slavery 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:35.160 than in the southern states where it still existed. 00:25:35.380 --> 00:25:37.720 How did he explain that? That seems completely 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:40.799 backwards. His logic was that in the South... 00:25:40.990 --> 00:25:43.569 slavery was a legal institution it was a fixed 00:25:43.569 --> 00:25:47.210 hierarchy everyone knew their place in the north 00:25:47.210 --> 00:25:49.750 because the law made everyone theoretically equal 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:53.109 the white population he observed had to enforce 00:25:53.109 --> 00:25:56.329 the separation socially with even more ferocity 00:25:56.329 --> 00:25:59.849 to maintain their dominance he said Nowhere is 00:25:59.849 --> 00:26:02.529 prejudice so intolerant as in those states where 00:26:02.529 --> 00:26:04.930 servitude has never been known. He believed they 00:26:04.930 --> 00:26:07.309 were trapped. Completely trapped. He believed 00:26:07.309 --> 00:26:09.690 the black population could never fully assimilate 00:26:09.690 --> 00:26:11.869 because of this deep -seated white prejudice. 00:26:12.069 --> 00:26:14.369 And he also dismissed the idea of sending everyone 00:26:14.369 --> 00:26:17.049 back to Africa, the Liberia colonization project, 00:26:17.369 --> 00:26:20.089 as a logistical fantasy. The black population 00:26:20.089 --> 00:26:22.089 was growing too fast. What did he think would 00:26:22.089 --> 00:26:24.490 happen? He feared a race war was almost inevitable. 00:26:24.789 --> 00:26:27.119 And what about Native Americans? Well... He was 00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.200 witnessing the Indian removal period firsthand, 00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:32.420 the Trail of Tears era. He was horrified by the 00:26:32.420 --> 00:26:34.579 hypocrisy and the cruelty of it. He criticized 00:26:34.579 --> 00:26:36.519 the extermination that was happening under the 00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:38.440 guise of legal treaties. But he also had this 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:41.039 theory about why their fate was sealed. He viewed 00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:43.980 it through this tragic lens of civilization versus 00:26:43.980 --> 00:26:46.589 pride. He believed that the Native Americans 00:26:46.589 --> 00:26:49.309 were too proud to assimilate. They refused to 00:26:49.309 --> 00:26:51.190 adopt the ways of the white man because they 00:26:51.190 --> 00:26:53.769 valued their own freedom and their own culture 00:26:53.769 --> 00:26:56.470 too much. Whereas he felt black people were being 00:26:56.470 --> 00:26:58.910 actively prevented from assimilating, even if 00:26:58.910 --> 00:27:01.609 they wanted to. Exactly. He wrote, the Negro 00:27:01.609 --> 00:27:03.650 would like to mix with the European and cannot. 00:27:04.509 --> 00:27:07.549 The Indian might, to some extent, succeed, but 00:27:07.549 --> 00:27:11.519 he scorns to attempt it. So ultimately, he predicted 00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:13.579 the extinction of the Native American tribes 00:27:13.579 --> 00:27:16.720 as independent nations. He saw the juggernaut 00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:18.660 of American expansion and knew nothing would 00:27:18.660 --> 00:27:21.380 be allowed to stand in its way. It's heavy stuff. 00:27:21.500 --> 00:27:23.660 And it really shows that he wasn't just a cheerleader 00:27:23.660 --> 00:27:26.559 for democracy. He saw the bodies buried underneath 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:28.299 the foundation of the whole project. He did. 00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:30.559 But this brings us to the most uncomfortable 00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:35.119 part of our deep dive. Section 5. The other talk 00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:37.529 film. Because while he was criticizing American 00:27:37.529 --> 00:27:39.809 treatment of Native Americans, when it came to 00:27:39.809 --> 00:27:42.009 French colonialism, Tocqueville sounds like a 00:27:42.009 --> 00:27:44.410 very, very different person. Yeah, this is the 00:27:44.410 --> 00:27:46.670 Algeria paradox. I think a lot of people who 00:27:46.670 --> 00:27:48.589 love Tocqueville, they conveniently forget this 00:27:48.589 --> 00:27:51.089 part or just gloss over it. It is often glossed 00:27:51.089 --> 00:27:53.430 over, but we have to confront it. Tocqueville 00:27:53.430 --> 00:27:55.890 was a major supporter and a key parliamentary 00:27:55.890 --> 00:27:58.890 voice on the French colonization of Algeria. 00:27:59.029 --> 00:28:02.829 So some context. France had invaded Algeria in 00:28:02.829 --> 00:28:06.650 1830 and Tocqueville visited. Twice, right? In 00:28:06.650 --> 00:28:10.569 1841 and 1846. Yes. And initially, very early 00:28:10.569 --> 00:28:13.410 in his career, he had this sort of idealistic 00:28:13.410 --> 00:28:16.089 hope that the French and Arab races could mix, 00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:18.369 that they could amalgamate. But after visiting, 00:28:18.490 --> 00:28:21.049 seeing it on the ground, he did a complete 180. 00:28:21.309 --> 00:28:24.250 He decided assimilation was impossible. And his 00:28:24.250 --> 00:28:27.250 conclusion wasn't let's leave. It was let's dominate. 00:28:27.450 --> 00:28:29.809 He called for a dual program, domination and 00:28:29.809 --> 00:28:32.420 colonization. He was critical of the French military 00:28:32.420 --> 00:28:34.920 government for being chaotic and corrupt in its 00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:37.400 treatment of French colonists, but he fully supported 00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:39.579 the total subjugation of the Arab population. 00:28:39.900 --> 00:28:41.819 There are some quotes here that are just really 00:28:41.819 --> 00:28:43.779 hard to reconcile with the author of Democracy 00:28:43.779 --> 00:28:46.579 in America. He talks about scorched earth tactics. 00:28:47.230 --> 00:28:49.750 He does. He wrote in a report to Parliament that 00:28:49.750 --> 00:28:52.930 burning harvests, emptying silos, and seizing 00:28:52.930 --> 00:28:55.430 unarmed civilians, women and children, were, 00:28:55.650 --> 00:28:58.470 and this is his phrase, unfortunate necessities. 00:28:58.970 --> 00:29:01.410 Unfortunate necessities. That sounds like a modern 00:29:01.410 --> 00:29:03.730 military euphemism for a war crime. He compared 00:29:03.730 --> 00:29:06.549 it to European siege warfare. He argued that 00:29:06.549 --> 00:29:08.470 if you are going to wage war, you have to wage 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:11.089 it effectively. He wrote, I have often heard 00:29:11.089 --> 00:29:13.250 men in France whom I respect, but with whom I 00:29:13.250 --> 00:29:15.650 do not agree, find it wrong to burn harvests 00:29:15.650 --> 00:29:18.930 and empty silos. For my part, I think that these 00:29:18.930 --> 00:29:21.349 are unfortunate necessities. Why? Why did the 00:29:21.349 --> 00:29:23.569 man who wrote so beautifully about liberty support 00:29:23.569 --> 00:29:26.230 this? It feels like a massive, glaring contradiction. 00:29:26.809 --> 00:29:29.170 It is, but you have to understand the context 00:29:29.170 --> 00:29:32.529 of 1840s France. The country felt humiliated. 00:29:32.549 --> 00:29:35.069 They had lost the Napoleonic Wars. They saw themselves 00:29:35.069 --> 00:29:37.269 as a second -rate power compared to Great Britain, 00:29:37.369 --> 00:29:39.890 which was building a global empire. Right. Britannia 00:29:39.890 --> 00:29:42.559 rules the waves. Exactly. And Tocqueville, for 00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:45.119 all his liberalism, was an aristocrat who believed 00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:47.980 in grandeur, national greatness. He believed 00:29:47.980 --> 00:29:50.359 a nation needed a great enterprise to be healthy. 00:29:50.900 --> 00:29:54.140 If a nation just focuses on making money, those 00:29:54.140 --> 00:29:56.960 petty pleasures again, he thought it rots from 00:29:56.960 --> 00:29:59.660 the inside out. So he saw war and colonization 00:29:59.660 --> 00:30:02.460 as a kind of vitamin shot for the national soul. 00:30:02.900 --> 00:30:05.940 In a way, yes. He thought the struggle of colonization 00:30:05.940 --> 00:30:08.740 would revitalize the French spirit. which he 00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:11.579 felt was becoming soft and materialistic. He 00:30:11.579 --> 00:30:26.099 wrote, That is a very dangerous logic. It is, 00:30:26.119 --> 00:30:28.680 and it gets worse. He even advocated for formal 00:30:28.680 --> 00:30:31.460 segregation. He proposed two distinct legal systems, 00:30:31.660 --> 00:30:34.000 one for the European colonists, with all the 00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:36.440 rights of Frenchmen, and a separate, much harsher 00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:39.059 one for the native Arabs. It was a precursor 00:30:39.059 --> 00:30:41.099 to an apartheid -like structure. Was there any 00:30:41.099 --> 00:30:43.359 nuance at all, or did he just want to crush everyone? 00:30:43.660 --> 00:30:46.519 There was some nuance. For instance, he opposed 00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:49.500 the French invasion of Kabylia, the mountainous 00:30:49.500 --> 00:30:52.619 Berber region. He kind of admired the Kabyles. 00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:55.359 He saw them as noble savages in the old Rousseau 00:30:55.359 --> 00:30:58.519 sense. And he did warn, prophetically again, 00:30:58.779 --> 00:31:01.299 that if France treated the local populations 00:31:01.299 --> 00:31:04.240 too poorly for too long, colonization would end 00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:07.000 in a bloodbath. Which, history spoiler alert, 00:31:07.099 --> 00:31:09.279 is exactly what happened in the 20th century 00:31:09.279 --> 00:31:11.819 with the Algerian War of Independence. Exactly. 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:15.400 It was a horrific bloodbath. Tocqueville saw 00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:17.640 the danger, but he thought the domination was 00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:19.839 a risk worth taking for the sake of France's 00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:22.819 glory. It is the great stain on his liberal legacy. 00:31:23.289 --> 00:31:25.210 Before we get to the end of his life, we should 00:31:25.210 --> 00:31:27.349 touch briefly on his travels to England and Ireland, 00:31:27.430 --> 00:31:29.710 because he went there too, and he had some fascinating 00:31:29.710 --> 00:31:32.150 observations about aristocracy that are relevant 00:31:32.150 --> 00:31:34.809 here. He did. He went to England in 1833 and 00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:38.109 Ireland in 1835, and he was obsessed with the 00:31:38.109 --> 00:31:39.869 difference between the French word gentilhomme 00:31:39.869 --> 00:31:42.509 and the English word gentleman. I thought they 00:31:42.509 --> 00:31:44.690 basically meant the same thing. Not to Tocqueville. 00:31:45.269 --> 00:31:48.589 And this distinction for him explained why England 00:31:48.589 --> 00:31:50.809 had been stable while France had been so chaotic. 00:31:51.309 --> 00:31:54.930 In France, gentilhomme meant noble by birth. 00:31:55.009 --> 00:31:56.789 You couldn't become one. You had to be born one. 00:31:56.890 --> 00:31:59.990 It was a closed, rigid caste. Right. You either 00:31:59.990 --> 00:32:02.470 have the blood or you don't. But in England, 00:32:02.630 --> 00:32:04.769 he saw that the word gentleman could be applied 00:32:04.769 --> 00:32:08.190 to any well -educated, well -mannered man, regardless 00:32:08.190 --> 00:32:10.900 of his birth. So the British aristocracy was 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:13.440 more open, more permeable. Exactly. Which is 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:15.359 why he thought England avoided a violent, bloody 00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:17.839 revolution like France's. The elite was more 00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:20.640 flexible. If you made a fortune in trade and 00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:22.720 sent your son to the right schools, he could 00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:25.240 become part of the club. The aristocracy wasn't 00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:27.380 a closed fortress. It was a club with a very 00:32:27.380 --> 00:32:29.980 high entry fee. But you could buy your way in. 00:32:30.099 --> 00:32:32.630 And Ireland. Ireland was a horror show for him, 00:32:32.690 --> 00:32:34.730 a total nightmare. He described it as having 00:32:34.730 --> 00:32:37.410 all the evils of an aristocracy and none of its 00:32:37.410 --> 00:32:40.809 advantages. Ouch. He saw extreme grinding poverty 00:32:40.809 --> 00:32:43.190 right next to the mansions of the Anglo -Irish 00:32:43.190 --> 00:32:46.089 landlords. The poor man at his gate, he wrote. 00:32:46.650 --> 00:32:48.490 But he noticed something really interesting about 00:32:48.490 --> 00:32:51.230 the Catholic clergy there. In France, the church 00:32:51.230 --> 00:32:53.009 was traditionally allied with the king and the 00:32:53.009 --> 00:32:55.710 rich. But in Ireland, because of British oppression, 00:32:56.190 --> 00:32:58.829 the Catholic priests were the only friends, the 00:32:58.829 --> 00:33:01.930 only leaders. of the poor Irish population. So 00:33:01.930 --> 00:33:04.269 that broke his simple model of religion always 00:33:04.269 --> 00:33:06.769 being a conservative force. Right. It showed 00:33:06.769 --> 00:33:08.630 him that religion could be a force for liberty 00:33:08.630 --> 00:33:10.630 and for the people, depending on the political 00:33:10.630 --> 00:33:13.730 context. He wrote about the unbelievable unity 00:33:13.730 --> 00:33:16.630 between the Irish clergy and the Catholic population. 00:33:16.990 --> 00:33:20.269 So let's move to the final act, Section 6, The 00:33:20.269 --> 00:33:23.650 Politician and the End. Because Tocqueville didn't 00:33:23.650 --> 00:33:25.670 just write books from his study. He tried to 00:33:25.670 --> 00:33:27.970 get into the arena. He tried to be a politician. 00:33:28.369 --> 00:33:32.410 How did that go? He was. Respectable, but perhaps 00:33:32.410 --> 00:33:34.569 too intellectual for the rough and tumble of 00:33:34.569 --> 00:33:37.029 daily politics. He served in the Chamber of Deputies 00:33:37.029 --> 00:33:40.170 for years, from 1839 to 1851. But he wasn't a 00:33:40.170 --> 00:33:42.390 great orator. He had a quiet voice. He was often 00:33:42.390 --> 00:33:44.789 sick. He was more of a thinker than a leader 00:33:44.789 --> 00:33:46.890 of men. But he was there for the big one, the 00:33:46.890 --> 00:33:50.970 1848 revolution. Which he totally foresaw. Just 00:33:50.970 --> 00:33:53.150 a few months before it happened, he gave a famous 00:33:53.150 --> 00:33:55.509 speech in the chamber saying, We are sleeping 00:33:55.509 --> 00:33:58.349 on a volcano. Can you not feel the wind of revolution 00:33:58.349 --> 00:34:02.190 in the air? He told his colleagues that the mores 00:34:02.190 --> 00:34:04.250 of the common people were changing, that they 00:34:04.250 --> 00:34:06.410 were losing all respect for their rulers. And 00:34:06.410 --> 00:34:08.210 they probably rolled their eyes and ignored him. 00:34:08.349 --> 00:34:10.849 They did. And then, of course, the volcano erupted. 00:34:10.889 --> 00:34:13.630 The revolution happened. The king was overthrown. 00:34:13.750 --> 00:34:17.570 And whose side was he on in that chaos? He sided 00:34:17.570 --> 00:34:20.429 with the party of order. He was absolutely terrified 00:34:20.429 --> 00:34:23.849 of the socialists. He feared the mob again. You 00:34:23.849 --> 00:34:25.710 can see that childhood trauma coming right back 00:34:25.710 --> 00:34:28.769 to the surface. He supported the military suppression 00:34:28.769 --> 00:34:31.289 of the June Days Uprising, which was a violent 00:34:31.289 --> 00:34:33.469 clash between Parisian workers and the new Republican 00:34:33.469 --> 00:34:36.389 government. He even advocated for the regularization 00:34:36.389 --> 00:34:39.789 of the state of siege. That sounds pretty authoritarian 00:34:39.789 --> 00:34:43.150 for a lover of liberty. It was. But in his mind, 00:34:43.170 --> 00:34:45.309 he was prioritizing order because he believed 00:34:45.309 --> 00:34:47.010 that without order, there could be no liberty 00:34:47.010 --> 00:34:49.630 at all. He even became minister of foreign affairs 00:34:49.630 --> 00:34:52.590 for a brief stint in 1849 under the new Second 00:34:52.590 --> 00:34:55.010 Republic. For what, about five months? Yeah, 00:34:55.030 --> 00:34:57.119 a very short time. It was a chaotic period. But 00:34:57.119 --> 00:34:59.480 then came the man who would end his political 00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:03.460 career for good. Louis Napoleon, the nephew of 00:35:03.460 --> 00:35:05.739 the famous Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon III. 00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.579 Tocqueville despised him. He saw him as a charlatan, 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:12.219 a wannabe despot who was using the name of his 00:35:12.219 --> 00:35:14.840 famous uncle to seize power. And when Louis Napoleon 00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:17.719 staged his coup d 'etat in 1851 to make himself 00:35:17.719 --> 00:35:20.760 emperor, Tokyo stood in opposition. And he was 00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:23.380 arrested. He was. He gathered with a group of 00:35:23.380 --> 00:35:25.500 other deputies to resist the coup, to declare 00:35:25.500 --> 00:35:27.460 it high treason. But they were all rounded up 00:35:27.460 --> 00:35:29.500 by the military. He was detained at the fortress 00:35:29.500 --> 00:35:31.880 of Vincennes for a few days and then released. 00:35:32.099 --> 00:35:34.760 But that was it for him. He quit politics for 00:35:34.760 --> 00:35:38.260 good. He refused to serve a usurper. So he goes 00:35:38.260 --> 00:35:40.599 home to his castle. He literally had a castle, 00:35:40.760 --> 00:35:43.400 the Chateau de Tocqueville in Normandy. And he 00:35:43.400 --> 00:35:47.219 writes one last masterpiece. The Old Regime and 00:35:47.219 --> 00:35:50.300 the Revolution. Published in 1856. And it totally 00:35:50.300 --> 00:35:52.179 changed how history was understood. What was 00:35:52.179 --> 00:35:54.179 the big thesis? Because it sounds like a dry 00:35:54.179 --> 00:35:55.800 history book, but you're saying it's really a 00:35:55.800 --> 00:35:58.440 political argument. It's a masterpiece of political 00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:01.420 sociology. He asked a simple but brilliant question. 00:36:02.179 --> 00:36:04.699 Why did the revolution happen in France, of all 00:36:04.699 --> 00:36:07.059 places, and not somewhere else where the oppression 00:36:07.059 --> 00:36:09.599 was even worse? And his answer wasn't the simple 00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:12.420 because the king was so bad. No. In fact, he 00:36:12.420 --> 00:36:14.829 argued the opposite. The revolution happened 00:36:14.829 --> 00:36:17.469 precisely where things were getting better. Wait, 00:36:17.510 --> 00:36:19.849 what? That's the revolution of rising expectations 00:36:19.849 --> 00:36:22.750 theory. Yes, he's one of its originators. He 00:36:22.750 --> 00:36:24.369 pointed out that the French peasantry in the 00:36:24.369 --> 00:36:27.050 late 18th century was actually better off than 00:36:27.050 --> 00:36:29.309 the German or Russian peasantry. They owned land. 00:36:29.510 --> 00:36:31.630 They had more personal freedom. So why revolt? 00:36:31.769 --> 00:36:33.550 If things are getting better, why burn it all 00:36:33.550 --> 00:36:35.670 down? Because once you have a little bit of freedom, 00:36:35.829 --> 00:36:38.489 the remaining oppression becomes absolutely unbearable. 00:36:39.210 --> 00:36:41.949 If you were... totally crushed. You can't even 00:36:41.949 --> 00:36:44.489 imagine a different life. But if you are halfway 00:36:44.489 --> 00:36:47.190 free, the chains you still wear feel heavier 00:36:47.190 --> 00:36:49.869 than ever. That is a psychological insight that 00:36:49.869 --> 00:36:52.550 explains so many modern movements. And this other 00:36:52.550 --> 00:36:55.190 big point was that the revolutionaries, for all 00:36:55.190 --> 00:36:57.829 their talk of liberty, hated the king, but they 00:36:57.829 --> 00:36:59.949 loved the king's power. They didn't want to destroy 00:36:59.949 --> 00:37:01.929 the centralized state. They wanted to take it 00:37:01.929 --> 00:37:04.500 over. And they ended up making it even stronger 00:37:04.500 --> 00:37:07.239 and more absolute than the monarchy ever was. 00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:10.800 So the path from monarchy to democracy to tyranny 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.420 was paved by centralization. Exactly. For him, 00:37:14.460 --> 00:37:16.579 Napoleon wasn't the opposite of the revolution. 00:37:16.860 --> 00:37:20.000 He was its logical conclusion. The perfect democratic 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.559 despot. Everyone is equal under one all -powerful 00:37:23.559 --> 00:37:26.019 ruler. And sadly, that was his last big intellectual 00:37:26.019 --> 00:37:28.579 act. Yes. He had suffered from tuberculosis for 00:37:28.579 --> 00:37:31.030 a long time. It finally caught up with him. He 00:37:31.030 --> 00:37:34.710 died on April 16, 1859, in Cannes, on the French 00:37:34.710 --> 00:37:37.389 Riviera. He was only 53 years old. We should 00:37:37.389 --> 00:37:39.170 mention his wife, Mary Motley, before we wrap 00:37:39.170 --> 00:37:41.909 up his life. We must. Their relationship is really 00:37:41.909 --> 00:37:43.909 quite touching. She was English, she was middle 00:37:43.909 --> 00:37:46.190 class, and she was a Protestant, though she did 00:37:46.190 --> 00:37:48.690 convert to Catholicism for him. And his aristocratic 00:37:48.690 --> 00:37:51.449 French family must have just hated that. Oh, 00:37:51.449 --> 00:37:54.090 they did. She wasn't an aristocrat. She wasn't 00:37:54.090 --> 00:37:57.159 rich. She was too English. But Tocqueville adored 00:37:57.159 --> 00:38:00.119 her. They were married for 23 years, and he called 00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:03.219 her his only true friend. It shows that for all 00:38:03.219 --> 00:38:05.579 his grand theories about society, he was also 00:38:05.579 --> 00:38:08.159 a man who valued that deep personal connection. 00:38:08.579 --> 00:38:11.900 And they never had any children, which some biographers 00:38:11.900 --> 00:38:15.360 think perhaps allowed him to focus so intensely 00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:18.699 on his work, on his intellectual legacy. So let's 00:38:18.699 --> 00:38:20.400 bring this all home. What does this all mean? 00:38:20.480 --> 00:38:22.199 We've looked at the aristocrat, the traveler, 00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:25.369 the prophet, the colonialist. What's the final 00:38:25.369 --> 00:38:29.030 picture? I think we see a man of profound contradictions, 00:38:29.190 --> 00:38:32.369 a lover of liberty who supported colonial domination, 00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:35.949 an aristocrat by birth who accepted that democracy 00:38:35.949 --> 00:38:38.530 was the inevitable future, even if he didn't 00:38:38.530 --> 00:38:40.449 entirely like the taste of it. He seems like 00:38:40.449 --> 00:38:42.750 someone who is desperately trying to build guardrails 00:38:42.750 --> 00:38:44.789 for a car that was already speeding down the 00:38:44.789 --> 00:38:47.909 highway. That is a perfect analogy. He knew he 00:38:47.909 --> 00:38:50.289 couldn't stop the car democracy, but he wanted 00:38:50.289 --> 00:38:52.469 to teach us how to drive it so that we didn't 00:38:52.469 --> 00:38:55.510 crash into the wall of tyranny. And his warnings, 00:38:55.809 --> 00:38:59.070 his warnings about the fence around thought and 00:38:59.070 --> 00:39:01.849 the soft sleep of comfort, they really stick 00:39:01.849 --> 00:39:04.570 with me. It just feels like he's describing the 00:39:04.570 --> 00:39:07.070 algorithm -driven, convenience -obsessed world 00:39:07.070 --> 00:39:08.829 we're living in right now. It really, really 00:39:08.829 --> 00:39:11.929 does. He feared that we would willingly trade 00:39:11.929 --> 00:39:14.989 our freedom for a quiet, comfortable life. He 00:39:14.989 --> 00:39:17.250 feared we would become those timid animals. Which 00:39:17.250 --> 00:39:19.610 brings us to a final thought. We talked about 00:39:19.610 --> 00:39:22.869 his cure for all this. Associations. Meeting 00:39:22.869 --> 00:39:26.539 people. Solving problems together. Face to face. 00:39:26.639 --> 00:39:29.360 In the real world. Let's give the listener a 00:39:29.360 --> 00:39:31.659 practical takeaway here. What does an association 00:39:31.659 --> 00:39:35.400 look like in 2026? It's not just a formal nonprofit. 00:39:35.900 --> 00:39:37.840 No, not at all. It's any group where you have 00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:39.739 to actually negotiate and cooperate with other 00:39:39.739 --> 00:39:41.460 human beings. It could be a pickup basketball 00:39:41.460 --> 00:39:44.900 league, a community garden, a protest group, 00:39:45.099 --> 00:39:48.860 a book club, a church choir. And why is that 00:39:48.860 --> 00:39:51.420 negotiation part so important? Because democracy 00:39:51.420 --> 00:39:54.039 is annoying. And other people are annoying. They 00:39:54.039 --> 00:39:56.019 have different opinions. They want to do things 00:39:56.019 --> 00:39:58.000 differently than you do. When you're in a real 00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:00.159 association, you have to learn to compromise. 00:40:00.460 --> 00:40:03.199 You have to listen. You have to persuade. You 00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:06.059 can't just block them or mute them or downvote 00:40:06.059 --> 00:40:08.639 them. It's like a gym for your citizenship muscles. 00:40:09.280 --> 00:40:11.639 That's a perfect metaphor. If you don't go to 00:40:11.639 --> 00:40:14.920 the gym, your muscles atrophy. If you don't participate 00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:18.179 in associations, your citizen muscles atrophy. 00:40:18.659 --> 00:40:21.679 You forget how to be a free person. among other 00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.059 free people. And then you just want the shepherd, 00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:26.159 the government, to come in and take care of everything 00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:28.420 for you. Exactly. So here's the final thought. 00:40:28.599 --> 00:40:30.980 In a world where we are increasingly isolated 00:40:30.980 --> 00:40:34.000 behind our screens, where so -called social media 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.320 is actually making us more withdrawn, that individualism 00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:40.059 he warned about, have we locked the one tool 00:40:40.059 --> 00:40:42.420 he said could save us from ourselves? It is the 00:40:42.420 --> 00:40:44.639 fundamental question of our time. Tocqueville 00:40:44.639 --> 00:40:47.179 would say that clicking like is not an association. 00:40:47.949 --> 00:40:50.150 Arguing in a comment section is not an association. 00:40:50.530 --> 00:40:52.829 You have to get out of the house. You have to 00:40:52.829 --> 00:40:55.269 engage with the messy, difficult, wonderful reality 00:40:55.269 --> 00:40:57.829 of other people. That is the only way to keep 00:40:57.829 --> 00:41:01.250 liberty alive. A challenge from 1835 to the future? 00:41:01.409 --> 00:41:05.170 Get out of the house. Indeed. Alexis de Tocqueville, 00:41:05.289 --> 00:41:07.329 the time traveler, thank you for bringing him 00:41:07.329 --> 00:41:09.730 to life for us today. It was my pleasure. And 00:41:09.730 --> 00:41:12.150 thank you for listening to this deep dive. It's 00:41:12.150 --> 00:41:14.150 been a fascinating journey. We'll see you next 00:41:14.150 --> 00:41:14.389 time.