''It is therefore of immense importance to men to have fixed ideas about God, their souls, and their duties towards their Creator and their fellows, for doubt about these principles would leave all their actions to chance and condemn them, more or less, to anarchy and impotence.'' (32)
Anarchy will demand a demagogue to produce order. Tocqueville observes . . .
''When their is no authority in religion or politics, men are soon frightened by the limitless independence. . . . With everything on the move in the realm of the mind, they want the material world to be firm and stable.'' (32)
What will happen?
''For my part, I doubt whether man can support complete religious independence and entire political liberty at the same time. I am led to think that if he has no faith he must obey, and if he is free he must believe.'' (33)
Wow! No other option?
Freedom also requires decisions, and confidence in future order. Where is this trust found?
''Economic rationality - where actors calmly calculate their interest - supposes already an institutional arrangement on the basis of which such rational and calm calculation becomes possible; rationality is an achievement made possible only by prolonged effort in other areas of life. . . . Human beings have a tendency to be irrational; it is only with the aid of certain institutional supports that they become capable of rationality at all!'' (10)
This is so profound, so fundamental, (and so true) requires concentrated meditation. Tocqueville explains -
''When a people's religion is destroyed, doubt invades the highest faculties of the mind and half paralyzes all the rest; then in despair of solving unaided the greatest problems of human destiny, men ignobly give up thinking about them.'' (10)
Then what?
''Such a state inevitably enervates the soul, and relaxing the springs of the will, prepares them for bondage.''
How serious?
''Then not only will they let their freedom be taken from them, but often they actually hand it over themselves.'' (11)
(Remember, Tocqueville born 1805. His parents were scheduled for death after months in prison. Robespierre guillotined first. They lived. Tocqueville grew up observing an unstable, constantly changing, dangerous political world. The questions he asked and the answers he found - are not drawn from the clouds - but from bitter experience.)
Mitchell notes - ''These are portentous remarks, to be sure. Religion rebinds the soul, orients it toward a transcendent unity it longs for but can never wholly grasp in this world. . . . So oriented. . .the soul does not fall into the temptation of idolatry, or to worshiping a tyrant in this world.'' (11)
Why so appealing?
''The secret longing for repose, which can never be truly satisfied in this world, must be toward the realm where it alone is promised. Absent this realm that can only dwell in the heart as hope, the soul seeks solace through a worldly power most nearly having the attributes it has forsaken in the realm it has renounced.'' (11)
This 'solace of soul' demands action! What action?
''There will always be a God, Tocqueville intimates; the crucial question is whether we will seek him in the right place!'' (11)
Preface
Chapter One
Introduction
1 The Augustinian Self
2 Antidotes to the Irrationalities
3 Of the Embodiment and Disembodiment of Thought
4 Circularity of Cause and Effect
7 Of new Beginnings and American Exceptionalism
Chapter Two
The Augustinian Self
1 Augustine and the Errancy from God
2 Hobbes and the problem of Pride
3 Rousseau and the Errancy from Nature
4 Tocqueville and the democratic soul
5 Nietzsche and the democratic age
Chapter Three
The Politics of Competition
1 The purpose of politics
3 The interrelation of political and economic participation
8 of Empire
9 Of Property and Rights
10 Of the sufficiency of politics and economics
Chapter Four
Christianity and Democracy
3 Christianity as Palliative for Envy
4 The indirect effects of Christianity upon democracy
6 The right relationship between politics and religion
Chapter Five
Conclusion
1 The new political science
2 Asking too much of government, asking too much of the world
3 What is to be done?
4 Concluding remarks
The 'new political science ' has adopted ''as Rousseau long ago anticipated in a 'nondescript scientific jargon, even more despicable than ignorance, which has usurped the name of knowledge.' '' (221)
What 'jargon that has replaced knowledge'?
''Democracy is undermined by a political science that insists that only quantities that can be measured using the methods of natural science.'' (222)
Demand for measurement impels men to materialism, that which can be seen. What results?
''Those whose object is to make men materialists, to find out what is useful without concern for justice, to have science quite without belief and prosperity without virtue. Such men are called champions of modern civilization, and they insolently put themselves at its head, usurping a place which has been abandoned to them, though they are utterly unworthy of it.'' (222)
Wow! How did he know??? Mitchell comments . . .
''The machinations of abstract reason cannot serve democratic freedom. The politics of reason alone will never be sufficient. . . . As Rousseau put it: 'the human race would have perished long ago if its preservation had depended on the reasoning of its members.' '' (222)
Abstract reason, sameness everywhere, sustains equality. Whence freedom? Tocqueville opines -
''I think democratic people have a 'taste' for Liberty, left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and be sad if it is taken from them. But their 'passion' for equality is ardent, insatiable, eternal, and invincible.'' (232)
Mitchell - ''The passion to obliterate differences, it would seem, is more powerful than the taste for liberty. . . . The passion to obliterate difference, can only lead - by a hidden logic - to the emergence of a powerful state. Here the site of national politics is asked to be the common ground. Yet this move invites nothing but the lethargy of solipsism and the fury of destruction animated by the need for unity.'' (232)
This work will disturb some. The reference to Christianity (Tocqueville), nationalism (Rousseau), philosophy (Nietzsche), and Augustine (psychology) is not mathematical physics. This is historical insight - not abstract deduction. In fact, this writing is directly speaking against such abstract reasoning. Deeply counter-cultural.
Nevertheless, carefully argued, throughly researched, clearly presented and persuasive.
Tocqueville forecast the present world with amazing success. Not without errors, but his insights are clearly valid. Why shouldn't his reasons be considered with an open mind?
(See also: ''Dividing of Christendom'', by Christopher Dawson. Similar conclusions from leading historian. [ [ ASIN: ''B00JL0PGTA'' ] ]
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Le recensioni migliori da altri paesi
Clay Garner
''I am led to think that if he has no faith he must obey, and if he is free he must believe.'' (33)
Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 3 giugno 2017
