1. One way of understanding Tocqueville is to
remember he is an aristocrat, and despite the general attack on the aristocracy
in the wake of the French Revolution, he persists in believing that aristocrats
did some important things that the new democracies – both in the US and Europe
– would have to find someone to do. What are these things?
One of the Tocqueville’s arguments
for aristocrats is the role they play in counteracting the whims of the
democracy. Tocqueville consistently emphasizes the dangers of the all-powerful,
capricious democracy, which is the most powerful danger to the nation. He
believes it is too fickle, and that this ever-changing drive is reflected in
our legislature, and thus laws. This tyrannical, unstable, and omnipotent force
is significantly checked by the aristocracy, which takes form in the American
legal system.
American lawyers check the
democracy, and Tocqueville believes this is partly because they are instilled
with values in their legal training that repel democratic virtues, “[lawyers]
have learned habits of orderliness from this legal work, a certain taste for
formalities, a sort of instinctive love for logical sequence of ideas, all of
which make them naturally opposed to the revolutionary turn of mind and the ill-considered
passions of democracy.” Furthermore, Tocqueville states that they are
inherently elite, a “privileged intellectual class,” and thus form the American
aristocracy. They, unlike the rest of the nation, are able to resist the
passing interests and individualism. They are conservative in nature, unlike
citizens of the democracy, and can maintain the principles on which the nation
was founded; the democracy espouses impetuous progress instead of formal,
careful values of the legal system.
The legal aristocratic elite is
also necessary in its position, which is exterior to the people of the democracy
as well as the wealthy and ruler. It can arbitrate between them and act
favorably to both sides. They embody a separate, distinct power in government that
“represents the sole aristocratic element to mix effortlessly with the natural
features of democracy and to combine with them in a happy and lasting way.”
Although the legal system is comprised of formalities and elitism, there exists some equilibrium within the aristocracy that permits a mutual benefit to the aristocracy/government and the people. Putting aside individual beliefs, for they are masked and unknown, lawyers can only exist because of democracy. In fact, aristocracy could not survive without democracy. Although this seems counterintuitive, if there was no democracy then people would not be able to voice change. Without being able to fight for their own rights or values they believe in, lawyers would not have clients. At least outwardly, lawyers must also represent democratic virtues. In fact, they are one of the only tools for the modern bourgeoise to be heard by the government and the entire nation. Democracy is not socialism and it is also not anarchy. Democracy relies on the ebb and flow of law and nature--even from the precociousness of the "legal aristocratic elite".
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