Tocqueville’s later work is colored by his extensive political experience. Above all, he seeks to turn the attention of his readers to questions of intellectual and political freedom. He prescribes as much as describes, and suggests how political and intellectual greatness, subject to risks in democratic times, might nonetheless be preserved. In his writings he explains the effects of democracy on the theoretical and practical habits of men in democratic times, focusing on the salubrious as well as the troubling. Tocqueville understands democracy not merely as self-government but as a comprehensive way of life. In these works, Tocqueville explains the origins and character of modern life in the “Christian universe,” which he believes is dominated by a single fact: the “equality of conditions,” or democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a French political philosopher, statesman, and author of two seminal works in the history of political thought, Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution.
0 kommentar(er)
