For the majority of this chapter I felt that Tocqueville was describing and recounting the geographical aspects of North America as it was when he wrote this, quite effectively. Additionally, I found his explanation of the native tribes to be… Read moreReaction to Tocqueville Chapter 1: Exterior Form of North America
Democracy in America was written in 1835, before philosophies such as Marxism, Nihilism, Scientific Materialism, biological determinism/sociobiology, moral relativism, moral subjectivism, began to become prominent influences in shaping people’s worldviews from the mid-late 1800s about to the present. A recent… Read moreGod and/or Nature in Tocqueville’s Explanation of the Physical World
From Tocqueville’s Chapter VIII, he highlights the fact that humans distinguish themselves from brutes because of their capability of indefinitely improving. He argues that one who is under an aristocracy does not find trouble improving, but indefinitely improving. The aristocracy… Read moreHOW EQUALITY SUGGESTS TO THE AMERICANS THE IDEA OF THE INDEFINITE PERFECTABILITY OF MAN
According to Tocqueville, man will forever keep improving to reach perfectibility and I can agree with that because one is not born perfect, and they must learn and correct themselves to be better. The difference Tocqueville explores is that in… Read moreAlexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America: “How Equality Suggests to the Americans the Indefinite Perfectibility of Man”
Tocqueville uses this chapter to explain how humans specifically are naturally inclined to improve on themselves to achieve perfectibility. However, he uses equality as a contemporary example of something that has shifted the ideals of perfectibility, as this is a… Read moreHOW EQUALITY SUGGESTS TO THE AMERICANS THE IDEA OF THE INDEFINITE PERFECTABILITY OF MAN