Tocqueville's Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Tocqueville's Philosophy - Essay Example Tocqueville observes that the society’s change from a feudal aristocracy to a democracy only serves to deepen and sharpen the democratic man’s psychological state. Both the underlying equality logic and the impacts of the disintegration of the feudal aristocratic state serve to fan the anxiety that is latent in the man’s situation by contributing onto the status obsession (Tocqueville, 124). Tocqueville argues that the aristocratic period placed horizons and boundaries around and before all by linking everyone from the lowly peasant to the highly placed king in one single chain. This system served to permanently place men in both their social and historical place. This is because aristocratic men always preserve an overall historical awareness of their ancestors as well as their descendants. In this kind of society, each of the existing classes is permanently firmly limited and each subject is assigned a fixed station that is often in a hierarchical manner that serves to ensure that there will always be a person above him who will accord him the necessary protection as well as another one underneath him whose help may sometimes be required (Tocqueville 173). Democracy serves to radically impose itself, breaking the preexisting links thus freeing each and every link available. In the equality age, men do not have to contend with any preexisting boundaries instead the new system opens newly available opportunities that accord them a chance at wealth accumulation and social mobility. The French philosopher Tocqueville embarked on a very ambitious task when he decided to pen a book on Democracy in America. He gave himself this task having seen the unsuccessful attempts to have democratic governance in his native home so he wanted to gain valuable insights on how democracy works by studying a prosperous and stable democracy.