Working at the Same Time to Animate and to Restrain
Tocqueville on the Problem of Authority
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 3970920 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Robert A Ballingall (0000-0002-2141-5235, University of Maine, autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 2019 |
| Volumen | 24 |
| Número | 7-8 |
| Páginas | 738-754 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2019-11-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | No |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | The European Legacy (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316 |
| Editorial | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10848770.2019.1641310 |
| OpenAlex | W2963298799 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Citas recibidas | 1 |
| Referencias citadas | 9 |
Alexis de Tocqueville is often seen as a champion of personal liberty and human greatness in the face of the conformism and mediocrity of the democratic social state. In this light, his vision of “soft despotism” anticipates familiar reservations about state managerialism and political apathy. Yet this picture risks eclipsing one of Tocqueville’s most pregnant ambiguities. Though deeply concerned by threats to liberty posed by modern mass society, Tocqueville is alive to the special need such societies have of authority, particularly moral authority, and hence of restraints to liberty itself. The freedom to decide how best to lead one’s life must become self-destructive, he contends, without a corresponding inclination to look outside oneself for prudent leadership and counsel. This article elucidates the reasoning behind this paradoxical position. I argue that beneath the need of authority Tocqueville detects an enduring human problem, though one that takes a unique and even insuperable form under modern egalitarianism. I suggest that dwelling on this problem promises to enrich debates about the cynical nativism now menacing liberal democracies. Its origins are to be found less in economic upheaval and communication technology run amok than in the decay of civil religion and civic virtue, a trend that runs very much with the grain of democratic society and whose progress may be irrevocable
Champion · Civil disobedience · Civility · Democracy · Egalitarianism · Environmental ethics · Greatness · Law and economics · Mediocrity principle · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Virtue · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence
| Obras citantes distintas | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citas por año | 0,5 |
| Intervalo de citas | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Velocidad de citación | recent |
| Altamente citado | No |
| Tipos de cita | Neutras: 1 |