The Most Common Sickness of Our Time

Tocqueville on Democratic Restlessness

Bibliographic Data

ID6398484
AuthorsDana Jalbert Stauffer (0000-0002-7463-2102, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume80
Issue3
Pages439-461
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670518000232
OpenAlexW2809479638
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited19

In volume 1 ofDemocracy in America, Tocqueville argues that the energy unleashed by democracy is one of democracy's greatest benefits. In volume 2, his portrait of democracy turns darker, and he recasts the dynamism of American society as an expression of an underlying restlessness. In this paper, I argue that restlessness (inquiétude) is a key element of Tocqueville's mature view of democratic man. Whereas previous scholarship on Tocqueville's view of restlessness either treats the theme instrumentally, by subordinating it to other themes, or seeks to illuminate Tocqueville's debt to other thinkers, this paper examines Tocqueville's treatment of restlessness as an important theme in its own right. Treating this theme in full requires examining his discussions of materialism, envy, democratic morality, and democratic peoples’ experiences of literature and art. Through this examination we see how, in Tocqueville's view, democracy, for all its merits, obstructs the path to human happiness

Aesthetics · Democracy · Epistemology · Happiness · Materialism · Morality · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Scholarship · Sociology · Theme (computing · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology

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