Democracy in America

Tocqueville remains preoccupied with what he calls “mores”—what we might term cultural practices, social norms, and habits. In aristocracies each social group has its own concept of these things: “Thus the men who compose it do not resemble everyone else; they do not have the same manner of thinking or of feeling, and they scarcely believe themselves to be a part of the same humanity” (535). What mutual aid was offered was out of obligations that existed between classes, not a universal social bond.

Equality in democracy results in a growing sense of common humanity, and Tocqueville turns to legal structures to bolster this argument. In democracies penal codes are generally “milder” between citizens but stricter for slaves (537). International norms also become “milder” as people recognize that foreign nations are made up of people like them (539).

As he considers everyday social interactions, Tocqueville argues that rigid English social structures actually produced less “constrained” behavior; two English people know exactly how they should behave with one another (539). As these have broken down, anxiety and uncertainty result. The lack of these structures in America produces different results, as “strangers willingly gather in the same places and find neither advantage nor peril in freely communicating their thoughts to each other” (540).