Alexis de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America': A Postmodern Reading

• Author: Ungurean, St
• Position: Faculty of Sociology and Communication, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 193-204

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 6 (55) No. 2 - 2013

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’S

“DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA”

A POSTMODERN READING

Ştefan UNGUREAN1

Abstract: Based on the current forms of knowledge we can outline the

features of modernity in nuce existing in the American society from the early

nineteenth century. Kinetics on the outside, in relation to nature, to which

corresponds a defined internal kinetics of social mobility and political

democracy, the birth of a subject capable of supporting the kinetic movement,

subject who is acting on a project basis, motivated by the need for equality

and freedom, in a constant effort of profane and innovation and that is

constantly threatened by anomie and despotism; these are the topics of this

analysis dedicated to the American modernity and prefigured to be of the

Western society as a whole.

Key words: subject, truth, anxiety, despotism, kinetics, equality, freedom,

democracy.

1 Faculty of Sociology and Communication, Transilvania University of Braşov.

1. Justification

Any postmodern reading of an author

proposes a rediscovery where we face the

"effects of the analogy or isomorphism

which, starting from the current forms of

the knowledge, outline the figure that has

become blurred or ceased to be

perceptible" [8, p.50]. It contains a risk

called by Sloterdijk, "deformation of the

text" which can mean "as if you make a

murder… the difficulty is not in the

execution of the deed, but in erasing the

traces" [15, p.26]. The stake of our

exercise is double: using some postmodern

concepts, we try to identify the

characteristics of modernity as they

transpire in the description of American

society. Tocqueville identifies in American

society a pattern of the future, without

excluding the evil threat coming from the

future. However, this evil is now requiring

governments to reduce the space of

freedom, to maximize the security,

including the concept of "right to security"

in that of equality of conditions.

'Democracy in America" is not just a book

about America, but the topics related to

freedom, equality, violence, war, after

"September 11" are no longer topics solely

of history of sociology.

2. Levels of analysis

What is an essential feature of

Tocqueville's writing is the pathos, the fact

that it confesses the author’s personal

commitment and responsibility. One can

glimpse here a trace of the Greek sophism

heritage in the modern culture, namely