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the primacy of the social experience of equality over the political
experience: "Equality can establish itself in society and yet be absent in
the political world." In the modern world, the desire for social equality
is "ardent," while the desire for political liberty is weak. Why should
this imbalance exist? Is there some inverse correlation between the two,
so that the stronger the desire for social equality, the weaker the desire
for political liberty?
To love liberty, to seek it out, requires a person to take risks, to
deny the self, to be willing to disrupt the tranquility of personal life.
The desire for social equality, on the other hand, is born out of the
desire for ta,ngible gratification, the desire to stabilize and tranquilize
family relations. In the psychology of equality men cherish the illusion
that, if once they can exist on a plane with everyone else, they will be
secure in their enjoyment of the things and people immediately around
them. Social equality is thus the means, supposedly,
to
"sweet plea–
sures" of everyday existence, while liberty demands the renunciation of
these pleasures. Therefore, men are more ardent in their desire for
equality than for liberty.
Having set up this imbalance, Tocqueville is ready to show how
the pursuit of a peaceful
vie quotidienne
gradually leads people to a
state of anxiety, unrest, and pleasurelessness, while instilling in them
no contrary impulse for greater liberty. Tocqueville asks: What kind of
person possesses the desire for peaceful personal life, given equality of
social conditions? Tocqueville calls him an individual, the social
condition he represents, individualism, and declares this condition a
unique historical production.
Individualism is described as follows:
.. . a peaceful and moderated feeling which leads each citizen to
isolate himself from the mass of his equals and to withdraw within
the circle of his family and his friends. Further, having created this
lillie society for his immediate ease, he willingly abandons the larger
society to go its own way.
Tocqueville is not using the term in the sense given to it later by
the social Darwinists; his individualism is not a world of rugged
struggle for survival, but exactly the reverse. Nor is this Jacob Burck–
hardt's use of the word "individualism" as a description of the modern
spirit born in the Italian Renaissance. Burckhardt shows us men and
women struggling to win praise from each other, to be recognized as
"individuals" because of their special qualities. This display of
virtu
is
anarchic but also involves a strong sense of community. Tocqueville
