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sources, and first-hand observation, and then to draw from this a fine–
tuned analysis of the cultural logic of a society. No other European vis–
itor of the eighteenth or nineteenth century who committed his thoughts
to writing-and there were, of course, many-came close to Toc–
queville's comprehensive vision. For anthropology, which made the
study of cultural wholes the great quest of the twentieth century, Toc–
queville is probably the most important precursor among European
thinkers, rivaled only by Montesquieu in breadth of analysis.
But anthropology has fallen on hard times. Many of its practitioners
disdain interest in whole societies, to focus instead on the "margins."
The cultural dissenter, the misfit, especially the disadvantaged who resist
their situation, are riding high in anthropological interpretations of
human social life, and the old intellectual enterprise of attempting to
grasp a culture or society in its essentials or its entirety is in disrepute.
Wholes
and
essentials
are, according to this view, likely to be only the
simplified views of those in power, and the anthropologist who gives
license to such views is contributing to the oppression of those who are
under the thumb of the local elites.
To be sure, not all anthropologists think this way, but enough do to
have set the tone of discussion in the professional journals and the class–
rooms. Anthropology is haunted by the specter of Marx leading an
entourage of lesser wraiths, including Foucault and Gramsci, and a pro–
cession of feminist, "subaltern," and other resent-nik acolytes. Toc–
queville can be a powerful corrective to the narrowness and cynicism of
these views, for he demonstrates that the quest to understand a society
as a whole need not entail conceding to that society's dominant myths.
Tocqueville's views on the "tyranny of the majority" in the United States,
his insights into the darker sides of individualism and equality, and his
prescient account of race in America demonstrate an intellectual scope
and freedom nowhere approached by Marxian or postmodern analysts.
The example of Tocqueville seems all the more pertinent as anthro–
pology and the other social sciences tackle the massive increase in scale
in human societies that is characteristic of our time. Perhaps Mansfield
and Winthrop'S new translation of
Democracy in America
will inspire a
new Tocqueville to write a
Democracy in Russia
or an ambitious
account of the laws and mores of one of the other distinct societies
emerging in our globalized economy.
Peter Wood
