Insights On De Tocquevilles Democracy In America :: essays research papers

Insights on De Tocquevilles Democracy In AmericaIt has been said that a french aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, whovisited the United States in the 1830s, dumb us in a way that fewobservers (foreign and domestic) have. Furthermore, Tocquevilles Democracy inAmerica is often cited by present-day critics because so many of theobservations in it wait extraordinarily suitable even more than one hundred andfifty years later. Alexis de Tocqueville was born 1805 into a minor noble family,in which his grandfather had been guillotined during the French Revolution. Hehad come to the United States in 1831 to study the prison system, in which hedid not do, instead he wrote Democracy in America. He had stayed in the UnitedStates through February 1832 for about nine months, so intrigued by democracy,majority rule, and the absence of social hierarchy. Democracy in America wasfirst published in 1825, full of observations and interpretations, was writtenas a sort of warning for European readers I s this what you want? he asks.This book was famous for two accurate predictions, one, the U.S. would somedaybe a world power as would Russia, second, race would prove to be the mostintractable problem for the U.S.One of Tocquevilles observations about the United States is that he thinking at that place is no country in the civilized world that is less attention paidphilosophy than the United States. This is applicable to American life in 1997because the whole world is practically joined to the United States. Just aboutevery country in the world trades with, tours in, and watches for the UnitedStates. What I mean by watches is that they practically always know whats goingon (except for the top-secret things) in the United States, whether it be bytelevision, computers, or satellites they know what the U.S. is doing. The U.S.is basically a bash county the laws and schools are less strict thanother countries such as, Japan in which the students there have to go to schoolsix days a wor kweek with much more homework then U.S. schools.Another observation of Alexis is that religion is associated with allthe customs of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism. Another way ofsaying this that there is a religion for everyone. This is still true in 1997because everyone has there own belief and goes to the church or believes in thereligion that they desire. The religious person believes in what he or she wantsto believe in and in most case respects what another persons religion might be.