Democracy and totalitarianism (II)

Tocqueville and totalitarian democracy

(From Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality (Hollis and Carter, London, 1952), pp 28–31.)

"It was also De Tocqueville who foresaw, in a more precise and concrete way than all his contemporaries, the danger of an evolution from democracy—and especially from democratic republicanism—to tyranny. He envisaged this evolution not as a process of dialectics, but in a direct and logical sequence. Because of his objectivity and balance in judgment, this Norman count has often been declared to be an outright supporter of democracy—which he decidedly was not. It was with horror and melancholy fear that he contemplated the coming victory of democracy, which, it must be admitted, he detested less than the "next stage". . . . CONTINUE With resignation this great liberal wrote:

The absolute monarchies have dishonoured despotism; let us be careful that the democratic republics do not rehabilitate it.

De Tocqueville's Catholic background prevented him from becoming a cultural or historical determinist; nevertheless, the chances for the survival of liberty in the "present" democratic age he thought to be less than in the preceding aristocratic periods. He wrote to Gobineau:

In my eyes human societies, like individuals, are nothing if not by the use of liberty. I have always said that liberty is more difficult to establish and to maintain in democratic societies, like ours, than in certain aristocratic societies which have preceded us. But that this should be impossible I would never be rash enough to believe.

Yet the picture he painted of the coming servitude—grandiose and depressing by its very depth and accuracy—shows a more pessimistic outlook. We find it in the second volume of his Democracy in America, contained in two chapters entitled 'What sort of despotism have democratic nations to fear?'

"He begins his speculation by remarking that during his sojourn in the United States (1831–32) and after his return to Europe, he was haunted by the spectre of a new despotism which would engulf the nations of Christendom. After analyzing tyranny in antiquity, he comes to the conclusion that in spite of all the arbitrariness, brutality and vindictiveness of despots and emperors, the totalitarian element was fairly absent: the natural and historical obstacles for a complete regulation of civic and political life over vast areas would have proved insurmountable. About these early despots he remarks that:

their tyranny rested very heavily on a few but did not extend to a great number; it was focussed on a few main objects and neglected the rest; it was violent but limited in its scope.

It seems to me that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it would have different characteristics: it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

He then insists that the coming form of tyranny is going to be so fundamentally new that there is absolutely no term, no label, no appropriate appellation he could use for it. 'The thing is new, and since I cannot name it, I have to define it.'

"His descriptive analysis starts with a vision of masses of men 'alike and equal' attracted by small and vulgar pleasures. Yet:

above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labours, but it chooses to be the sole agent and arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances—what remains but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

This is an accurate picture of the totalitarian state, only seemingly marred by the author's emphasis on the element of mildness. Here we have to bear in mind that brutality and cruelty in the totalitarian state are merely means to achieve specific ends. The vistas of De Tocqueville relate to a peaceful evolution (or, if we prefer, degeneration)—a slow process of interaction and decline, with men becoming gradually more like mice, and states more like Leviathans. His error is merely one of 'timing'. If the political process is faster than the sociological (psychological, cultural, characteriological) decay; in other words, if full political totality is reached before individuals are ready for it—a reign of terror and brutality must set in, so that the population can be 'weeded out' (and thus 'homogenized', as well as paralyzed) by abject terror. Such a situation will prevail if democracy has not had enough time to prepare the stage—if, for instance, the religious background is too personalistic, if racial diversities are too pronounced, of if class differences are too divisive a factor. Under these circumstances mildness will have to be replaced by concentration camps, mass exiles, deportations and gas chambers, until and unless a totally new and uniform generation grows up.

"Yet if the whole process happens in an 'orderly fashion' these excesses can be avoided. Men whose civilian valour finds its supreme expression in pulling a lever behind a protective curtain will not have the courage to rebel, and concentration camps (actually a 'healthy sign' because they denote resistance) will not exist. Governmental paternalism will be acclaimed. And De Tocqueville remarks:

The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

He then continues to add a score of other details to the sordid picture, which sometimes reminds us of the democratic and at other times of the dictatorial governments of our days. Our author admits that the new tyranny not only might use libertarian slogans but even be established in 'the shadow of the sovereignty of the people.' Torn between the (surviving) demand for liberty and the desire to be led, the masses are prone to make a compromise by electing masters who give them the illusion that they are ruled by 'themselves' after all. It is at the end of this chapter that he meditates on the result of a form of government with an elected head but an unbending absolutism in the scope of its legislation and the execution of all regulations and laws [i.e., "elective dictatorship"—Spog]:

A constitution which would be republican in its head and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts has always seemed to me to be a monstrosity of short duration. The vices of the governors and the imbecility of the subjects could not fail to bring about its ruin. And the people, tired of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or would soon give up and prostrate itself at the feet of a single master."