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<TITLE>Reading Revolutions -- Crevecoeur, Tocqueville -- Intellectual History</TITLE>
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    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><b><a href="lectures.html">
	INDEX</a></b><br><br><font size="+1"><center><i>Reading Revolutions: Intellectual History</i><br><br>
	<font size="+1">
	What is an American? Crevecoeur, Tocqueville, and the<br>
	Ideology of American Exceptionalism<br><br><font size="+0">Allen Berger</center>

<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
<br><br>The following is the outline of his lecture written by Allen Berger:</font></font></font><br>
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">

<br>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><b>Why Crevecoeur and Tocqueville:&nbsp; Explanation and 
Confession</b></span></span><img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/tocquevillewater.jpg" width="184" height="224" align="right" hspace="8"></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
a.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Concerns about health of American democracy: some ideas of 
Crevecoeur and Tocqueville can be instructive</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
b.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>No expertise in either author (not a historian, political 
scientist, or expert in American Studies)—background as cultural anthropologist </span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
c.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Instead I come to the topic primarily as an educator</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
i. Started career teaching at a small Catholic college—Core program—Crevecoeur 
and Tocqueville included in common first-year, general education curriculum that 
aspired to create community-wide discourse about: a) factors shaping individual 
lives and life chances in America, and b) the nature of American society </span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
ii.<span>&nbsp;</span>Longstanding belief in need for college education to prepare 
students for citizenship and leadership in a democratic society (liberal 
education)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
iii. Concerned that while we continue to give lip service to this idea, the 
reality is that our commitment to education for citizenship has been seriously 
undermined by two related trends-</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Barry Schwartz (Swarthmore)—<i>economic imperialism—</i>def.: 
the spread of economic considerations to previously non-economic aspects of life 
(perceptions of value and purpose of college)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Culture of individualism and consumer choice: student choice 
and faculty choice in a “Chinese menu” distributive curriculum that values 
breadth in education but at the same time sacrifices commonality and community </span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
iv.<span>&nbsp;</span>My interest in moral education and in education for citizenship 
undoubtedly makes me seem very old fashioned; conservative even—certainly 
countercultural (evidence from recent <i>Diversity Digest</i>
study--handout)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
v.<span>&nbsp;</span>Brian Bex and I: we differ in our politics, but we ask identical 
questions:</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>If a college education is effectively to prepare students for 
citizenship and for leadership, are there certain issues and ideas that we ought 
to aspire to engage seriously together across the academy as a true community of 
learners?</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Should there be a common core that doesn’t eliminate all 
choice in general education, but complements and balances it?</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
3.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>And if so, what common readings belong in such a Core?</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
vi.<span>&nbsp;</span>No proposal tonight for a grand curricular design (and not a 
CAO’s role)--but suggest that Crevecoeur and Tocqueville aren’t bad places to 
start, at least for students who will be the next generation of citizens in this 
country (my own experiences at U of C).</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><b>So who are these guys?</b></span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
a.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Both Frenchmen; both visitors to America, one in the colonial 
period, in the years leading up to the revolution, the other in the early 
decades of the American Republic</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
b.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Both wrote about America: comparisons to old world of Europe 
(particularly France) and with a fascination for what made America different or 
exceptional</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
c.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Basic biographical facts:</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
i.&nbsp; J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>born in Normandy in 1731</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>finished education in England; embarked for America in 1754</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
3.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>worked as a surveyor, peddler, Indian trader; traveled 
throughout the colonies and beyond into the wilderness of the interior</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
4.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>settled in Orange County, NY, married into fairly prominent 
British family, became something of a gentleman farmer on “Pine Hill,” a 120 
acre farm</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
5.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>started a manuscript on American society and agrarian life</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
6.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Tory, but distrusted by British</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
7.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>1780-returned to England, later France, publishing in both 
countries “Letters from an American Farmer,” which was enormously influential in 
Europe</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
8.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>returned to New York in 1783, served as French consul; Pine 
Hill had been burned in an Indian raid, his wife was dead, and his three 
children were gone (although he later tracked them down)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
9.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>associated with many leading figures of the early American 
scene, including Benjamin Franklin whom he had befriended in Paris</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
10.<span>&nbsp;</span>returned to France in 1790; died in 1813</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in">	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/28-tocqueville.jpg" width="174" height="322" align="right" hspace="10"></font><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">ii.<span>&nbsp;</span>Alexis 
	de Tocqueville (Comte Alexis-Henri-Charles-Maurice Clérel de Tocqueville)</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>born in Paris in 1805</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>aristocratic background; studied law and served as a 
magistrate</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
3.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>traveled to America in 1831 w. another young magistrate, 
Gustave de Beaumont, landing in Newport, RI, a month before turning 26</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
4.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>traveled here ostensibly for purpose of studying American 
penal system; T. later labeled this a “pretext”; said the real purpose was to 
see firsthand “what a great republic is”</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
5.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>spent nine months in America, visiting both cities and the 
frontier; met ordinary Americans, road in stage coaches and steam boats, met 
leaders of the day (such as John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Andrew 
Jackson), and read broadly</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
6.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>eventual result—<i>Democracy in America</i>, published in 
France in 1835</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
7.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>some scholars judge it the best book on democracy and the best 
book on America every written; certainly it may be the most often quoted</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
8.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>later in life served as a public official, including as a 
representative to the Chamber of Deputies and minister of foreign affairs</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 2in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
9.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>died in 1859</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
3.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><b>Why is Crevecoeur and in particular <i>Letters from an 
American Farmer</i> worthy of our attention or our students’ attention?</b></span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
a.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>perhaps the first author to ask the question: “What is an 
American?” (certainly still a relevant question) His work is part 
autobiographical memoir, part philosophical travel book, and part formal 
essays—all framed as a series of letters from an American farmer, James, to a 
correspondent in England who is curious about the manner of life in the American 
colonies</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
b.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>it is a work that defined America to Europeans (along w. 
Franklin)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
c.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Not great literature or ethnography or social theory, but 
introduces ideas and visions of America that have shaped both our ideas and 
myths about ourselves and also how others have perceived us; Crevecoeur 
portrayed American society as different from any that had previously existed; he 
described what he considered revolutionary principles of social and economic 
organization and a distinctive, non-European consciousness or ethos that emerged 
as a result.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
d.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>READINGS FROM LETTER 3: “What is an American?”</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
e.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>In just these short excerpts, a rich number of themes and 
ideas:</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in">	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/crevecoerw.jpg" width="254" height="349" align="right" hspace="10"></font><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">i.&nbsp; 
	America as a melting pot: what melts is memory—memory (of old world and old 
	identities.</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
ii.<span>&nbsp; </span>“American Adam”—a special or unique breed of human who is 
less parochial, more open-minded, and more engaged civicly (Emerson --America 
offered “new lands, new men, new thoughts.”)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
iii.<span>&nbsp; </span>Identification of individualistic, egalitarian, anti-statist, 
and laissez faire values as the core of American national identity (Lipset: in 
Europe “nationality is related to community, and thus one cannot become 
un-English or un-Swedish. Being an American, however, is an ideological 
commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are 
un-American.” Teddy Roosevelt-- America is a “question of principle, of 
idealism, of character, not a matter of birthplace, of creed, or line of 
descent.” To think of Americans, as Benjamin Barber has written, “as a special 
people capable of realizing a special destiny” takes hubris, but perhaps the 
greatest purveyor of this idea in the eighteenth century was a Frenchman, not an 
American.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
iv.<span>&nbsp; </span>Lack of class consciousness in America (later generations 
of historians folded this into the notion of American exceptionalism—no 
tradition of working class radicalism, no significant socialist movement or 
labor party)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
v.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Optimism, grounded in materialism and environmental 
determinism—where people live, the material conditions of their lives, what they 
do, and how they work determines how they think, indeed who they are. The 
European transplanted to America can literally become a “new man.” (Crevecoeur’s 
use of the masculine)</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.125in; margin-left: 1.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
vi.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The American dream</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 1.375in">&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana">f.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/TocquevilleCrevecoeur3321w.jpg" width="300" height="225" align="left" hspace="10" vspace="10"></font><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">CONCLUSION: 
Whether or not one agrees with these ideas, it is hard to deny that they have 
had a strong impact on American culture; they are an important part of a 
national story that we tell about ourselves.&nbsp; Having students read passages 
from Crevecoeur is therefore a wonderful launching pad for conversations about 
the nature of America and American myth. Of course, there are competing visions 
and competing stories, stories of hyphenated Americans, of multicultural 
identity, of diversity, of disadvantage, of imperialism rather than innocence. 
But isn’t that the point?&nbsp; Our stories define for us who we are.&nbsp; And 
our students need to understand these stories, their origins, their limitations, 
what they show and what they hide, whose interests they serve, and how they 
function in the context of a society that has changed dramatically since the 
time of Crevecoeur.&nbsp; And, I would argue, perhaps no future citizen needs 
this education more than a citizen who aspires to be a future teacher (of which 
we have many at UMF).&nbsp; If there’s one thing Crevecoeur makes clear it is 
this: the ideology of American exceptionalism not so much an example of 20<sup>th</sup> 
century superpower arrogance or 19<sup>th</sup> century imperialist 
revisionism/hypocrisy; it is our original story and it is a story whose repeated 
telling has wielded enormous influence.</span></p>
<br>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
4.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Why is Tocqueville and <i>Democracy in America</i> worthy of 
our attention as college educators interested in preparing future citizens?&nbsp; 
Answer:&nbsp; Tocqueville “is the best friend that democracy has ever had, and 
also democracy’s most candid critic.”&nbsp; Limitations of my discussion; Matt 
McCourt’s follow-up lecture. Focus tonight:</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
a.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Tocqueville as an apostle of civic engagement</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
b.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Tocqueville as a critic of Americans’ addiction to material 
well-being</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
c.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Tocqueville as a skeptic of majority rule</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
d.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Tocqueville as an appreciative analyst of a print-based 
culture</span></span></p>
	<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 1in">
<br>
	</p>
<p>
<span style="font-weight: 700; font-style:italic; font-family:'Verdana; font-size: =-1">
Civic Engagement</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Perhaps more 
than anything else, Tocqueville was impressed with Americans’ propensity for 
participation in civic associations.&nbsp; He wrote: “Americans of all ages, all 
stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations.&nbsp; 
There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take 
part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral, serious, 
futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute… Nothing, 
in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations 
in America.”</span></span><br>
	</p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">In 
Tocqueville’s mind, this propensity was the basis of democracy—</span></span></p>
	<blockquote>
		<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">It encouraged the development of 
		social trust</span></p>
		<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">It broadened people’s sense self, 
		creating more enlightened participants in the policy capable of thinking 
		in terms of the common good and mutual self-interest</span></p>
		<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">It facilitated coordination and 
		cooperation for collective benefit</span></p>
		<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">It developed political and 
		organizational skills</span></p>
		<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">It resulted in an active 
		citizenry that was not excessively dependent upon government</span></p>
	</blockquote>
<p>	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/TocquevilleCrevecoeur3206w.jpg" width="350" height="263" align="right" hspace="10"></font><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Since 
	Tocqueville, many political scientists have studied this aspect of American 
	society and have tried to specify the mechanisms by which civic engagement 
	and social connectedness lead to a healthier democracy </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Banfield on 
southern Italy:  <i>The Moral Basis of a Backward Society</i>: problem of amoral 
familism</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Recent trend 
in political science to despair the disappearance of voluntary associations and 
the decline of civic engagement in America</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Putnam: 
“Bowling Alone”</span></span></p>
	<blockquote>
		<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
		Putnam: “The rise of solo bowling threatens the livelihood of 
		bowling-lane proprietors because those who bowl as members of leagues 
		consume three times as much beer and pizza as solo bowlers, and the 
		money in bowling is in the beer and pizza, not the balls and shoes.&nbsp; 
		The broader social significance, however, lies in the social interaction 
		and even occasionally civic conversations over beer and pizza that solo 
		bowlers forego.”</span></span></p>
	</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Not just 
bowling: declining participation in PTA’s; disappearance of labor unions; 
shrinkage of fraternal organizations (Lions, Elks, Jaycees, Masons, etc.); fewer 
volunteers to be Boy Scout troop leaders; even declining socialization with 
neighbors</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Common 
framework for understanding this phenomenon: decline in SOCIAL CAPITAL</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>(community resources that facilitate coordination and 
cooperation for mutual benefit)</span></span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Questions:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Is it really happening?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Does it really have a dire impact on democracy?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Are new kinds of networks and organizations—e.g., those 
formed through electronic media—capable of making up for this loss?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Why is it occurring?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Geographic mobility</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Women’s entry into the workforce</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Affluence (e.g., vacations vs. holidays)</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 1in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
Technological transformation of leisure: television, VCR’s and DVD’s, computers</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 1in">&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<span style="font-weight: 700; font-style:italic; font-family:'Verdana; font-size: =-1">
Material Well-Being</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">United States as most affluent society in 
the history of the world</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana"><span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Not an unmixed blessing: (recent Howe lecture)</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville 
for a different set of reasons thought the bourgeois addiction to material 
well-being, which he found particularly strong in America, was problematic (in 
particular, dangerous to democracy)</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville:&nbsp; “It is a strange thing 
to see with sort of feverish ardor Americans pursue well-being and how they show 
themselves constantly tormented by a vague fear of not having chosen the 
shortest route that can lead to it.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville had two fears:</span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.75in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
1)<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>the desire for material well-being, when it degenerates into 
materialism, is self-defeating: it leads to continuous cravings, escalation of 
needs, and paradoxically a reduction in levels of satisfaction</span></span></p>
<p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.75in"><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">
2)<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>more importantly, it weakens social bonds and increases 
selfishness, and therefore is a threat to community and to democracy</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville advocated “self interest well 
understood”—as antidote to dangers of materialism—encompasses more than the 
self. Similarly, he spoke of a “sort of refined and intelligent egoism,” which 
he said was “the pivot on which the whole machine turns.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville:&nbsp; religion particularly 
important in producing this enlightened self-interest:&nbsp; “The main business 
of religion is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive 
taste for well-being.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Religion + 
civic engagement: produced a “second language” that united individuals, created 
communities and acted as counter-weight to the language of individualism.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">&nbsp;“Habits of 
the heart.” vs. acquisitive individualism; virtue vs. materialism</span></span></p>
	&nbsp;<p>
	<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style:italic; font-family:'Verdana; font-size: =-1">
	Majority Rule</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville as America’s greatest fan, 
but also wrote: “I do not know of any country where, in general, less 
independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville particularly skeptical of the 
tyranny of the majority: “In America, the majority draws a formidable circle 
around thought. Inside those limits, the writer is free; but unhappiness awaits 
him if he dares to leave them. It is not that he has to fear an auto-da-fe, but 
he is the butt of moritifications of all kinds of persecutions every day.”</span><br>
	</p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Irony: even 
though Americans value individualism above almost all else, we do not place 
particular value on individuation of thought. In fact, we punish free-thinkers. 
(in some ways we punish thinkers period)</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Rich body of 
sociological and political literature in the wake of Tocqueville that has 
examined the supposed anti-intellectual strains in American society.</span></span></p>
<br>
<p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family:'Verdana; font-size: =-1"><i>
Print-based culture</i>  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">I have saved 
this part of Tocqueville’s observations for last, because it so closely relates 
to why we’re all here tonight: Brian Bex has lent us these first editions of 
great books, because he believes there is value in the printed word. There is 
not a faculty member at UMF who would disagree. In fact, what is college about 
if it is not about reading and discussing what one has read?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">However, in 
this day and age, most college students arrive in the academy without having 
developed a habit of reading. Many even report that they don’t enjoy reading.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Tocqueville, 
on the other hand, was struck by the extent to which America was a nation of 
readers. He took particular note of the proliferation of newspapers, pamphlets, 
and broadsides.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Of course, 
for us it’s difficult to imagine a world without radios, without television, 
without computers, without movies, without telephones, without even photography.&nbsp; 
Printed matter was all that was available. And rates of literacy in the late 
eighteenth and early nineteenth century were higher in America than anywhere 
else in the world.&nbsp; Political discourse in our early democracy was written 
discourse.  </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">In addition 
to penny newspapers, two other institutions grew at a phenomenal pace—libraries 
and lecture halls. Alfred Bunn:&nbsp; “Practically every village has its lecture 
hall… It is a matter of wonderment to witness the youthful workmen, the 
overtired artisan, the worn-out factory girl rushing after the toil of the day 
is over, into the hot atmosphere of a crowded lecture room.”</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Lectures as 
“the oral equivalent of print”—w. linear, analytical structure of expository 
prose.&nbsp; The business of politics was conducted entirely through print and 
through lectures.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Try to 
imagine how different that is from the world in which we live today, where the 
business of politics is conducted primarily through 30 or 60 second television 
commercials.&nbsp; Where even the so-called debates that our presidential 
candidates have are little more than scripted exercises and opportunities for 
creating impressions rather than advancing cogent arguments, chances for honing 
a message, which of course means shrinking it down to bite-sized one liners that 
don’t even require a command of syntax.  </span></span></p>
<p>	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Crevocoer/TocquevilleCrevecoeur3352w.jpg" width="300" height="225" align="left" hspace="10" vspace="10"></font><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">What 
	is the impact on our democracy?&nbsp; On the quality of our decisions as 
	voters? On the kinds of candidates we elect?  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">Most 
Americans today agree that Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president.&nbsp; He 
was also, of course, a great orator. But he was gangly, awkward, many would say 
ugly, and he had a homely wife who was mentally ill.&nbsp; Could his candidacy 
have survived in the age of television?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">If not, and 
I gather you agree not, then here’s the more important question (Postman):&nbsp; 
if our democracy arose in a print culture where public discourse was 
characterized by the coherent, linear, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas, 
can it survive in a video, electronic culture characterized by sound-bites, 
multi-tasking, short attention spans, and flashy visuals?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">These are 
the kinds of questions that reading Tocqueville forces us to ask?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: =-1"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana">And, to 
return to where I started, if you agree with me that these questions are of 
utmost importance if we are to preserve our democracy, then shouldn’t every 
college student be reading Tocqueville and perhaps Crevecoeur too?</span></span></p>
<br>
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	<p align="left"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	Following the presentation the audience was invited to examine the three 
	volumes of essays.</font></p>
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			<p align="center"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">J. Hector St. John de 
			Crevecoeur,</font><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
			1782<br>
			click to enlarge</font></td>
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			Alexis de Tocqueville, 1841<br>
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</font></font></font></font>
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-2">Crevecoeur and de Tocqueville</font><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><font size="+1"><font size=-2 face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> 
	portraits from 
			<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocqueville">Wikipedia</a> </font></p>


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          <td width="100%"><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>Citation:<br><br>
			Berger, Allen.&nbsp;  "What is an American? Crevecoeur, Tocqueville, and the
Ideology of American Exceptionalism."&nbsp;
Outline of lecture presented at the University of Maine at Farmington, November 16, 2005.&nbsp;
Retrieved _______.&nbsp &lt;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Tocqueville_Crevecoeur.html&gt;.  <br><br>URL:  <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html">
			http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html</a>  <br><br>
			Marilyn Shea, 2005<br><br>

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