Tocqueville on Aristocratic and Democratic History

On historical systems, lazy theorists, the paralysis of great causes, and respect for the individual

In the greatest book ever written on America, and also the greatest book ever written on Democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville has a series of short chapters surveying different sections of American society. Often passed over in favor of the more well-known sections on equality, individualism, America writ-large, and the dangers of soft-despotism, these episodic chapters in Vol. II of Democracy in America cover a wide range of topics, including journalism, education, warfare, public monuments and the arts, and even the writing of history. In most of these chapters, Tocqueville provides a contrast between aristocratic and democratic societies, showing how deeply democracy can change the mores and culture of a people.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the French noble man and liberal thinker, who travelled to America. His works on America, and the French Revolution, are some of the best ever written. - Wikimedia Commons

In his short chapter on “Some Characteristics Peculiar to Historians in Democratic Centuries,” Tocqueville anticipates the historiographic “great man vs. impersonal forces” debate with remarkable clarity:

“Historians who write in aristocratic ages generally attribute everything that happens to the will and character of particular men, and they will unhesitatingly suppose slight accidents to be the cause of the greatest revolutions….Historians who live in democratic ages show contrary tendencies. Most of them attribute hardly any influence over the destinies of mankind to individuals, or over the fate of a people to the citizens. But they make great general causes responsible for the smallest particular events.”¹ 

In aristocratic ages, historians focus on great men and singular events, which have dramatic and far-reaching consequences. In democratic ages, however, historians look to broad general causes, and put little emphasis on individual agency. The former age is one where a general’s order, a king’s decision, or a diplomat’s cleverness, can change the fate of a nation. The latter is one of national movements, cultural trends, and impersonal forces, where grand causes can explain even the habits of shopkeepers and grocers. When it comes to searching for causes and explanations, Tocqueville suggests that historians will look accordingly. Aristocratic historians will search out the character and habits of great men for any possible explanation as to their abilities and motivations, whereas in a democracy, where “all the citizens are independent of one another and each is weak,” individual agency counts for much less, “and society would seem to progress on its own by the free and spontaneous action of all its members.” 

Tocqueville isn’t a straight partisan of either approach, and highlights the weakness of both schools. Aristocratic historians overrate the ability of great individuals to influence history which “leads them to suppose that one must always explain the actions of the crowd by tracing the impulse back to one man’s act.” Democratic historians, however, are overly prone to develop “systems” to explain events, especially when they get lost in the details and can’t easily pick out individual actions and motives. In fairness, this task is genuinely harder in democracies, since:

“in periods of equality, as compared to ages of aristocracy, causes of this secondary and accidental nature are infinitely more various, better hidden, more complex, less powerful, and hence less easy to sort out and trace, whereas the historian of an aristocratic age has simply to analyze the particular action of one man or of a few men and amid the general mass of events. 

“In the former case the historian is soon tired of such a labor. Lost in a labyrinth, unable clearly to see or to explain individual influences, he ends by denying that they exist. He prefers to talk about the nature of races, the physical character of the country, or the spirit of civilization. That shortens his labors and satisfies the reader better at less cost.”

Tocqueville goes on to draw blood, remarking that hiding behind grand systems and theories is a good refuge for “mediocre” historians. “It always provides them with a few mighty reasons to extricate them from the most difficult part of their task, and while indulging their incapacity or laziness, gives them a reputation for profundity.” 

On aristocratic historians, Tocqueville resonates in multiple ways. Classical biographers such as Plutarch or Suetonius spend a lot of time on very small personal details about their subjects, including physical descriptions, diets, and daily habits. Writing in the early middle ages, Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne, which consciously imitates Suetonius’ life of Augustus, is careful to highlight Charlemagne’s clothes and his fondness for swimming and roasts (until his doctors, later in life, made him switch to boiled meat). When history turns on the actions and decisions of kings and generals, any small detail might illuminate. This would also explain why aristocratic historians spend so much time on the personal relationships between important figures, and on the battlefield skill of generals. 

I’d also note that, in “aristocratic ages,” historians are usually writing for aristocrats, who make up most of the audience able to patronage literature (and sometimes, the most of the audience simply able to read). In the “history as lesson-giving” form, such historical works offer models and lessons to aristocratic audiences for how they ought to behave. Literary epics and romances do this also, providing exemplary standards for aspiring nobles to emulate. 

In democratic societies, however, this becomes much more difficult, as any one individual’s agency merges in with everyone else’s. Telling the story of a labor union, political movement, or migration episode naturally needs some scale, and a sense of providing the whole shape of the organization. Individual stories of colonists coming to America can provide illuminating details, but also need to be somehow representative. Outlier examples of unusual cases can even be detrimental to understanding the normal pattern; this is one reason why historical trivia is sometimes, in fact, trivial. History teachers ought to choose their anecdotes with care here. 

When talking about history as “the past creates the present,” large forces and trends can in fact exert great pressure on individuals, and all of us are partially the product of ideas and pressure that we often aren’t even aware of. But someone like Dostoevsky couldn’t fairly accuse Tocqueville of loving humankind in general and not caring about actual individuals, for Tocqueville firmly refuses to lose sight of the latter. “I am firmly convinced that even in democratic nations the genius, vices, or virtues of individuals delay or hasten the course of the natural destiny of a people.” 

Even in a democracy, individuals will have an impact on larger outcomes, and if a historian could go far enough inside the workforce of a large company, with enough patience and attention to detail, they could find thousands of tiny moments where individuals nudged events one way or another. But such work would be painstakingly difficult, even when feasible.

So then, historians are sometimes incentivized to take the easy way out, ascribing whole movements and patterns to what Tocqueville calls “systems,” though what many modern historians, sociologists, and political scientists would probably call “theory.” In fairness, there’s plenty of merit here. What we might call a system, or a theory, is really just another attempt at making a map of reality, and maps need to compress and smooth over information.

But I have to admit, Tocqueville’s description of these systems being a refuge for lazy and mediocre historians cuts deep, especially when applied to some of the less rigorous public-facing scholarship in the humanities today. Start with a theory, pick a few convenient data points to prop it up, and you have a seemingly workable model you can use to bludgeon reality into a comfortable mold. The grand 19th century historical laws come in for deserved criticism here, along with a host of smaller pop-theories of history. Beyond that, insert just about any modern societal “ism” you like as a catch-all for describing human behavior, and you have this pattern at work. The modern culture-war provides a host of ready examples on all sides that this can be applied to. Additionally, the simpler a theory is, the readily it can be picked up by agitants and partisans and turned into slogans and memes. From what I understand, popular ideas about police reform and systemic racism, or tax cuts always paying for themselves, are far less nuanced and sophisticated than the scholarship which birthed them.

Some of this I’ve touched on before, though I don’t mean to just retread previous essays. For Tocqueville moves on in an ominous direction, noting that too much of an emphasis on grand causes can leave us with “the sight of the world moving without anyone moving it.” If the world operates according to grand impersonal forces, with no discernable impact from individuals, then these impersonal forces may seem overriding, and irresistible. “Seeing that one does not yield to it, once is very near believing that one cannot stand up to it.” This can cause a sort of “blind fatality,” where History appears to be inevitable, and therefore not worth resisting or changing:

“In reading historians of aristocratic ages, those of antiquity in particular, it would seem that in order to be master of his fate and to govern his fellows a man need only be master of himself. Perusing the histories written nowadays, one would suppose that man had no power, neither over himself nor over his surroundings. Classical historians taught how to command; those of our time teach next to nothing but how to obey. In their writings the author often figures large, but humanity is always tiny.” 

There is a great irony in the notion of historians moving from extolling other great men and acting as mere observers and explainers of that greatness, to becoming themselves the only allowed actor with outsized agency, as they pontificate and explain their grand historical systems, in which individuals merely fit like so many small pieces. 

Tocqueville ends with a warning that if this spirit of fatality infects too much of the public, it may sap the will of individuals and paralyze society. One thing he doesn’t touch on directly, but which I think is a ready inference, is that this meekness and submission of the individual serves as fertile soil for some uniting power to seize hold of the group, claiming to guide and direct its general interest. Here, of course, we easily see the future outlines of the justifications used by the 20th century totalitarians, led onward by Rousseau’s General Will (any detractors or stubborn exceptions can be written off as suffering from Marxian False Consciousness). 

Against this, then, what? Let me trace back a bit, to the nature of where historical systems are most likely to begin to go wrong by creating such totalizing systems and theories. Tocqueville affirmed that, even in Democracies, individual agency matters and impacts the whole, even if it’s hard to identify sometimes. We do need historical theories to make maps of reality, but the core demand laid upon the historian by Thucydides (and the best of the empirical historians such as von Ranke) is to simply determine what actually happened, as best we possibly can. That means taking our actual evidence, our particular examples, case-studies, and individuals, and considering it in its own context and on its own terms. Each piece of evidence is unique, and we can only glimpse the picture of the general through the windowpane of the particular. Losing sight of the particular and overapplying our own theory can “discolor the glass,” leaving a foggy monochrome. But respecting the source on its own terms and embracing its particular color, can create a stained-glass window of reality. Not always clear, but a wonder to behold. 

Many of the best histories written today can do this, and I’ve been struck by the number of very good contemporary historians who emphasize this need to balance general observations with particular contexts, and emphasize that individual motives can be complex and contradictory. After all, our own lives aren’t any less muddled. Perhaps the answer, then, is to go back to the aristocratic historians who cared so much for great men who strode across the course of history. The historian of a nation can’t write a Plutarchian biography of every individual in detail, but he or she must always remember that each individual is worthy of their own Life written, in Parallel with those around them. 

1. All Tocqueville quotes here are from the George Lawrence translation of Democracy in America. Vol II, Pt 1, Ch. 20.