Editing Alexis de Tocqueville (section)

=== On civil and political society and the individual ===
{{Liberalism in France}}
Tocqueville's main purpose was to analyze the functioning of political society and various forms of political associations, although he brought some reflections on civil society too (and relations between political and civil society). For Tocqueville, as for [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] and [[Karl Marx]], civil society was a sphere of private entrepreneurship and civilian affairs regulated by [[civil code]].<ref name=zaleski>{{cite journal|last=Zaleski|first=Pawel|url=http://zaleski.wex.pl/2008%20tocqueville%20on%20civilian%20society.pdf|title=Tocqueville on Civilian Society. A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality|journal=[[Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte]]|volume=50|publisher=Felix Meiner Verlag|year=2008|issn=0003-8946|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009053108/http://zaleski.wex.pl/2008%20tocqueville%20on%20civilian%20society.pdf|archive-date=9 October 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> As a critic of [[individualism]], Tocqueville thought that through associating for mutual purpose, both in public and private, Americans are able to overcome selfish desires, thus making both a self-conscious and active [[political society]] and a vibrant [[Civil society#Modern history|civil society]] functioning according to political and [[civil code|civil laws]] of the [[State (polity)|state]].<ref name=twsC11r44/><ref name=zaleski/>

According to political scientist Joshua Kaplan, Tocqueville did not originate the concept of individualism, instead he changed its meaning and saw it as a "calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and to withdraw into the circle of family and friends ... . [W]ith this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look for itself."<ref name=twsC11r44/> While Tocqueville saw [[egotism]] and [[selfishness]] as vices, he saw individualism not as a failure of feeling but as a way of thinking about things which could have either positive consequences such as a willingness to work together, or negative consequences such as isolation and that individualism could be remedied by improved understanding.<ref name=twsC11r44/>

When individualism was a positive force and prompted people to work together for common purposes and seen as "self-interest properly understood", then it helped to counterbalance the danger of the [[tyranny of the majority]] since people could "take control over their own lives" without government aid.<ref name=twsC11r44/> According to Kaplan, Americans have a difficult time accepting Tocqueville's criticism of the stifling intellectual effect of the "omnipotence of the majority" and that Americans tend to deny that there is a problem in this regard.<ref name=twsC11r44/> Others such as the Catholic writer Daniel Schwindt disagree with Kaplan's interpretation, arguing instead that Tocqueville saw individualism as just another form of egotism and not an improvement over it.<ref name="Daniel Schwindt">{{cite web|url=https://ethikapolitika.org/2014/01/06/refuting-tocqueville-way-tocqueville/|title=Refuting Tocqueville by Way of Tocqueville|author=Daniel Schwindt|date=January 2014|publisher=Ethika Politika|access-date=24 August 2016}}</ref> To make his case, Schwindt provides citations such as the following:<blockquote>Egoism springs from a blind instinct; individualism from wrong-headed thinking rather than from depraved feelings. It originates as much from defects of intelligence as from the mistakes of the heart. Egoism blights the seeds of every virtue; individualism at first dries up only the source of public virtue. In the longer term it attacks and destroys all the others and will finally merge with egoism.<ref name="Daniel Schwindt"/></blockquote>