evolution

[Note: I have edited this post to fix some kludgy grammar and sentence structure, as well as to add a couple of footnotes. I would also like to fix the reference to Parmesan cheese below. In fact the EU does not legislate the composition of Parmesan cheese -- they do something that is dumber than I could have suspected. "Parmesan" is a protected name limited to about 600 producers in a certain region of Italy. Thus, a cheese produced in Sweden using the same procedure and the same material composition -- hell, it could be produced by Italian farmers in Sweden -- is not, according to the EU, "Parmesan cheese". Nice to see that all the EU's other problems are fixed.

These thoughts have been fermenting in my head for several days, but I sat on them because I didn't want to steal the thunder¹ of Joel Mathis, who proposed the idea of blogging his way through Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, a book that has been on my pile for several months. Studying for the first Society of Actuaries exam forced me to put the book away. I have a few months before the next exam, so when I saw Joel's idea, I decided to join in. He started it off here.

It should be clear to all who read this book that what Tocqueville was after was not American democracy or a survey of America in general; instead he was out to capture the Platonic ideal of democracy. He found it best expressed here in America, which is why he came.

I think we need to clarify a few things that appear to have been forgotten in the years since Tocqueville wrote this book. First is to attempt to determine what Tocqueville meant by equality. In my mind, there are two kinds of equality: equality of opportunity* and equality of outcome. The first kind of equality is a desirable state (and, I will argue, the only state) for a free society. If this condition holds, free people can truly make of their lives what they will -- a state from which liberty necessarily follows. The second kind -- equality of outcome -- is in my belief the animating principle of the people I call "boutique multiculturalists" and of self-styled "progressives"; in other words, the "social democratic" wing of the modern Left. It will only hold, as one of Joel's commenters noted, in our graves. It defies human nature. It can only be attempted (and in fact is attempted these days) through government force of arms.² It is the first type which I believe Tocqueville meant -- equality of opportunity is something with which most Europeans before his time would certainly have been unfamiliar³.

Second is the use of the words democracy and liberty. They are not equal, though there are many people in Washington, D.C. and in the state capitals who are paid a lot of money to make you think that they are. In the words of mathematical logic, democracy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for liberty -- one can have democracy without liberty, but one cannot have liberty without also having democracy. Prime examples are the current governments of Europe along with the European Union itself (which legislates such things as the proper composition of Parmesan cheese). The last two generations of Americans -- including my own -- have been led to believe that the two are equivalent when they are not. So far, my impression has been that Tocqueville realized this.

With all that in mind, let's now turn to Joel's questions of the day. First:

We have more knowledge more freely available than ever now, thanks to the Web and its ilk; is that still, on balance, a democratizing force?

That depends upon who uses the information and why. As Bill said in Joel's comment thread:

I think there are two things we can conclude. The first is that a proliferation of outlets is the only way to make sure (and even then it's iffy) that the Truth is even in the pack to begin with. And the second is that truth is not democratic but something else all together. We can't decide what happened to Cortes' ships [see the full comment -- it's the 3/24 12:41 pm comment--ed.] by counting noses, because what “everyone knows” may not be the truth – and I’m just cynical enough to argue that it’s probably not the truth.

I agree that the truth is *often* outed, but I would also argue that, men being what they are, truth is more often decided for each person based on what he would wish it to be. “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” and all that, especially once we get past little questions like “who’s the Emir of Krrjrrkistan?” and onto big questions like “Are people more equal today than they were in de Tocqueville’s day?” The answer is often yes or no depending on how limited the sources upon which we are relying are.

Therefore while I don’t think that more knowledge is generally a democratizing force, it is a force that opens opportunities. That may lead to specialization, which may be a democratizing force but only if people take advantage of the opportunities of knowledge.

I made this very point at the Citizens’ Journalism Academy when this very question was asked by another participant. All this information, the volume of which has increased exponentially in the last decade, is whatever the reader makes of it. It is not necessarily a democratizing force, but as Bill says, it increases the number of opportunities available, which can indeed lead to more freedom for the users of that information. The proliferation of information is again a necessary but not sufficient condition of liberty.

Next:

Is equality still ‘a fundamental condition of America?’

It depends, as I said, on the definition of equality. Equality of opportunity is indeed a necessary condition of liberty (here, I’m substituting “liberty” for Tocqueville’s “America”, which I have argued is a signifier for “a Platonic ideal of democracy/liberty” which Tocqueville chooses to call “America”. The other kind I’ve already argued is impossible.

I need to plow through a couple more chapters, and we’ll continue in this line later this week.

*: I should say what I mean by “equality of opportunity”. Many people understand this as an economic term, and I do mean it in that sense, but I also mean something in a larger sense — that in a society where it holds everyone has the same rights, in which no individual or government may interfere in the free exercise of those rights, and in which the exercise of those rights may not harm another except in defense of life, liberty, or property.

1: As much a blogger who gets at most 70 unique pageviews a day these days can steal from a journalist who gets 12,000.

2: When any government legislates something, that government is threatening you with force of arms. Violate the law, just or no, and you’ll be arrested; resist and out come the aforementioned arms.

3: Bear in mind that Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America during the first half of the 19th century, when black men and women were still kept as slaves. Equality of opportunity certainly did not hold in America at that time. Tocqueville, however, clearly denounces slavery early in the book.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 20:19 and is filed under democracy in america. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.