Alexis de Tocqueville gives what appears as an unbiased opinion of what the new America looks like through his eyes and travels around the country. He begins with reflections of the American landscape describing the oceans, mountains and even the fertility of the soil. He states that the one dominate feature about the social condition of the Anglo-Americans dominates all others, that being democracy. He gives me the impression, that though he is impressed with our patriotic values, he is jealous and unsure of what to make of it being that there has been no other form of government in existence in the modern world.
He tells of how he views this new American people as almost aloof and money hungry. Strangely I have to wonder where this man has the means to travel to America in the first place, mentioning nowhere about his own financial status or work at anytime. De Tocqueville refers to the annoying irritable patriotism of Americans. I think that he may have been so accustom to the reign of his own government that again he displays his envy of the new system that has developed among the new citizens.
Even his amazement yet understanding that people obey the laws just due to the fact of peer pressure is a new and unusual observation of social being. Even though the laws are in his words “annoying” the Americans will submit to it. Though his connotation of the way we acted in the colonial times may appear negative I believe that it shows our difference from other countries in that we do not need to live in fear of a tyrannical leader but rather based more on moral beliefs.
Of all the observations that de Tocqueville makes one in particular hit home more than any other in that I feel Americans today also are very much like that of the early founders of our country. In section 11. 2. 13 he observes that Americans will build a house and sell it before the roof is on, also that we take up a profession and soon go of onto another. It is so true even in my own life we very rarely today stay in one place for a very long time.
In the thirty years I have been alive I have moved or lived in 10 different residences and had 7 different jobs in the 15 years that I have been working. The beauty in the ability of our freedoms is that in most cases we are able to chose to make those changes and there are little restrictions on us to do so. Though de Tocqueville makes some accurate observations I still wonder why he was so eager to find the bad in our systems and people, but then maybe it was observed by him so clearly the annoyance in us as Americans to so quickly defend and extol the virtues of our country.
