Lynne, this may be my favorite essay in the series so far.
One thought that kept occurring to me while reading is that Tocqueville's argument depends on local institutions repeatedly teaching people how to exercise liberty until those habits become mores.
What I wonder is how that process changes when many of the institutions shaping people's assumptions are no longer local. Increasingly, people spend time in digital communities, professional networks, online niches, and social spaces that develop their own norms, status structures, and expectations.
In some ways these spaces seem to perform a similar formative function. They teach habits, values, and ways of interpreting the world. But they are not geographically rooted in the way Tocqueville's towns were.
I find myself wondering whether we are not only living through technological change, but also through a shift in where and how democratic mores are formed. How would Tocqueville describe this?
Very well said. I share your thoughts, and one of the reasons I’m on this Tocqueville adventure is precisely because I am worried about the extent to which the institutions that are inputs into peoples’ formations of norms, expectations, relationships are no longer local.
Lynne, this may be my favorite essay in the series so far.
One thought that kept occurring to me while reading is that Tocqueville's argument depends on local institutions repeatedly teaching people how to exercise liberty until those habits become mores.
What I wonder is how that process changes when many of the institutions shaping people's assumptions are no longer local. Increasingly, people spend time in digital communities, professional networks, online niches, and social spaces that develop their own norms, status structures, and expectations.
In some ways these spaces seem to perform a similar formative function. They teach habits, values, and ways of interpreting the world. But they are not geographically rooted in the way Tocqueville's towns were.
I find myself wondering whether we are not only living through technological change, but also through a shift in where and how democratic mores are formed. How would Tocqueville describe this?
Very well said. I share your thoughts, and one of the reasons I’m on this Tocqueville adventure is precisely because I am worried about the extent to which the institutions that are inputs into peoples’ formations of norms, expectations, relationships are no longer local.
What is most evident to me in this essay is that Tocqueville read and understood Adam Smith's TMS.
Yes, exactly! There are real moments when it really stands out. And I suspect his entry into Smith was through Jean-Baptiste Say.