Paying homage to Alexis de Tocqueville 

Professor discusses book’s prominence in American politics

According to one speaker, the author of the greatest book in American politics saw it as his duty to see the world from God’s point of view.

Berry College professor Peter Augustine Lawler will speak on Alexis de Tocqueville and the Democratic “Heart Disease” of Individualism at the Barrick Museum Auditorium on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

“Many people, including myself, consider Tocqueville’s Democracy in America the best book ever written about American politics, even though it was published 170-75 years ago,” UNLV professor David Fott explained.

He described America as a nation of “joiners” during Tocqueville’s lifetime, with clubs and associations springing into existence “whenever Americans developed the urge to accomplish something.”

Fott said Tocqueville worried that Americans would succumb to a phenomenon called “individualism,” which he described as the withdrawal of Americans from one another and into small circles of family and friends due to the pressures of making a living and the desire for material comfort.

Lawler also described individualism as an apathetic withdrawal into oneself, which makes Americans easy prey for despots. “Individualism, consistently understood, is a surrender of all the heart-enlarging passions as more trouble than their worth,” Lawler explained. “If you want to see individualism in action, watch Jerry and George on Seinfeld.”

“There’s no other book quite like Democracy in America, and that’s because there’s no other man with Tocqueville’s singular combination of qualities,” said Lawler. “The best way we can honor this great man is to consider some of the most important things we can learn from his book about our country and of course, ourselves today.”

Lawler said Tocqueville, a post-revolutionary Frenchman, was neither an aristocrat nor a democrat, but that he felt that his privileged perspective allowed him to see further than either group.

Lawler said of Tocqueville, “He described the tension within himself between aristocratic greatness and democratic or egalitarian justice, and he admitted that, as a merely human being, he preferred greatness… But he added that God Himself clearly preferred justice, and it was therefore Tocqueville’s duty to attempt to view the world from God’s point of view.”

Professor Lawler’s lecture will focus on the phenomenon of individualism and how it has become more pronounced since the 1830s. The lecture will also expand on the ways that Tocqueville saw that individualism could be overcome.

“The lecture should be free of jargon and focused on the relation between Tocqueville’s teaching and our current social and political situation,” said Fott.

Students who attend the lecture will also be invited to participate in a discussion afterward and ask questions.

A distinguished scholar, Lawler has published more than 175 scholarly articles, chapters, and reviews as well as written or edited nine books. Lawler is also the executive editor of the quarterly journal Perspectives on Political Science as well as Dana Professor of Government and former chair of the department of Government and International Studies at Berry College.

Professor Lawler was invited to speak at UNLV by the Great Works Academic Certificate program committee. Founded in 2004 by Professor David Fott, the program invites students to participate in “the sort of intellectual activity that should be fundamental for any college or university: reflection on what it means to be human, on the ideas central to human life.” The program includes works in philosophy, politics, literature, science, and the arts, and includes not only books but art and music as well. “We operate on the conviction that the fine arts contribute to the shaping of civilized life and thus should not be treated as foreign to the liberal arts and sciences.”

Fott said that the Great Works Committee invited Professor Lawler to speak about Tocqueville because “both of those men are worth hearing.”

Tocqueville on the Democratic “Heart Disease” of Individualism is sponsored by the UNLV Great Works Academic Certificate program and is co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science.