Sunday, May 8, 2011

"Meet his better half"

Peter Lawler explains that Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has two very different themes. Volume 1 is about the problem of ACTIVISM, especially the activism of Majority Faction. In this sense, it is similar to The Federalist Papers. Volume 2, however, is about the problem of APATHY. This is more an Anti-Federalist concern about the cultivation of civic virtue. Today, the greater danger is the latter, as the clip below suggests, which is why people are better served by reading the second half of the book.

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