At williams college. Dr. Nolan is the author of several books including what we are here to discuss this evening what they saw in America Alexis de tocqueville, max weber, g. K. Chesterton and sayyid qutb. I especially look forward to this discussion as dr. Nolans insights will help us wrap up a yearlong study at the Mcconnell Center on American Political Culture inspired by tocquevilles democracy in america. Dr. Nolan holds an undergraduate degree from the university of virginia. His teaching and Research Interests fall within the general areas of law and society, culture, technology and social change and historical comparative sociology. He is the recipient of several grants and awards including the National Endowments for the humanities fellowships and a full bright scholarship. We look forward to dr. Williams pardon, dr. Nolans engaging discussion this evening on dark strands and bright threads, what they saw in america. Dr. Nolan has agreed to take questions from the audience following his remarks. Please wait for one of our mcconnell scholars to bring you the microphone when youre asking your question. I now invite to join me i now invite you to please join me in welcoming dr. Nolan to the podium. Thank you, will, and thank you, dr. Greg, for sponsoring and inviting me to be here. Im delighted to be here with you this evening. In democracy in America Alexis de tocqueville observes that the majority in america lives in perpetual adoration of itself. Only foreigners or experience can make certain truths reach the ears of americans. When keeping with this observation my study, the book project, what they saw in america, listens to four important foreign visitors. Alexis de tocqueville, max weber, g. K. Chesterton and sayyid qutb. Seeks to learn something from their assessments about the United States. The work is inductive, that is, it focuses on what the visitors saw on the ground, where did they go, who did they talk to, what did they see and it pays particular attention to some of the common themes discernible in the observations that came from their respective visits, which spanned a period of about 120 years. The title for the talk is dark strands and bright threads and that comes from another project, another source, namely Martha Bayless book called through a screen darkly in which she considers outside views of america but her focus is on outside views of those around the world based on her travels and listening to what people said about the United States. Its a more contemporary project. She identifies both americas positive and laudable attributes, bright threads, as well as some of its less admirable qualities, dark strands, which make up the tapestry of American Society. Like Martha Bayless, i found both dark strands and bright threads in listening to these four foreign visitors. Among the various common themes i found tonight i want to focus in particular on the themes of individualism and conformism and the role that local level volunteerism plays in mitigating the tensions represented in these paradoxical tendencies. At the end of the talk i will reflect on the visitors findings in light of some more recent trends and developments. Okay. While i begin with tocquville. After four months of traveling around the United States tocquville arrived in boston on september 9th, 18331. He and his good friend and traveling partner liked boston where they spent about three weeks and found very agreeable the elite class of notables with whom they voted, the socalled boston bromans crowd which included john quincy adams. In boston tocquville observed local social and political life, learned from his informants and began to ponder themes that would result in some of his most important insights about American Society. At the end of their three weeks in boston tocquville entered into his travel notebook what he dis served were the two great social principles as he put it ruling American Society, the first, the majority may be mistaken on some points but finally it is always right and there is no moral power above it. Second, every individual private person, society, community or nation, is the only lawful judge of its own interest and provided it does not harm the interest of others, nobody has a right to interfere. So here, then, tocquville put his finger on a great paradox, one which he would continue to ponder throughout his travels and would ultimately discuss at some length in his classic book democracy in america. That is, he discovered a society that both extolled the independence and freedom of the individual, while it also encouraged conformity to the sovereign majority. In other words, tocquville saw america as a nation of individuals who were deeply conformist or put another way as a society with contradictory tendencies toward individual independence and toward conformity and submission to the crowd. Concerning the first principle, it was in boston where tocquville heard for the first time the idea of the tyranny of the majority. It was a concept he would hear about again from a number of his interlocutors, ultimately in democracy in america he wrote rather ominously about it. He said the majority in the United States has an immense power, in fact, and a power and opinion almost as great and once it has formed on a question, there are, so to speak, no obstacles that can i shall not say stop but even delay its advance and allow it the time to hear the complaints of those it crushes as it passes. The consequences of this state of things are dire and dangerous for the future. He saw in this power the seeds of a new despotism and a sort of oppression that inhibited not only the expression of minority views but the thinking of individual thoughts. Tocquville stated i do not know any country where in general less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in america. Both tocquville and beaumont were somewhat surprised in this regard to find higher levels of conformity among americans than they had expected. Prior to their time in boston tocquville and beaumont traveled into the american frontier which included a trip from from into what was then called michigan territory, between saginaw and detroit, back and forth. They took a trip, a threeweek journey and he wrote about it. He was inspired in part by his relative who had written about in romantic terms about americas wilderness and tocquville wanted to experience it. So on this trip they were surprised with what they found, that is well, first of all, they had trouble getting help planning the trip. The americans they encountered in setting up for the trip couldnt understand why they would be interested in the wilderness for its own sake. So tocquville and beaumont strategized about this and they then feigned interest in purchasing property and only then did the americans give them more attentive assistance. Tocquville discovered that the american pioneer was no different than the east coast city dweller, the same clothes, the same mind, the same language, the same habits, the same pleasures he observed. Beaumont, likewise, noted that from new york and the great lakes i looked in vain for intermediate degrees of American Society. Instead he found as he put it the same men, the same passions and way of life. It is a strange thing, beaumont observed, that the american nation is made up of all the peoples on the earth and no nation presents as a whole such uniform characteristics. Reflecting on these conformist tendencies and meditating on the despotic potential of the sovereign majority tocquville worried about the United States becoming a nation as he put it of nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals. He observed even in monarchal systems there was more freedom of expression and thought than in the United States. If freedom if ever freedom is lost in america, wrote tocquville, one will have to blame the omnipotence of the majority. Interestingly this would not be the first time that one of my visitors used image of the herd to describe americans. Chesterton used it to describe the dominant mood. Another famous foreign visitor, a russian exile who came to america in the mid70s, warned of the dangerous tendency in america to form a herd. For tocquville the power of the majority, however, was only the first part of the puzzle. Remember that he also scribbled into his travel notebook during his last days in boston the contrasting and ostensibly mitigating principle that every individual is the only lawful judge of his own interest. He regarded unrestrained individualism as untenable, a society that neglected any kind of cooperative or associational life risked a perilous and fate of decline into barbarism. So how did tocqueville reconcile these contradictory inclinations, a society that extolled the virtues of individualism while it also encouraged conformity to majoritarian sentiments. The key, i think, lies in tocquvilles conceptualization of what he called selfinterest rightly understood. What did he mean by this . As tocqueville saw it, one recognized to realize aspirations of personal well being one had to cooperate with others. In his words each man perceives that he is not as independent of those like him as he at first fancied and that to obtain their support he must often lend them his cooperation. Such cooperative behavior which restrained and thus benefited the individual took on two related forms in america, tocquville observed. Voluntary associations and local level governing practices. Tocquville found voluntary associations to be ubiquitous and of every imaginable kind in america. He was very struck by this, very impressed with this and democracy in america he wrote americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which i will take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds, religion, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small. Americans use associations to give fates, to found seminaries, to build ins, to raise churches, to distribute books. To send missionaries. In this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Everything. He is very impressed by this. Well, this modus operandi tocquville was told by his informants had become natural to americans. It was not something mandated, directed or financed by a distant and centralized bureaucratic authority. Instead such initiatives were local and habitual, part of the very marrow of americans collective yet decentralized life together. As tocquville saw it the habits of volunteerism and local governing practices serve to draw the independent individual out of himself or herself and into cooperative involvement with others. Thus preventing the potential perils of a selfish withdrawal from society, associational life and local selfgovernance also represent a barrier against the encroachments of majoritarian authority and the tendency it encouraged. In some tocquville saw local level volunteerism as a key feature of American Life that helped reconcile the countervailing tendencies of individuals and conformism and as such he saw as vital to success of american democracy. Very central to the strength of american democracy. Okay. I will turn to our next visitor. When the german sociology max weber visited in 1904 with his wife mary ann he also detected conformists and individualist i can tendencies and he like wise saw these tendencies mitigated by voluntary associations. However, he saw the proliferation of associations as emerging from a different source. According to weber protestant sects or churches provided a template for voluntary associations in American Society more broadly. The schema of the sect as he put it was the original prototype for the tremendous flood of associations associations that penetrated every nook and cranny of American Life. These associations which existed for every conceivable purpose according to weber followed directly from the example of the protestant sect. Like tocquville weber saw associations as a powerful and pervasive feature of american democracy and as that which helped to temper tendencies toward individualism. Whoever represents democracy as a mass, fragmented into atoms, weber wrote, is fundamentally mistaken so far as the american democracy is concerned. The genuine american democracy was never such a sand pile. Weber thus concluded that it would be inaccurate to characterize american democracy as a sand pile of unrelated individuals. Toward the end of his life weber even kind of speculated about the possibility of taking the model of voluntary associations to germany. He thought this would be freight, but he realized that it wouldnt really transfer, that is, either it would be regarded as illegitimate or at best once voluntary association was started it would be taken over by the ages of the state apparatus. In other words, he saw this positive trait of American Life, this bright thread of American Society, as uniquely american and as something that would not easily transfer to his home country. Okay. On to our english visitor, g. K. Chesterton who visited the United States twice in 1921 and then again in 1930 and into 1931. Chesterton picked up on the individuals and conformism paradox first articulated by tocquville and extended his insight by attempting to show how american individualism actually led to conformism. Americans according to chesterton value and even venerate the individual, in this exultation of the individual, however, chesterton noted a curious contradiction. Namely, that american individualism is the reverse of individuality. Something that tocquville said in slightly different terms. Chesterton explained this contradiction by pointing to the competitive habits fostered by the practices of a capitalist society. Where men are trying to compete with each other, he said, they are trying to copy each other. They become standardized by the very standard of self. Americans were particularly vulnerable to this habit of competing with and thus copying others according to chesterton because they are a very selfconscious people who are intensely sensitive and conscious of criticism. Such sensitivity and selfconsciousness leads to uniformity. It is this very vividness of the self that produces the similarity wrote chesterton. It is when they are selfconscious that they are like each other, thus according to chesterton the conformist tendencies he observed among americans led him to conclude that individualism is the death of individuality as he put it. One way to understand chestertons point here is to consider the general processes of homogenization that he saw in america more broadly. Chesterton viewed, for example, American Hotels as uniquely uniform and contrasted them with the more idiosyncratic charm of the english inn. He also observed as did his wife frances who traveled with him, that American Fashion tended to be uniform as well. He said americans all dress well, one might say that american women look well, but they do not compared with europeans look very different. Conformist tendencies, however, were for chesterton not limited to the uniform features of American Hotels or dress styles, importantly conformism could also result in a dangerous and unforgiving uniformity of Public Opinion. Chestertons words, Public Opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up everything that opposes it. Under this condition, minority views could be treated harshly and unfairly. He saw this as a threat to democracy. The danger of democracy chesterton wrote is not anarchy but convention. This was not, however, for chesterton the whole of the story. There is much about america that chesterton liked and admired. For one, like his predecessors, he saw voluntary associations as an admirable and sustaining feature of american democracy. In fact, chesterton went so far as to call american habits as a power thats the soul and success of democracy. He observed of americans their high spirits, humane ideals, are really creative. They a bou they abound in unofficial he saw the Building Blocks of american states and cities born out of a love of comrades. Moreover, chesterton was a great pad mire e admirer and defender of main street america and very much appreciated the friendliness and hospitalitspitality and democra spirit that he experienced when he lived for six weeks in south bend, indiana, with the bitsler family in 1930. In fact, it bothered and puzzled him that during his time. Sinclair lewis had been awarded the nobel prize in literature, the First American to receive the nobel prize in literature. This bothered him because he felt Sinclair Lewis was mocking main street and chesterton found main street america to be one of americas most laudable assets. Like tocqueville, chesterton commented on the importance of local governing practices, a societal arrangement he saw on decline in which he thought americans should work to recover. A true democracy, he observed, was a system where the people actually knew and lived near those who governed them. Chesterton argued, we should try to make politics as local as possible. He whimsically added, though, while making a serious point, that we should keep politicians nee near enough to kick them. Like tocqueville, chesterton noted individualistic and conformist tendencies, and while he wished for the recovery of more local governance, he observed quite positively smalltown life and the still salient american habit of joining together. He saw in this habit, as he put it, the power that is the soul and success of democracy. Okay. To my fourth and final visitor, the egyptian sayyid qutb. He was less attendant to volunteerism and social life in america even though he voluntarily participated in a number of institutions cli s ing the National Club in greeley, colorado, where he lived for six months in 1949. He also joined a number of church clubs which he wrote about in his accounts of america. On the evening walks through