olute and tyrannical? Where to find a force able to contend against this power among a set of men all equal, it is true, but all equally weak and impotent? Was the fate of modern society to be both democracy and despotism? Tocqueville underscored his fear that democracy as most men understood it namely, participation by the many in the act of sovereignty was compatible with tyranny as well as with liberty. More precisely, tyranny could indeed coexist with what appeared to be democratic institutions. Unlike some of his contemporaries, who believed that the gradual development of equality meant the gradual but final destruction of the possibility of tyranny on earth, Tocqueville understood that the democratic principle could lead to despotism never before experienced. He stressed that individualism seems to generate a kind of power of its own, which, when it has been allowed to proceed to its conclusion, eventually ends in authoritarian rule. Though this authoritarianism is surely different in origin and character from that against which individualism originally rebelled, it is a form of authoritarianism nonetheless.I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favourable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number. If the absolute power of a majority were to be substituted by democratic nations for all the different powers that checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed characterFor myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me Here, Tocqueville expresses that if democracy is to survive, or if it is to fulfill the expectations surrounding it, individualism as a social force must have its ant...
