gn himself. And what the majority of the governed wants is soft despotism. Tocqueville describes the majority of men of his time as cautious, timorous, and more concerned with preserving what they have: It may readily be conceived that if men passionately bent upon physical gratifications desire eagerly, they are also easily discouraged; as their ultimate object is to enjoy, the means to reach that object must be prompt and easy, or the trouble of acquiring the gratification will be greater than the gratification itself. Their prevailing frame of mind, then, is at once ardent and relaxed, violent and enervated. Death is often less dreaded by them than perseverance in continuous efforts to one end. Here, in my view, is another link between the tyranny of the majority and the new despotism. The men who surrender to soft, comfortable despotism are the men of the new majority who have enjoyed the first rewards of the universal pursuit of well-being. But their desires have outrun their opportunities. Frightened at the prospect of losing what they have to those more able than themselves, the majority turn to government as the only power capable of protecting their rights and goods and of restraining the ambitions of the few. At the expense of the few, usually the wealthy, the government secures to the many a moderate enjoyment of the good things in life. This, the ground works for a new type of despotism revives the ancient discussion of the good man and the good citizen. Aristotle had pointed out that except under the most chance of circumstances the two were not identical. The main point of his argument is that it is far easier to be a good citizen, since this requires only subservience to the principles of the regime under which one lives. Their goodness or badness is irrelevant: one could be a good citizen of a bad regime. To be a good man, however, one must live in a society that encourages the realization of a ma...
