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Locke, Tocqueville, Liberalism, and Restlessness

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Locke, Tocqueville, Liberalism, and Restlessness Locke, Tocqueville, Liberalism, and Restlessness Author: Stephen D. Eide Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1396 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2010 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science LOCKE, TOCQUEVILLE, LIBERALISM AND RESTLESSNESS a dissertation by STEPHEN D. EIDE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2010 © copyright by STEPHEN D. EIDE 2010 Abstract Locke, Tocqueville, Liberalism, and Restlessness Stephen D. Eide Advisor: Professor Robert Faulkner Why are men in modern societies so busy and anxious? Modern, liberal democratic society is distinguished both by the unprecedented strength and prosperity it has achieved, as well as its remarkable number of psychologists per capita. Why is this? This dissertation explores the connection between restlessness and modernity by way of an examination of the themes of liberalism and restlessness in the thought of Locke and Tocqueville. “Restlessness” refers to a way of life characterized by three features: limitless desires, mildness, and an orientation towards material goods. Tocqueville argues in Democracy in America that democracy, by way of individualism, makes men materialistic and restless (inquiét), or restlessly materialistic. The intense, limitless pursuit of material well-being is a historical phenomenon, one of the many results of the centuries-long development of equality of conditions. Modern democrats are restless; pre-modern aristocrats were not. Tocqueville is ambivalent about restlessness. According to him, the incessant, energetic movement of American life conceals an underlying absurdity and mediocrity. Many of what Tocqueville views as the more undesirable qualities of democratic American life are associated with restlessness, but any solution is likely to be worse than the problem. It could be worse: we must tolerate restlessness if we want to remain free. “All free peoples are grave.” Locke by contrast could be described as a partisan of restlessness. The anxious understand the world better than the complacent or vegetative. There are two dimensions to Locke’s teaching on restlessness, an “is” (found in Essay concerning Human Understanding Book II Chapter 21) and an “ought” (found in “Of Property,” Chapter Five of the Second Treatise). Our desires are naturally limitless-this we can only understand, we cannot change it. But if we know what’s good for us, we will orient ourselves towards a milder and more materialistic way of life. We master restlessness by becoming more restless, or restless in a more enlightened way. Locke’s teaching on restlessness in the fullest sense is partly his account of necessity, and partly his recommended response to necessity. This difference in their views on restlessness points to certain important differences in their liberalisms. Tocqueville’s liberalism is more pessimistic than Locke’s: some fundamental problems have no solutions, and some of the highest goods cannot be reconciled with one another. Lockean liberalism is more confident about its ability to find solutions to the fundamental problems of political life, and there is no problem of the harmony of the goods for Locke. Table of Contents Introduction (2-35) I.1 On “restlessness” (2-5) I.2 Problems and solutions: the state of nature, freedom and legitimate government (6- 13) I.3 Freedom and legitimacy (13-8) I.4 Fundamental principles, greatness and pride (18-31) I.5 Conclusion: Locke, Tocqueville and the harmony of the goods (31-5) Chapter One: Tocqueville on Inquietude (36-139) I.1 Introduction (36-41) I.2 The intense, limitless pursuit of material well-being (41-3) I.3 Material well-being: why does democracy make men materialistic? (43-79) I.4 Intensity (79-88) I.5 Limitlessness: Tocqueville on worldly asceticism (89-111) II.1 The dark side of inquietude (111-3) II.1 Neither virtuous nor happy (113-5) II.3 Tolerably restless, or conservativism and the teaching of inquietude (116-21) II.4 Inquietude and political freedom (121-39) Chapter Two: The Uneasiness Doctrine and Human Liberty (140-211) I.1 Introduction (140-5) I.2 “Power” and “Liberty” (145-50) I.3 Uneasiness determines the will (before II.21) (150-66) I.4 Same subject continued: uneasiness determines the will (II.21) (166-76) I.5 Uneasiness and human nature (177-84) I.6 Uneasiness and human nature continued: no Summum bonum (184-8) II.1 Happiness and freedom (188-98) II.2 Judgment and freedom (198-207) II.3 Conclusion (207-11) Chapter Three: Property and Restlessness (212-45) I.1 Introduction (212-6) I.2 The argument of “Of Property”: the righteousness of restlessness (216-27) I.2 The achievement of “Of Property” (227-31) I.3 “Of Property” and ECHU II.21: a general theory of Lockean restlessness (231-45) Conclusion (246-53) Bibliography (254-60) Had [our ancestors] been absorbed or amused as we are by the inexhaustible trivialities of the day, had their sense been dulled by speed, sport, luxury, and money-making, they could never have taken consciously the dire decisions without which England would not have been preserved. There were many solid citizens, secure in their estates, who pondered deeply and resolved valiantly upon the religious and political issues of the times…[T]here were in every capital grave, independent men who gave lifelong thought to doctrine and policy. Their business was transacted by long personal letters, laboriously composed, in which every word was weighed, and conversations, few and far between, the purport of which was memorable. Government was then the business of sovereigns and of a small but serious ruling class, and, for all their crimes, errors, and shortcomings, they gave keen and sustained attention to their task…Above all, they were not in a hurry. They made fewer speeches, and lived more meditatively and more at leisure, with companionship rather than motion for solace. They had far fewer facilities than we have for the frittering away of thought, time, and life. -Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book One I wake up most mornings very early, and spend the first hour or so of each day reading the morning newspapers. I usually arrive at my office by nine, and I get on the phone. There’s rarely a day with fewer than fifty calls, and often it runs to over a hundred. In between, I have at least a dozen meetings. The majority occur on the spur of the moment, and few of them last longer than fifteen minutes. I rarely stop for lunch. I leave my office by six-thirty, but I frequently make calls from home until midnight, and all weekend long. It never stops, and I wouldn’t have it any other way….I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. -Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal 1 Introduction I.1 On “restlessness” This dissertation will examine the relation between restlessness and liberalism in the thought of Locke and Tocqueville. Since the first of these four terms is the one most in need of clarification, a brief explanation of it is in order. Restlessness refers to a way of life characterized by three features: limitless desires, mildness, and an orientation towards material goods. • Restlessness implies a disjunction between desire and capacity. A restless man is in constant motion basically because he cannot satisfy his desires. His desires are limitless. A restless person never takes anything for granted, nor rests content with what he has. • A restless existence is often intense and unhappy, but it is not violent, or not in the sense in which the term is being used here. The restless soul is characterized by an overall or effectual mildness. A restless man is uneasy but peaceable. Restlessness should not be confused with eros or vainglory, although they, too, may be seen as conditions of limitless desire. They do lead to violence and are often, for that reason, self- destructive. Restlessness however is not, which means it is more sustainable and can be perpetuated for a long time. People, many people, 2 can endure it. Unlike eros and vainglory, it is experienced by the many as well as the few. • Restlessness implies desires which are limitless but not manifold. Its desires are oriented towards “lower” or material things. A restless way of life is one in which material well-being is of paramount concern. Restlessness is a distinctly modern condition: the contrasting epigraphs from the lives of the Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) and Donald Trump (1946- ) were meant to suggest so much. When we speak of the difference between “modern” and “pre-modern,” many differences come to mind, such as orderliness, softness, rationalism, secularism, freedom, democracy, individualism, and materialism. The following dissertation finds its point of departure in another difference which is somewhat more difficult to define than those themes, but is also familiar. Many debates about modernity turn on the issue of restlessness. Take America. Americans are famous for their work ethic and “worldly asceticism,” but also for their fondness for gadgets, celebrities and insipid forms of entertainment. These perceptions of distinctive superficiality and seriousness cannot both be true-which is? Are we deeper than our forebears or more superficial? Do our incessant efforts at acquisition indicate a prudent realism, or a hopeless irrationality? Does the gap between our capacities and our desires 3 mean that we are strong or weak? Is restlessness good or bad, a sign of strength or weakness, enlightenment or ignorance? These are polemics not only about the merits of the American character, but about modernity itself, since America is the quintessentially modern nation.
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