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Chapter 44
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Democracy in America, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Liberty, Equality, and Tyranny
Checks and Balances
Civic and Religious Institutions
Individualism and Materialism
Politics, Customs, and Culture
Summary
Analysis
Tocqueville argues that although democracies are in a ceaseless state of fluctuation, the spectacle of such change eventually becomes monotonous and tiresome. In aristocracies, in turn, social conditions are static, but people’s passions, habits, and tastes are quite different. In democracies, people’s passions are mostly limited to or based on their love of wealth, and the means by which they seek wealth have a kind of family likeness as well.
Paradoxically, Tocqueville argues that change and flux themselves can become boring and changeless, especially because the motivations for upward mobility are limited. As in other instances, Tocqueville tends to overstate his sense of Americans’ love of wealth above all else.
Themes
In fact, Tocqueville argues, the entire world is gradually becoming characterized by the same ways of acting and thinking. As people lose the opinions and feelings of a class or local tradition, they become more alike, even if they don’t actively imitate each other. Tocqueville compares this process to travelers scattered throughout a forest, all converging on a single point.
