I've been living in europe for the last couple of decades, and it's obviously been an even longer time since I read Democracy in America in american school, but the local culture seems a much better fit to what de Tocqueville was lauding (spontaneous self-organisation, etc). Was he just projecting? Or have the continents switched cultural places in the intervening centuries? (especially after Suez?)
Mostly converged to the same cultural place, but unevenly. That's the trend ever since the French revolution—France removed its aristocracy (though it kept coming back.) England basically weakened theirs to the point of redundancy, but kept it in a form. Russia kept theirs all the way until 1918 and then upheaved it all at once. The World Wars mostly wiped out whatever was left of the old world order. Sort of seems like Europe built a stronger immune system against the smell of hierarchy than the U.S. did, so the U.S. keeps inventing new caste systems e.g. Jim Crow.
Indeed. Another minor difference but I think it bears fruits :
Excessive wealth is still kinda view suspiciously in Europe. As in “in you are that rich, we are in different world and I suspect you don’t have my best interest in mind or that you might be a closeted psychopath”
While in the US, wealth indicate value of the individual and it radiate to morality and intrinsic capacity ( of the individual… )
