Reading Democracy in America: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe

 Have Americans acquired an aristocracy, or has time created an aristocratic analog?

Another question: did Henry James and Edith Wharton capture the change from Jacksonian Democracy to our aristocratic era?

In Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe, de Tocqueville sets out the manners of an aristocracy:

... In aristocratic communities where a small number of persons manage everything, the outward intercourse of men is subject to settled conventional rules. Everyone then thinks he knows exactly what marks of respect or of condescension he ought to display, and none are presumed to be ignorant of the science of etiquette. These usages of the first class in society afterwards serve as a model to all the others; besides which each of the latter lays down a code of its own, to which all its members are bound to conform. Thus the rules of politeness form a complex system of legislation, which it is difficult to be perfectly master of, but from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate; so that men are constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive bitter affronts.... Chapter III: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe

I recall my mother receiving a copy of Emily Post's book on etiquette from my Aunt Mary Ellen. This offended my mother. She took the gift as meaning she had poor manners.

I see the Sixties as when the rules of etiquette were overthrown as hypocritical, as stultifying. Yes, Etiquette and social custom can fail in their purpose in this manner. Etiquette exists so large numbers of people can live together in relative harmony. Unfortunately, the Sixties did not really replace the older etiquette with anything else. In this way, we got to Rush Limbaugh, political correctness, and the inability of two people with different sociopolitical views to have a conversation, and The Jerry Springer Show.

The Sixties permitted all parts of society to turn their noses up at each other; leaving each group talking to themselves, much as the Cabots and Lodges kept to themselves. While we may not want to dine with the Astors, we should be able to fit in with our neighbors.

I have known too many conformist non-conformists. They may say they rebel against middle class mores, while refusing to see their groups as hidebound as a bunch of Babbitts. Here in detention, I see many forming their own cliques with their own rationales. I expect to see more in prison. I expect the greatest lesson to be learned in prison shall be learning not only the official rules, but the customs of the various cliques. [When I had been at Fort Dix FCI for a while, I would tell the newbies, middle-class white guys mostly, to think of themselves as anthropologists parachuted into the New Guinea highlands - this was not their world, pay attention to how people behave, or wind up getting hurt. sch 7/23/23.] I am sure there exists more than enough sociological texts on the subject. 

How many scholars explain the distance between de Tocqueville and our times?

Henry James appeared to me at this point:

It appears surprising at first sight that the same man transported to Europe suddenly becomes so sensitive and captious, that I often find it as difficult to avoid offending him here as it was to put him out of countenance. These two opposite effects proceed from the same cause. Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and of themselves. An American leaves his country with a heart swollen with pride; on arriving in Europe he at once finds out that we are not so engrossed by the United States and the great people which inhabits them as he had supposed, and this begins to annoy him. He has been informed that the conditions of society are not equal in our part of the globe, and he observes that among the nations of Europe the traces of rank are not wholly obliterated; that wealth and birth still retain some indeterminate privileges, which force themselves upon his notice whilst they elude definition. He is therefore profoundly ignorant of the place which he ought to occupy in this half-ruined scale of classes, which are sufficiently distinct to hate and despise each other, yet sufficiently alike for him to be always confounding them.... Chapter III: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe

Exchanges sexes, and do we not have Daisy Miller? 

It could also serve as a description of James Fenimore Cooper's diplomatic career. I have the recollection he was far less happy with Europe than Washington Irving. I certainly do not recall why the difference. It might be interesting to compare Cooper and Henry James views on Europe and European.

It could also serve as a description of James Fenimore Cooper's diplomatic career. I have the recollection he was far less happy with Europe than Washington Irving. I certainly do not recall why the difference. It might be interesting to compare Cooper and Henry James views on Europe and European. [Let 2023 comment on 2010, please: nothing could prove a mental breakdown than this, a willingness to comb through the denseness of Cooper's and James' prose! I cannot believe I actually put that down in black and white. sch 7/23/23.] I read Cooper's The American Democrat, and I wish it were here for comparison with de Tocqueville.

I do recognize this in my part of America: 

... The social condition of the Americans naturally accustoms them not to take offence in small matters; and, on the other hand, the democratic freedom which they enjoy transfuses this same mildness of temper into the character of the nation. The political institutions of the United States constantly bring citizens of all ranks into contact, and compel them to pursue great undertakings in concert. People thus engaged have scarcely time to attend to the details of etiquette, and they are besides too strongly interested in living harmoniously for them to stick at such things. They therefore soon acquire a habit of considering the feelings and opinions of those whom they meet more than their manners, and they do not allow themselves to be annoyed by trifles. Chapter III: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe

The Tea Party crowd shows no mildness of temper. Talk radio subsists on offensiveness. Without rank rudeness, Rush Limbaugh would have no career. This ill-temper goes back to Richard Nixon and George Wallace and the John Birch Society. All share a hatred of American freedom in its fullness.

sch