16 - Democracy in America in the Twenty-First Century

Summary

One of the central themes of Democracy in America is the dawning tide of democratic equality. In Tocqueville’s view, this equality – understood as uniformity – represents the future of modern democratic society. Rogers M. Smith argues in this chapter that, even though Tocqueville’s assessment of America as a world of democratic equality may be unreliable, his reckoning with these issues nonetheless proves instructive for how we confront challenges of diversity and inequality. Tocqueville’s worries concerned excessive equality and uniformity, but today’s dilemmas increasingly involve inequality and differential treatment. Rather than treating everyone equally, in what Smith calls a “post-Tocquevillean America,” we confront the challenge of trying to secure diversity and equity by differential treatment of some groups. Smith argues that we ought to be prepared to offer special accommodations and differential treatment for groups so long as these do not substantially harm the civil rights of others and are consistent with the broader ends of substantive equality. Although Tocqueville’s vision of the challenges of democracy may diverge from our own, his thoughts remain illuminating of contemporary challenges of diversity and inequality.