13 - Tocqueville’s Puritans

Summary

Democracy in America begins from the central insight that religion precedes politics. This is best seen in the prominent role that Tocqueville accords to America’s Puritan Founders. The Puritans, in his view, contribute much to the spirit of American political culture. On the one hand, they contribute a covenantal theology that focuses on the importance of intermediation among otherwise separate democratic individuals. Yet the Puritans are also responsible for notions of sinfulness and religious “stain” that have the potential to assume illiberal forms. As Joshua Mitchell argues in this chapter, one potentially illiberal danger of Puritanism is the scapegoating of particular groups through the dynamics of identity politics. In Mitchell’s view, we need to reckon with America’s Puritan legacy not only through the lens of John Calvin and the covenantal theory of mediation but also through the prism of Blaise Pascal whose insights into the problems of loneliness, separation, and redemption illuminate contemporary political dilemmas.