The prophetic forecast of Alexis de Tocqueville
(on modern despotism)
... "I see a countless number of men and same like that run incessantly on themselves to get vulgar little pleasures , which is gratify the soul. Each of them, taken by hand, is as alien to the fate of all others: his children and his friends formed for him the entire human species, the remainder of his countrymen, if next to them but not see them; touches them but feels them not; exists only in himself and for himself, and, if a family's remains still, you can at least say that no more country. "At the back of the individual stands an immense power and protection, which only takes care to ensure their enjoyment and watching over their fate. E 'absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. Resemble paternal power if, like this, aim to prepare men for manhood, but that only seeks, instead, to fix irrevocably in childhood; if the citizens want to enjoy, they do not think of anything but enjoy it. She enjoys work for their happiness but wants to be the only agent of this and the only one arbitrator, and care about their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their inheritance, divide their inheritance. "In this way, the sovereign" makes it less useful and rarer than the use of free will does not break the will: softens, bends the head and, rarely undertakes to act: it relentlessly opposed that act, does not destroy: it prevents birth, does not destroy: disturbing, compress, yield, turn off, makes fools, and finally reduces each nation to be only a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. "Moreover, freedom is expensive, claim it is not instinctive. It may be convenient to compare it with a dose of awe . Our contemporaries - Tocqueville noted - are relentlessly opposed by two passions bad: feel the need to be direct and the desire to remain free. Being unable to destroy either one or the other of these conflicting instincts, strive to satisfy them both at the same time. "
Photo by Arnaldo Brand-
