Democracy in America: In Two Volumes

Chapter 10.aOf the Taste for Material Well-Being in America

930 s4s4s4s4s4 c h a p t e r 1 0a Of the Taste for Material Well-Being in America b a. 1. The taste for material well-being is universal in America. Why? 1. In aristocracies, the upper classes, since they have never acquired well-being or feared losing it, readily apply their passions elsewhere and on a more lofty level. Since the lower classes do not have the idea of bettering their lot and are not close enough to well-being to desire it, their imagination is thrown toward the other world. 2. In democratic centuries, on the contrary, each person tries hard to attain wellbeing or fears losing it. That constantly keeps the soul in suspenseonthispoint(YTC, CVf, p. 29). First organization of this part of the book in the Rubish: of the taste for material enjoyments in democracies./ 1. Of the taste for material enjoyments in America. 2. Of the different effects that the taste for material enjoyments produces in an aristocracy and in a democracy. 3. Of some bizarre sects that are arising in America. 4. Of restlessness of the heart in America. 5. How the taste for material enjoyments is combined among the Americans with love of liberty and concerns for public affairs. 6. How equality of conditions (or democracy) leads Americans toward industrial professions. 7. How the religious beliefs of the Americans hold within certain limits the excessive taste for material well-being (Rubish of chapter 15 of this part, Rubish, 1). b. In the Rubish there is a voluminous sheaf bearing the title rubish and ideas relating to the chapters on material enjoyments. It contains notes and pages of rubish for this chapter and for those that follow, up to and including chapter 18. The rubish for this chapter retains another sheaf with this note on the cover: what makes the love of riches predominate over all other passions in democratic centuries./ Chapter to insert in the course of the book, probably before industrial careers./ of the taste for material well-being 931 In America, the passion for material well-being is not always exclusive, but it is general; if everyone does not experience it in the same way, everyone feels it. The concern to satisfy the slightest needs of the body andtoprovide for the smallest conveniences of life preoccupies minds universally. Something similar is seen more and more in Europe. Among the causes that produce these similar effects in two worlds, several are close to my subject, and I must point them out. When wealth is fixed in the same families by inheritance, you see a great number of men who enjoy material well-being, without feeling the exclusive taste for well-being. What most strongly holds the human heart is notthepeacefulpossession of a precious object but the imperfectly satisfied desire to possess it and the constant fear of losing it. In aristocratic societies the rich, never knowing a state different from their own, do not fear its changing; they scarcely imagine another one. So for them material well-being is not the goal of life; it is a way of living. They consider it, in a way, like existence, and enjoy it without thinking about it. Since the natural and instinctive taste that all men feel for well-being is thus satisfied without difficulty and without fear, their soul proceeds elseAt ambition, what diverts from great ambition, it is the petty ambition for money. You devote yourself to the petty ambition for money as preliminary to the other and, when you have devoted yourself to it for a long time, you are incapable of moving away from it./ To put I think before material enjoyments. The desire for wealth is close to the desire for material enjoyments, but is distinct. The only page of the sheaf bears particularly the following notes: “Regularity. Monotony of life./ “That is not democratic but commercial, or at least it is democratic only in so far as democracy pushes toward commerce and industry. “There are also religious habits in the middle of that.” In another place: “In aristocracies, even the life of artisans is varied; they have games, ceremonies, a form of worship that serves as a diversion from the monotony of their works. Their body is attached to their profession, not their soul. “It is not the same thing with democratic peoples” (Rubish, 1). 932 of the taste for material well-being...