American Democracy by Nicholas Lemann

Author:Nicholas Lemann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Library of America
Published: 2020-08-25T21:08:03+00:00

I

I have often wondered what would happen if, given the mildness of democratic mores and the restless spirit of the army, a military government were ever established in some of today’s nations.

I think that the government itself would not differ much from the portrait I have indicated in the chapter to which this note refers, and that it would not reproduce the fierce characteristics of military oligarchy.

I am convinced that what would happen in this case would be a sort of fusion of the habits of the clerk with those of the soldier. The administration would take on something of the military spirit and the military some of the customs of the civil administration. The result would be a regular, clear, precise, absolute chain of command. The people would reflect an image of the army, and society would be regimented like a barracks.

II

One cannot say in an absolute and general way whether the greatest danger today is license or tyranny, anarchy or despotism. Both are equally to be feared, and both can arise equally easily out of one and the same cause, which is general apathy, the fruit of individualism. Because of this apathy, the executive power is in a position to oppress as soon as it assembles a moderate array of forces, and the day after, if a party can put thirty men in the field, it acquires a similar ability to oppress. Neither one is capable of founding anything that will last, so that what makes for easy success prevents lasting success. They rise because nothing resists them and fall because nothing supports them.

What is important to combat is therefore not so much anarchy or despotism as apathy, which can create either one almost indifferently.

Democracy in America, volume II (1840)

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