Citizens of a democracy have a few things that hold true across a broad spectrum of issues. Plato and Alexis de Tocqueville both suggest that these citizens stay away from attempting to discern what people should be doing throughout their lives. Plato argues that this arises from the idea that in a democracy, all ideas should be given the same weight, the same equality, the same importance.[1] Alexis de Tocqueville states that, “they willingly deny what they cannot comprehend: that gives them little faith in the extraordinary and an almost invincible distaste for the supernatural”.[2] Further on, Tocqueville adds, “If man were forced to prove to himself all the truths he makes use of every day, he would never finish”.[3] Finally, Tocqueville rounds out the arguments presented against citizens of a democracy by summarily saying that because ideas are weighted equally among citizens of a democracy, they fall into the trap of not adhering to ideas that are inherently better than the others.[4]
Plato and de Tocqueville are both right in some respects, in that what they observe does happen in some points throughout the lifespan of a citizen in a democracy. For example, ideas are considered as equals on the basis that people have thought through it by their own logic. However, the aspect that they are missing is that for citizens of democracy, ideas that are inherently better than others will rise to the top through debating the crucial points against other ideas. It may not be as efficient as accepting the knowledge from an aristocrat, but the free will of a citizen in a democracy drives them towards these kinds of junctures: allowing them the choice to evaluate each idea based on its own merits, and whichever merits are judged as better, will eventually win out. Of course, this comes with problems, as when the majority of citizens latch on to a corrupted idea and enforce it upon the masses, but for the majority of the time, the ideas that are chosen are usually ones that deserve it.
Tocqueville really does hit on something when he argues that citizens would waste their time away trying to formulate their own knowledge, and that is perhaps the most terrifying theory that he observed. However, that is not necessarily the case, as there are plenty of pieces of knowledge that citizens in democracies take for granted every day, and the amount of knowledge is growing thanks to the dissemination of education throughout society.
In all, I think that Plato and Tocqueville were correct in having concerns about democracies and the function of knowledge within them, though I think their observations are a bit shallow given modern society’s cultural prism. I do not really find myself agreeing with their assertions, but at the same time, I cannot deny that their arguments hold truth within them.
[1] Plato, “Book VIII,” in Republic, n.d., 240.
[2] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Mansfield and Wintrop, vol. 2, 2000., 404.
[3] Ibid. 407.
[4] Ibid. 409.