StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Legacy of French Visitors to America - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Philosophy The Legacy of French Visitors to America Matthew in his book about the intellects Tocqueville possessed, discusses some of the key observations Tocqueville observed at the time he entered America…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.5% of users find it useful
The Legacy of French Visitors to America
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Legacy of French Visitors to America"

Philosophy The Legacy of French Visitors to America Matthew in his book about the intellects Tocqueville possessed, discusses some of the key observations Tocqueville observed at the time he entered America. He had read about the creation of this country and American regime and their religious believes. But as soon as he came here he saw a changed scenario. The industrial revolution had bought changes in the country affecting the mind of each individual. Things had changed from mysticism to materialism.

According to Alexis, people had changed themselves unconsciously. (Mancini, Matthew J, 2006) Alexis de Tocqueville, a Roman catholic of French origin, belonging to a royal family, came to the US at the age of twenty six. With his quick observation he soon recognized the spiritual differences between Europe and the US. He arrived at the New York City and clearly noticed the divergence relative to his French homeland. As Tocqueville noticed, US neither had cathedral domes nor any of the churches had bell towers; hence it gave him an impression of being in a village.

The essentials symbols of Christianity were missing yet he saw that American Catholics were highly devoted and spiritual people. Tocqueville reached US on May 1831 and began exploring new advancement for political and religious life in the initial stages of democracy. He first reflected his art of thinking on 1835, when his first insight about spirituality and democracy got published. In the subsequent pages we will scrutinize Tocqueville immense work and democracy in US and note the significant alteration in religious life that Tocqueville experimented under way in premature nineteenth century United States of America and which still bears great weightage to this day.

When Tocqueville entered America, the only thing he knew about the religious life of people living here was that American majority practiced Christian faith. He was now to examine some critical questions regarding their faith those were: how the lives of people were conformed to their religious doctrines? And how the religious teachings entered their souls? Only later than his thorough encounter with spiritual life in the new independent world did Tocqueville start in on to draw endings about spirituality on this area of the Atlantic region.

Soon Tocqueville realized that America had made a great leap from the rest of the world and amongst the history of the Western Civilization. America was a place where democracy ruled, and due to it the people only came closer for their benefits. At this time Tocqueville was to teach them the aged old lessons of faith to scrutinize the evaluating democracy. He was of the idea that the US citizens should focus their minds to prepare for the life after death, for a place they were going to live forever.

Americans need not to chase the worldly desires every day. From the words of faith, he wanted Americans to shift their thinking from materialistic world to the faith of “distant objects” and reform them as were in the “ages of faith”. Apart from the fact that the Americans were moving away from the path of faith, they were also parting away from the aristocratic age. The noble ones were not considered anymore and the legacy of the “white man” was abolishing. Tocqueville was an aristocrat and a crusader by nature, and this shift was bothering him.

He saw that the ethics and spirituality of Christianity was going to suffer the most with the developments of the Democratic America. According to Tocqueville, aristocratic rule was both the redeemer and conveyor of religious blessings and spiritual realities. He knew that the Americans wanted to play apart from the European traditions and would likely encourage the new democratic order. From the human perspective we know that the traditions never dies very easily, but here in America the society was developing so rapidly that it was feared that the historical traditions would be very soon lost from the personal life.

Once he said: "In the middle of the continual progress that agitates a democratic community, the knots that unite one generation to any other are stress-free or broken; individuals there lose every trace of the ideas of their forbearers or take no concern about them" With the shift from religious traditions, Tocqueville also observed that the American thinking was not moving parallel with the supernatural believes. This shift was inducing some critical points among each individual, they were losing the way to judge them and eventually leading an aimless life.

The intellect of the American community, Tocqueville experienced, was surely not seized captive by heavenly revelations from on high, but in its place the new "democratic age" signed a entire new problem: holiness without positioned divine revelation or visionary revelation. References: Mancini, Matthew J. Alexis De Tocqueville and American Intellectuals: From His Times to Ours. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Print.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The Legacy of French Visitors to America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1440539-review-on-carve-jean-baudrillard-s-argument-and
(The Legacy of French Visitors to America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words)
https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1440539-review-on-carve-jean-baudrillard-s-argument-and.
“The Legacy of French Visitors to America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1440539-review-on-carve-jean-baudrillard-s-argument-and.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Legacy of French Visitors to America

Disneyland and history of it

hellip; Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created america, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world” (Walt Disney).... Ultimately, rather than merely being an entertaining environment for families to spend leisure time, Disneyland was intended to be something of a historical/cultural interpretation of america, the American dream, the American past, the American future, and the American president....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Disneyland Hong Kong Success Factors

Thus there are a large number of visitors to Hong Kong due to its geographic location which in turn benefits, Disney Land Hong Kong.... Originality of concept implies providing novelty to the visitors at all times.... To boost up its summer visitors, the summer pass concept has been introduced by Disney Land Hong Kong; in addition it has continuously innovated to provide new rides, new plans for passes and also added environmental friendly attractions such as the Autopia electric car in collaboration with Honda the Japanese car manufacturer....
4 Pages (1000 words) Assignment

Australian Subsidiaries in France, China, Canada

Many multinational corporations trace its origins in this nent “down under” that expounds on European legacy with a democratically free market economy that just adopted economic reforms in 1980s contributing to its current robust economy.... With particular reference to legal, political, economic and cultural issues, explain how the business environments of each of the abovementioned locations can necessitate… Australia with its vast natural resources is an internationally competitive, advanced and fast-growing market economy....
17 Pages (4250 words) Essay

How the U.S. Attitude to European Integration Has Evolved between 1945 and Enlargement of the EU

nbsp;  The growth of European unity from a six-nation trading block in the 1940s to the 25 nation political, military and economic confederation that exists today has been accompanied by a similar evolution in america's attitude toward the integration of Europe.... The author states that the challenge that a unified Europe poses for the United States has made unofficial attitudes somewhat less enthusiastic....
9 Pages (2250 words) Term Paper

Case Analysis Euro Disney

america was normally focused on accumulating more power to gain more global influence while France concentrated on increasing flexibility.... Miron (2009) posits that the rate of individualism is higher in america than in France.... However, the great expectations for instant success in… The company had a loss of FFr 188 million from April to September 1992 while the french tourists only encompassed 29% of the tourists that visited Disneyland. In on to the Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the key points of cultural differences between USA and France include the Power Distance Index (PDI, Individualism or collectivism, long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance index and masculinity (Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions, 2009)....
13 Pages (3250 words) Essay

Role of Capitol in American History

86) under the then Governor Thomas Jefferson who would go on to become the President of United States of america.... Owing to its importance in the context of the overall political and American civil life society, the place is a center of attention and a central hub towards the visitors from the various states within United States of america and to those who travel United States of america and have some level of affiliation and interest in... Underground constructions have been established which have enabled accommodating and adjusting more set of individuals and visitors in its parking areas and other surrounding localities....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Josephine Baker and her Contribution to the Civil Rights Movement

In fact, the response to her deeds of heroism has been very favorable Josephine joined the french resistance movement during World War II (Encyclopedia of World Biography).... nbsp; According to one published biography, Baker married Jean Lion, a french industrialist who divorced her in 1940.... Josephine became a Red Cross nurse when Germany invaded Belgium and during the occupation of France, she joined the french Resistance serving as an underground courier....
9 Pages (2250 words) Research Paper

Pacific Island Culture

nbsp;… Another significant aspect of the pacific Island derived from the article is that foreign visitors are the ones who contributed to developing and generating new ideas in these Islands.... Some of the foreign visitors were traders who came from American and various European countries.... The other type of visitors who came in these regions included missionaries....
14 Pages (3500 words) Article
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us