Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis De Tocqueville

by Kahan,Alan

• ISBN13: 9780765807113
• ISBN10: 0765807114
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-01-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

"Liberalism" is widely used to describe a variety of social and political ideas, but has been an especially difficult concept for historians and political scientists to define. Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville define one type of liberal thought. They share an aristocratic liberalism marked by distaste for the masses and the middle class, opposition to the commercial spirit, fear and contempt of mediocrity, and suspicion of the centralized state. Their fears are combined with an elevated ideal of human personality, an ideal which affirms modernity. All see their ideals threatened in the immediate future, and all hope to save European civilization form barbarism and militarism through some form of education, although all grow more pessimistic towards the end of their lives.Aristocratic Liberalism ignores the national boundaries that so often confine the history of political thought, and uses the perspective thus gained to establish a pan-European type of political thought. Going beyond Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville, Aristocratic Liberalism argues for new ways of looking at nineteenth-century liberalism. It corrects many prevalent misconceptions about liberalism, and suggests new paths for arriving at a better understanding of the leading form of nineteenth-century political thought. The new Afterword by the author presents a novel description of liberal political language as the "discourse of capacity", and suggests that this kind of language is the common denominator of all forms of European liberalism in the nineteenth century. Aristocratic Liberalism will be valuable to students of history, political science, sociology, and political philosophy.

Author Biography

Alan Kahan is associate professor of history at Florida International University.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(11)
Past and Present: The Eighteenth Century and the Origins of Modernity	11	(23)
The Revolutionary Present	11	(4)
The Enlightenment: The Origins of the Revolution and of Modernity	15	(5)
The French Revolution	20	(11)
The Eighteenth Century, The French Revolution, and Modernity	31	(3)
The Spirit of the Majority	34	(24)
Contradiction or Coherence? The Aristocratic Liberal Style of Explanation	34	(7)
The Hegemony of the Middle Class and the Commercial Spirit	41	(5)
Hegemony as Stagnation	46	(3)
Hegemony as Mediocrity	49	(5)
The Rise of the Lower Classes	54	(4)
Despotisms: The State and Its Masters	58	(23)
The State	58	(7)
Our Masters: Public Opinion	65	(3)
The Problem of Suffrage	68	(3)
The Hare Plan and the Prussian Constitution	71	(3)
Socialism and the Fear of Socialism	74	(7)
Modern Humanism: The Values of Aristocratic Liberalism	81	(30)
Humanism	81	(11)
Modern Humanism and Aristocratic Liberalism	92	(6)
Modern Humanism and the Aristocratic Liberals: The Values of Aristocratic Liberalism	98	(13)
``Working against Time'': The Aristocratic Liberal Response to the Challenge of Modernity	111	(24)
The Political Ideal of Aristocratic Liberalism	111	(4)
Social and Economic Attitudes	115	(4)
Optimism and Pessimism	119	(6)
Education	125	(10)
Conclusion: Toward a History of European Liberalism, 1830--1870	135	(32)
Aristocratic Liberalism and the Study of Liberalism	135	(4)
The Boundaries of European Liberalism, 1830--1870	139	(6)
Three Misconceptions about Liberalism	145	(10)
Aristocratic Liberalism in Context	155	(12)
Afterword	167	(12)
Notes	179	(42)
Selected Bibliography	221	(8)
Index	229