Tocqueville on conformism

The mechanisms of belief formation I considered in Chapter 7 operate for the main part at the level of the individual, in the sense that the beliefs held by one person owe little to those held or expressed by others. In this chapter I discuss some mechanisms of collective or interactive belief formation. To illustrate the distinction, consider Tocqueville's analyses of American conformism. One explanation why Americans tend to have the same ideas is simply that they live under similar conditions: Since “men equal in condition … see things from the same angle, their minds are naturally inclined towards analogous ideas, and while each of them may diverge from his contemporaries and form beliefs of his own, all end up unwittingly and unintentionally sharing a certain number of opinions in common.” Another explanation relies on the pressure to conform: “In America the majority erects a formidable barrier around thought. Within the limits thus laid down, the writer is free, but woe unto him who dares to venture beyond those limits. Not that he need fear an auto-da-fé, but he must face all sorts of unpleasantness and daily persecution.”

This last passage suggests that people conform outwardly, because of social pressure, but not necessarily inwardly. As he also writes, if you hold a deviant view, “your fellow creatures will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in return.” Other passages suggest that conformism reaches all the way to the soul, so that people eventually develop a sincere belief in the majority view. Two mechanisms are suggested, one “cold” or cognitive and another “hot” or motivational. On the one hand, “it seems unlikely … that everyone being equally enlightened, truth should not lie with the greater number.” On the other hand, the fact that “American political laws are such that the majority is sovereign … greatly increases its inherent influence over the intellect, for there is no more inveterate habit of man than to recognize superior wisdom in his oppressor.”