Perhaps the most prescient and melancholy chapter in Alexis de
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is “What Sort of Despotism
Democratic Nations Have to Fear,” which appears in the second volume
of that great work. If despotism were to establish itself
in modern
democratic nations, Tocqueville predicted, it is likely that it would
assume a different character from the tyrannies other regimes have
from time to time given rise to. Democratic despotism, he says,
would “be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without
tormenting them.”
In this sense, Tocqueville continues, “the species
of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike
anything that ever before existed in the world.”
It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority,
its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the
contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.
… it every day
renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less
frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and
gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of
equality has prepared men for these things; … the supreme
power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the
surface of society with a network
of small complicated rules, minute
and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most
energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The
will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are
seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from
acting. Such a power does not destroy, …
but it enervates,
extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced
to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of
which the government is the shepherd.
The “shepherd” or, in current parlance, the “nanny.” It is
depressing to contemplate the extent to which Tocqueville’s fears
have been realized in contemporary American society. Indeed, simply
tabulating the damage done to our culture by that “network
of small
complicated rules, minute and uniform,” would be a large and
important task. Perhaps the most fearsome engine of democratic
despotism has been the law
—or, more accurately, the abuse of legal
power to engineer mediocrity and conformity. Examples of this are
legion. It is part of what the commentator Walter Olson aptly summed up
as “the litigation explosion,” an explosion that has reverberated
disastrously throughout society, affecting everything from the way
we deal with one another on the job to the way we educate our
children.
We were prompted to think about this gloomy phenomenon the other day
when The New York Times, on March 11, ran a front-page story by
Ethan Bonner reporting that high-school guidance counselors are
being sued by parents if their children fail to be admitted to the
college of their choice. We know it sounds ridiculous. But
as a result of this latest legalistic folly, guidance counselors
are taking out liability insurance
and are becoming increasingly reluctant to disclose damaging truths
to college admissions officials. According to Joyce E. Smith,
executive director of the National Association for College Admission
Counseling, “Counselors are becoming afraid of telling the full
truth. They’ll write that Johnny took these courses and was a great
student, but they won’t tell you that Johnny burned down the
gym”—or, to take a real-life example, murdered one’s mother,
as did one Gina Grant.
Mr. Bonner reports that Ms. Grant killed her mother by striking her
repeatedly on the head with a lead-crystal candlestick. This little
detail was not included in her application to Harvard, even though
the application asked about past criminal and disciplinary problems.
In due course, she was accepted for admission until an anonymous
mailing
caused Harvard officials to reverse their
decision.
One of the chief culprits in this grotesque situation is
the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, one of the most
destructive and politically correct pieces of legislation to be
foisted on the American public since Lyndon Johnson’s
Great Society programs in the early 1960s. As Mr. Bonner notes,
past alcohol and drug use by students, which once would have been
reported to college admissions officers as a matter of course,
is now shielded under the Act. Ditto with other psychological
problems. Thus it happened that the admissions
dean at Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin, found himself
subject to investigation by the Office of Civil Rights at the
Department of Education when he turned down a student whose grades
plummeted after a nervous breakdown. The Office of Civil Rights
ultimately cleared Lawrence, but only on condition that its
application form no longer query counselors about “factors that might
interfere with a student’s performance, either from discipline,
chronic illness or emotional stability.” So being a drunk or a drug
addict or a psychological wreck—to say nothing of having a criminal
record—is apparently now to be regarded as a protected
“disability,” and so such facts must not be taken into account when
deciding whether a student is a fit candidate for admission to
college. We have come a long way since the 1830s when Tocqueville
penned his prophetic words. He saw only too well what was in the
offing, but we think that even he might have been aghast at how
accurately he foresaw what was to come.
