Insights On De Tocquevilles Democracy In America :: essays research papers

Insights on De Tocqueville's Democracy In America It has been said that a French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited the United States in the 1830's, "understood us" in a way that few observers (foreign and domestic) have. Furthermore, Tocqueville's Democracy in America is often cited by present-day critics because so many of the observations in it seem extraordinarily suitable even more than one hundred and fifty years later. Alexis de Tocqueville was born 1805 into a minor noble family, in which his grandfather had been guillotined during the French Revolution. He had come to the United States in 1831 to study the prison system, in which he did not do, instead he wrote Democracy in America. He had stayed in the United States through February 1832 for about nine months, so intrigued by democracy, majority rule, and the absence of social hierarchy. Democracy in America was first published in 1825, full of observations and interpretations, was written as a sort of warning for European readers; "Is this what you want?" he asks. This book was famous for two accurate predictions, one, the U.S. would someday be a world power as would Russia, second, race would prove to be the most intractable problem for the U.S. One of Tocqueville's observations about the United States is that he thought there is no country in the civilized world that is less attention paid philosophy than the United States. This is applicable to American life in 1997 because the whole world is practically joined to the United States. Just about every country in the world trades with, tours in, and watches for the United States. What I mean by watches is that they practically always know what's going on (except for the top-secret things) in the United States, whether it be by television, computers, or satellites they know what the U.S. is doing. The U.S. is basically a "free-for-all" county; the laws and schools are less strict than other countries such as, Japan in which the students there have to go to school six days a week with much more homework then U.S. schools. Another observation of Alexis is that religion is associated with all the customs of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism. Another way of saying this that there is a religion for everyone. This is still true in 1997 because everyone has there own belief and goes to the church or believes in the religion that they desire. The religious person believes in what he or she wants to believe in and in most case respects what another persons religion might be.

themes in lost horizon Essay -- essays research papers

What is Paradise? Throughout history man has sought to create, find, or at least image a paradise on earth, a place where there is peace, harmony, and a surcease from the pain that plagues our lives. On the eve of World War II, James Hilton imagined such a place in his best-selling novel, Lost Horizon. The story itself begins when an evacuation of Westerners is ordered in the midst of revolution in Baksul, India. A plane containing four passengers is hi-jacked and flown far away into the Keun-Lun Mountains of Tibet. The plane crashes and the passengers are welcomed to the valley of the Blue Moon, and the lamasery of Shangri-la. Here they see an isolated monastery shrouded in mystery, which combines Christianity and Buddhism with a focus on the progression of knowledge. The four passengers who land in Shangri-la are Barnard, a boisterous American, Miss Brinklow, a Christian missionary, Mallinson, a headstrong and passionate English youth, and Conway, the main character and WWI veteran who is unattached and somewhat passionless. All of the characters except Mallinson enjoy life in Shangri-la. Conway especially finds himself at home there and eventually the High Lama of the lamasery unveils all its mysteries of to him. Conway learns that the inhabitants, thanks to the climate and a special drug, live to an extreme old age. They devote the length of their lives to the pursuits of knowledge and do everything in moderation. They believe that their hidden society will escape the...