America the Dutiful - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 61

ors to Ireland in the eighteenth century could be scandalised by the free sexual talk of the
young women, which did not of course imply that they were sexually free in reality.
Intolerance and Public Spirit
Religious civilisations are often thought to be intolerant ones. When it comes to the United
States, the answer to the question of whether it is a tolerant or intolerant nation is a decis-
ive yes. Purple-faced bigots are allowed to gather on street corners to bawl their hatred of
those with views different from their own. This is an excellent thing. And an appalling one
too, of course. In some ways, the country is magnificent about allowing people to do their
own thing. In other ways, its visceral resistance to anything that differs from it is legendary.
A recent poll revealed that one in five Alabamians and more than one in four Mississippi-
ans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. Americans are allowed to go to all kinds
of eccentric lengths to make money, but are expected on the whole to conform to small-
town mores in the process. Flamboyance is acceptable, but not outright aberration. De Toc-
queville thought America had less freedom of discussion and independence of mind than
any other nation. Freedom of spirit, he writes, is unknown there. Since freedom of spirit
is exactly what the United States prides itself on, this is rather like complaining that the
Italians can't sing and the French have nothing worth eating. De Tocqueville's complaint is
certainly not true of the United States today, where there is an impressive amount of spir-
itual free enterprise.
The tyranny of public opinion is what most disturbed this European observer about the
country. You were not exactly coerced, but you were not exactly free either. The irony of
democracy for de Tocqueville is that it substitutes the voice of the people for political des-
potism, but that voice can be as stifling and oppressive as a Sultan's. It is thus that political
freedom gives birth to its opposite. You can believe what you like, he remarks, but if it fails
to chime with the opinions of your neighbours, they will treat you as a pariah. Nobody,
he adds, is prevented from writing licentious topics, but nobody would think of doing so
either.
Writing licentious topics aside, there is still something of this moral climate in the States
today. It is never entirely safe to demonstrate in the name of a deeply unpopular cause on
the streets of Britain, but it is probably safer than doing so in many an American town. All
the same, de Tocqueville's remarks grossly underestimate the range and diversity of Amer-
ican freedoms. It is true that you can allow people all the liberty you like once you know
that they have internalised all the proper restraints. But the United States, like Europe, re-
mains a place where you cannot be carted off to prison for declaring your allegiance to
Rosa Luxemburg. This is not a freedom to be underrated. There are those elsewhere in the
world who have given their lives to attain it. The only problem is that it is shrinking all the
time, as state surveillance and the spectre of Islamism loom larger.