The “Great” Experiment
Time to stop drinking the Kool-Aid
The phrase, “great experiment” is often attributed to Alexis De Tocqueville from his book, On Democracy in America published in 1835.
In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past.
However, the phrase “great experiment” was actually coined by British Aristocrat Henry Reeve who was the first translator of, On Democracy in America. Subsequent translations did not use that phrase.
In 1831, Alexis De Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent to America by the French government to study our prison system. While here, Tocqueville was also researching American democracy and Beaumont was researching American slavery. After returning home to France, they published On the Penitentiary System in the United States, Slavery in the United States and On Democracy in America.
In a letter to Reeve, unhappy about his translation, Tocqueville wrote:
“Without wishing to do so and by following the instinct of your opinions, you have quite vividly colored what was contrary to Democracy and almost erased what could do harm to Aristocracy.”
This is a perfect microcosm of American mythology and propaganda. Global aristocrats poking and prodding at the suffering of the lower classes in an effort to understand the appropriate balance of Democracy (for the little people) and Aristocracy (for the master class). Tocqueville who was critical of but not entirely opposed to aristocracy thought Reeve had overstated the case and erased the nuance of the work and it seems Tocqueville was right. Reeve created a powerful new American meme (mistakenly attributed to Tocqueville). The Great Experiment now lives in the pantheon American propaganda with classics like “the Land of Opportunity”, Horatio Alger and the rugged individual.
With this post I am suggesting that the great experiment is not an experiment of a system that rewards hard work and provides opportunity for all. Instead, I believe the “Great” Experiment is an ongoing attempt to prove the hypothesis that a ruling class can titrate freedoms to their subjects to create calculated and tenuous comfort so that fear of losing those freedoms motivates the subjects to sustain the engine that supports the power and wealth of the ruling class.
…
