Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
In a way, perhaps this book should be called the American Aristocracy rather than American Democracy, because it’s all about the need in democratic politics to have a public-spirited aristocracy.
And Burke died before the big social changes
Yes, he was at the peak of his powers and political life in 1790 and was absolutely contemporaneous with the Revolution, but he died in about 1789.
So there is an overlap between Burke and Tocqueville, in that he was writing about France with an eye on Britain, and Tocqueville was writing about America with an eye on France.
Well yes, Burke was obviously very much doing that, and Tocqueville was very much writing about the American Revolution with an eye on the French Revolution. I mean obviously anybody writing about politics more or less since the French Revolution has had to come to grips with it, and think about its consequences.
And its causes.
Yes, you could argue that it led to Napoleon, it led to military dictatorship. There are many reasons to distrust democracy, if you've studied the French Revolution. The consequences for France and for the world were a quarter of a century of terrible wars, and of course a military dictatorship in France: so it had almost the opposite effect. In the short term, at any rate, it didn't serve democracy. But just to throw in one book as a bonne bouche and it’s just such a pleasure, and I didn't read it until I was quite old and I regret it… I want to talk about Montaigne’s Essays. There's a collection of his essays in English, it came out about five years ago, and it’s the most civilised reading you could have if you want to know how a civilised, educated honourable, religious - progressive but deeply religious - man can think about the human condition. They're fantastically frank. I mean, this is a man mostly writing very sort of highbrow stuff, but there's one essay about why the human brain can control every part of the human body: arms, mouth, eyes and so on, but the only part of the human body that cannot be bullied is the human penis. And somehow it’s quite true, you can't demand that an erection go down or come up. And to read Montaigne, a 17th century writer writing in this completely sort of uninhibited way, is very cheering.
Read full interview.png)
Peregrine Worsthorne is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. He was a leader writer and foreign correspondent for the Times from 1948-1953, and was the editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1985-1991. He contributes to the New Statesman and to the online magazine The First Post. He is the author of The Socialist Myth, 1972, Tricks of Memory, 1993 and In Defence of Aristocracy, 2004.
