Hope for the Future: Tocqueville on Racism, Fatalism, and Democracy

Is it reasonable to hope that America can overcome racism? Or is the structure of society such that it will never be stamped out? I consider this question by turning to the thought of nineteenth-century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville observed the horrors of slavery and racism in 1830s America, which informed his pessimism. Despite this, Tocqueville refused to abandon hope that human beings could choose a different path, that racism is not an inevitable or eternal part of the human condition. He was not, in other words, a fatalist like his friend and racial theorist Arthur de Gobineau. I consider their exchange of letters on this point, as well as Tocqueville’s hostility to fatalism in general. I also make use of John Stuart Mill’s writings to help explain Tocqueville’s understanding of fatalism.