emocracy is generally held to be a most significant political advance over Aristocracy.  This is especially so in view of the simple truth that at its most profound level the idea behind aristocracy is nothing more than a myth, as there is no bloodline that renders one group of human beings superior to others, to say nothing of being fit to rule others.  One of the most alluring features of democracy is just the fact that it allows in principle that any member of society is capable of exhibiting extraordinary excellence in every walk of life. 

The genius of Alex de Tocqueville lies in the fact that he saw drawbacks to democracy more than 200 years ago that seem quite applicable today.  In just a few pages in Democracy in America (II, Part III, Chapter 19), Tocqueville proved to be brilliantly insightful about an important problem with democracy.  He recognized that the ideal of equality can be employed or insisted upon to a fault.  And indeed we are finding just that in our public schools. 

Many public schools now downplay that idea of the gifted student.  This they do in the name of not offending anyone.  Indeed, it seems that the very idea of the public school is defined these days in terms of teaching to the lowest common denominator, making a virtue out of stupidity.  The irony here is that by the time we finish not leaving any child behind there is a real sense in which we have left just about every child behind.  Or, in any case, we have done more harm than good, as we have ignored the gifted in the name of being supportive of those lacking in talent. 

Time was when gifted students were much admired for their imagination and creativity.  It was not considered an embarrassment that one was not gifted, precisely because it was fully understood that being gifted meant that one exceeded reasonable expectations.  Accordingly, a student who had no difficulty measuring up to reasonable expectations fully grasped that she or he was doing just fine.  There were no self-esteem problems.

But nowadays, it is supposed that acknowledging differences in intellectual abilities is none other than the harbinger of low self-esteem.  Democracy has resulted in a slide from the tenable and true thesis that all are morally equal to the untenable and false thesis that all are intellectually equal. 

To be sure, injustices of various forms have in some instances been an impediment to our recognizing the talent of various individuals.  But needless to say, the solution to this injustice was not to declare all members of an oppressed group as gifted.  After all, no one believes that—including members of oppressed groups.  There is all the difference in the world between holding, on the one hand, that Native American culture (for example) is richer than had been supposed and holding, on the other, that anything any Native American does or says is breathtakingly brilliant. 

This brings me to another insight that Tocqueville had about democracy, namely that it cultivates short-sightedness: people are so concerned with immediate satisfaction that they give next to no thought to long-range plans.  Credit card debt in America is a prime example of this.  It is no accident that we distinguish between credit card debt and mortgage debt.  The former is typically indefensible and speaks only to the moment; whereas the latter is a debt that secures one’s future well-being.  That is all the difference in the world.

It goes without saying that companies prey upon short-sightedness.  Mere options are made to feel like needs.  Does anyone really need a new ringtone each month for a far from nominal fee? 

But perhaps the more pernicious form of short-sightedness lies with social advancement itself.  We are pushing equality in ways that borders on absurdity.  I have two interesting examples regarding toilet facilities.  One involves the concern we find at some universities with regard to having toilet facilities for transgendered folks.  To the best of my knowledge: (a) toilet facilities (for use by several people at once) observe the penis-vagina difference and (b) the point of such facilities is to relieve oneself.  They are not really about how one feels on the inside.  At a very practical level, it is irrelevant that a woman feels like a man or a man feels like a woman. 

There are, in fact, some moments of being uncomfortable that are simply a part of life.  I am uncomfortable whenever there is more than one person in a public restroom.  Depending on the size of the facilities and the degree of urgency, I have walked out and waited for a less busy moment.   

And we do not need to know whether a person is transgendered or not, any more than we need to know whether a person is gay or straight or not (whatever ‘not’ means in this instance).  Toilet facilities should not be the place for self-discovery with regard to sexual identity.  And only a rather perverse view of equality could make it so.

The second example pertains to the distribution of public toilets on the streets that took place in New York City (an enclosed single person facility the automatically cleaned itself after each use).  Several organizations for handicap people complained that these toilets did not accommodate handicap people, with the result being that all the toilets were removed.  The thought obviously was that either all should have the advantage of toilets on the streets or none should have it. 

Now, the proof that this was more political posturing rather than a genuine social reality is that to date many, many airplanes are not equipped with handicap facilities.  In this case, no one thinks that either there should be facilities for all or for none.  That would be absurd.  But this tells us what we already know, namely that sometimes we need to bow to practical considerations.  We do this with regard to swings in the park, as there are no special swings for wheel-chair bound individuals. 

This gets to the very heart of Tocqueville’s point, namely that democracy seems not to be able to acknowledge differences between people without supposing that a moral difference is thereby being invoked, however subtlety.    

The final example that I shall give pertains to the importance now attributed to standardized tests.  These came about as a result of inflated letters of recommendation which, in turn, came about as a result of the concern to avoid comparisons between students.  One deadly consequence of this is that we now have in place a system that makes it so much harder for idiosyncratic excellences to be acknowledge, though we know that test scores alone are not a very good measure of the excellences that a person will accomplish in life.  In the name of equality, then, we are thwarting excellence.   In the meanwhile, shows like “American Idol” are a runaway success.  This tells us something very important, which is that there is no substitute for the affirmation of success earned the old fashion way, namely through fierce competition. 

Aristocracy decided in advance, as it were, who would succeed—even who was worthy of succeeding.  Democracy’s revolutionary contribution is supposed to lie in giving everyone the chance to be the best that she or he could be, without prejudging anyone in advance.  Democracy’s failure, as Tocqueville grasped, lies in mistakenly thinking that we must treat everyone in exactly the same way in order to give everyone a chance.  This effectively takes away from democracy its greatest gift, namely individuality.  And this, we have become too short-sighted to see.