Abstract
Central to François Furet’s intellectual and political agenda of the 1970s and beyond was the revival of semiforgotten nineteenth-century thinkers who, Furet believed, were incomparably more insightful in their reflections on modern politics and the French Revolution than their twentieth-century academic successors. Although Furet gave significant attention to figures such as Augustin Cochin and Edgar Quinet, none of Furet’s illustrious ancestors was more important to him than Alexis de Tocqueville. This chapter explores Tocqueville’s role in Furet’s thought by examining Furet’s reading of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and use of Tocquevillian concepts in his analysis of the contemporary world, notably politics in France and the United States. It argues that Furet’s reading of Tocqueville was dominated by his own obsessive concern with the danger of revolutionary politics and that the understanding of democratic politics that Furet drew from this reading led him in an increasingly conservative direction in the last decade of his life.
A faculty research grant of the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities and an NEH Summer Stipend Research Grant supported research that appears in this chapter. The author would like to thank the editors of this volume for their helpful comments on a manuscript version of this text.
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Notes
Regular participants included Cornelius Castoriadis, François Furet, Marcel Gauchet, Claude Lefort, Pierre Manent, Bernard Manin, Krzystof Pomian, Philippe Reynaud, and Pierre Rosanvallon according to Iain Stewart’s, “France’s Anti-68 Liberal Revival,” in France since the 1970s: History, Politics and Memory in an Age of Uncertainty, ed. Emile Chabal (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), note 98 on page 222.
François Furet, Histoire de la Révolution et la Révolution dans l’histoire (Abbeville: Imprimerie F. Paillart, 1994), 26.
François Furet, “Tocqueville est-il un historien de la Révolution française?” Annales ESC 25(2) (March–April 1970): 434–451; François Furet, “Tocqueville et le problème de la Révolution française,” in Conscience de la société: mélanges en l’honneur de Raymond Aron (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1971), 310–343; François Furet, Penser la Révolution française, folio/histoire edition (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), 209–256. Continuing this reflection on Tocqueville’s Old Regime and the French Revolution is Furet’s “Tocqueville,” in Dictionnaire Critique de la Révolution française: Interprètes et historiens, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf (Paris: Flammarion, 2007), 261–280. First edition: 1988.
François Furet, “Le Système conceptuel de la ‘Démocratie en Amérique,’” preface to Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique, vol. 1 (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1981), 7–46, excerpts of which appear under the same title in Commentaire 3(12) (1980–1981): 605–614; François Furet, “The Young Tocqueville’s Idea of the American Voyage (1825–1831),” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History 11 (1983): 207–221, later published in French as “Naissance d’un paradigme: Tocqueville et le voyage en Amérique (1825–1831),” Annales ESC 39(2) (March–April 1984): 225–239; François Furet, “The Intellectual Origins of Tocqueville’s Thought,” Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 7 (January 1985): 117–129, the second part of which reprints Furet’s Proceedings article; François Furet, “Tocqueville, Charles Alexis Cléral de, 1805–1859: De la Démocratie en Amérique, 1835–1840,” in Dictionnaire des oeuvres politiques, ed. François Châtelet, Olivier Duhamel, and Evelyne Pisier (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1986), 821–833.
Outside of the EHESS, Furet taught a seminar on Tocqueville at the University of Chicago in spring 1983, Outside of the EHESS, Furet taught a seminar on Tocqueville at the University of Chicago in spring 1983 and in Buenos Aires in December 1984. Letter from François Furet to Keith Baker, March 5, 1982, regarding his teaching at the University of Chicago in Fall 1982, a trip delayed until spring 1983 due to Furet’s hospitalization following a bicycling accident. Fonds du Président François Furet, AN 920572, carton 10. Christophe Prochasson, François Furet: les chemins de la mélancolie (Paris: Stock, 2013), 162.
Françoise Mélonio, “Tocqueville à l’est,” The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 15(2) (October 1994): 193–195. Interview of François Furet, Le Monde, May 12, 1993.
François Furet letters to Philippe Bertin-Mourot, November 6, 1978 and January 8, 1981, both in AN 920572, carton 10. François Furet, “Ce que je dois à Tocqueville,” Commentaire 14(55) (Autumn 1991): 543.
See Furet, “Le Système conceptuel,” 15 for another example of the same misquote and Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Library of America, 2004), 752 (volume 2, part 2, chapter 21) for the correct quote.
[François Furet], “Notre Ami d’Amérique,” Le Nouvel Observateur 977 (July 29, 1983): 54.
Furet would have been aware of these contradictions because they had been analyzed three years earlier by his colleague Claude Lefort, whose work he followed closely. See Claude Lefort, “De l’égalité à la liberté: Fragments d’interprétation de De la Démocratie en Amérique,” in his Essais sur le politique: xixe–xxe siècles (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 217–247. First published in Libre 3 (1978). On Lefort’s reading of Tocqueville and for the period’s interpretations of Tocqueville in general, see Serge Audier, Tocqueville retrouvé: Genèse et enjeux du renouveau tocquevillien français (Paris: Éditions de l’école des hautes études en sciences sociales/Librairie philosphique J. Vrin, 2004).
Gilles Lipovetsky, L’ère du vide: essai sur l’individualisme contemporain (Paris: Gallimard, 1983).
Prochasson, François Furet. Those interested in a more complete evaluation of Prochasson’s book can consult Michael Scott Christofferson, “A Mind of the Left?” New Left Review 86 (2014): 131–137.
A. Delcroix [François Furet], “Un Nouveau visage des Etats-Unis,” review of volume 1 of Claude Julien, Le Nouveau Nouveau Monde, France observateur 512 (February 25, 1960): 19.
François Furet, “Un sudiste sans complexes,” Le Nouvel Observateur 624 (October 25, 1976): 52.
Beginning with A. Delcroix [François Furet], review of volume 2 of Claude Julien, Le Nouveau Nouveau Monde, France observateur 523 (May 12, 1960): 17.
François Furet, “Jimmy Carter: une révolution à l’américaine,” Le Nouvel Observateur 637 (January 24, 1977): 90, 94, 96, 97.
François Furet, “Le mystère Carter,” Le Nouvel Observateur 686 (January 1, 1978): 24 for the quote; François Furet, “Une Image présidentielle affaiblie,” Le Nouvel Observateur 834 (November 3, 1980): 33–34.
François Furet, “Dieu à la droite de Reagan,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1040 (October 12, 1984): 31 for the quote; François Furet, “La chanson de Ronald,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1043 (November 2, 1984): 31.
François Furet, “Le Paradoxe américain,” Le Nouvel Observateur 840 (December 15, 1980): 18.
François Furet, “Malaise dans la culture,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1171 (April 17, 1987): 109. Testifying to Furet’s friendship with Bloom is his tribute to him: “Une grande âme inquiète,” Commentaire 76 (Winter 1996–1997): 795–796.
This paragraph’s discussion of Furet’s views on political correctness is based on the following: François Furet, interviewed, “Les fous de l’égalité,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1399 (August 29, 1991): 67–68; François Furet, interviewed, “L’universel et nous,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1422 (February 6, 1992): 27; François Furet, “Amérique une démocratie folle,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1565 (November 3, 1994): 11–12; François Furet, interviewed, “L’Utopie démocratique à l’américaine, entretien,” Le Débat 69 (March–April 1992): 80–91; François Furet, interviewed, “Une tragédie américaine,” L’Histoire 197 (1996): 42–43; François Furet, “L’Amérique de Clinton II,” Le Débat 94 (March–April 1997): 3–10; François Furet, “Sur le multiculturalisme. Quelle culture?” Le Débat 95 (May–August 1997): 187; François Furet, interviewed, “L’indépassable horizon de la démocratie libérale,” Politique internationale 72 (Summer 1997): 321–335.
See Éric Fassin, “‘Political Correctness’ en version originale et en version française: un malentendu révélateur,” Vingtième siècle: revue d’histoire 45 (July–September 1994): 30–42. Fassin offers an insightful discussion of the real stakes of political correctness in America and of the misreading of the phenomenon by French intellectuals who mistook it for America as a whole.
François Furet, “La France unie,” in La République du centre: la fin de l’exception française, ed. François Furet, Jacques Julliard, and Pierre Rosanvallon (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1988), 32.
François Furet, “1789–1917: aller et retour,” Le Débat 57 (November–December 1989): 16; François Furet, “Inter treize quatorze en public,” France Inter, January 19, 1995, consulted at the INA; François Furet, “Democracy and Utopia,” Journal of Democracy 9(1) (1998): 79. François Furet, interviewed, “Nazisme et communisme: la comparaison interdite,” L’Histoire 186 (March 1995): 20; Furet, “L’Indépassable horizon de la démocratie libérale,” 331.
François Furet, “Le bon plaisir,” France Culture, November 21, 1992. Consulted at the INA. Manent famously concluded his 1982 book on Tocqueville with the sentence: “To love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Pierre Manent, Tocqueville et la nature de la démocratie (Paris: Gaillmard, 1993), 181.
François Furet, interviewed, “Le déclin des extrêmes,” Le Nouvel Observateur 1584 (March 16, 1995): 63.
François Furet, “Chronique d’une decomposition,” Le Débat 83 (January–February 1995): 85. A similar analysis is offered in François Furet, “Europe After Utopianism,” Journal of Democracy 6(1) (1995): 81.
François Furet and Roger Martelli, “Communisme, les leçons du siècle,” L’Humanité dimanche 258 (February 23, 1995): 18.
Ibid., 19.
François Furet, interviewed, “La chute finale,” L’Histoire 170 (October 1993): 59–60.
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), 79–128.
François Furet, “L’Énigme française,” Le Débat 96 (September–October 1997): 47–48.
Ibid., 47.
François Furet, interviewed, “Wir sind die Verlierer des untergegangenen Kommunismus,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 20, 1997. The same sentiment is conveyed later in François Furet, “Sorpresa: è il mercato che sconfigge la destra,” Panorama 34(23) (June 12, 1997): 38–39 and then in Furet, “L’Énigme française,” 44.
Michael Scott Christofferson, French Intellectuals Against the Left: The Antitotalitarian Moment of the 1970s (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004), 244 and note 84 on 264.
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Christofferson, M.S. (2016). “The Best Help I Could Find to Understand Our Present”: François Furet’s Antirevolutionary Reading of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. In: Sawyer, S.W., Stewart, I. (eds) In Search of the Liberal Moment. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137581266_5
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