The Democratic Soul by Aaron Herold is a probing analysis of the foundations of liberal democracy. Through a close textual analysis of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise and Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Herold provides a compelling account of the origin and trajectory of liberalism. He gives good reasons why we should return to both Spinoza and Tocqueville, and thus why a comparative study is warranted. He argues that we must return to Spinoza to understand “liberalism's foundational crisis” (6) and to Tocqueville to find “the way toward a recovery of liberalism in the most authentic sense” (14). The foundational crisis that Spinoza inaugurates is the political dismissal of the religious experience. His criticisms of the Bible and the Christian psychological account of religious longing allow his Enlightenment heirs to erect a successful political program, but one that fails to account for the deepest hopes and desires of human beings. Liberal democracy's inability to account for the needs of the soul is the root cause of our discontent. Tocqueville helps us make sense of our modern situation by providing a more capacious understanding of human nature and religious psychology. His political science presents us with an important correction to the Enlightenment project and sets us on the path to discover a liberalism worth saving.
Although Spinoza is faulted for inaugurating a problematic theological foundation that endangers orthodox faith and misconstrues our restless human nature, he is praised for articulating an ideal form of liberal political philosophy. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke, and other later theorists, Spinoza does not abandon the classical concern with “the good life,” or man's summum bonum, which consists in a life of rationality. By enlightening society and freeing it from the dread of religion, he allows democratic citizens to form a new form of civic unity that is grounded in a mutual love of free speech and thought. Spinoza does not want citizens who are only committed to acquiring material goods and bodily pleasures; he wants to cultivate a type of citizen who is committed to political freedom and who is willing to sacrifice his life to protect this freedom (114). Moreover, he wants to create a society where philosophers are “free to pursue their private happiness” without “fear of persecution” (113). By elevating the philosophic life, Spinoza's liberalism also elevates the cultural experience of ordinary citizens. The aim of government is not to perpetuate a base life dedicated to the restless pursuit of pleasures, but one of cultural refinement through works of literature, art, philosophy, and so forth (109–10). Theoretically, Spinoza's political philosophy paints a high ideal for liberalism: the authentic liberation of individuals and communities (85).
Despite the attractiveness of Spinoza's project, Herold argues that it has given way to a deformed liberalism where genuine citizenship and philosophy are endangered. He helped create citizens who believe that they are free from all dogmas and unexamined ideas (108). Freed from superstition, they believe that they can live fully rational lives and be content in this world. What Tocqueville shows in Democracy in America is that this enlightenment presumption is false. Citizens cannot live without dogmas, without God and country, without a hope for future happiness. Spinoza's project unwittingly leads to intellectual conformity, restless souls, and individualistic and materialistic citizens unwilling to serve their communities. Worst of all, true philosophy is forgotten. Philosophy is no longer about radical questioning, about defending itself before the tribunal of the city and revelation. Philosophers are now spokesmen for “the existing liberal democratic moral order” (120). The search for truth, the search for God, has been replaced by the joyless quest for joy. If we want to understand the source of this crisis, this forgetting of man's ultimate end, we must go back to Spinoza's theological-political project.
Throughout his commentary on Spinoza, Herold raises fundamental questions and concerns. For example, he argues that Spinoza fails to give his readers what he promises at the beginning of his Treatise—a direct refutation of biblical faith. Spinoza, we are told, often relies on mockery and ridicule (30–31). Herold seems to suggest that Spinoza employs what some have called the Napoleonic strategy of modern thinkers, that is, leaving behind impregnable fortresses (orthodox faith in the omnipotent God) so as to conquer a vast territory (society). For his political aims, Spinoza does not need to refute orthodox faith, only make it irrelevant in modern life (72). Although Herold points us in this direction and poses some probing questions along these lines (118), some readers may wish for more. Perhaps he does this because he takes to heart Spinoza's motto—caute—(112) and leaves these more delicate questions justly covered. Like Spinoza, Herold appears to point his more ambitious readers to other thinkers who can complete any desired “educational ascent” (31, 85, 120, 214n12). One could say that being tantalized and left with a desire to return to philosophic wellsprings is a virtue more than a vice.
The latter part of Herold's book focuses on Tocqueville. In order to find our way out of the dilemma to which Spinoza's thought leads us, we are told, we must turn to Tocqueville. Herold boldly claims that “the central task of Tocqueville's ‘new political science’ is to diagnose and remedy the pathologies that have resulted from the Enlightenment's overlooking [of man's religious longings].” In contrast to Enlightenment liberalism, which had sought to “stamp out religion in the name of liberty,” Tocqueville's new liberalism seeks to marvelously combine liberty and religion (127). Although Herold is correct regarding Tocqueville's unceasing attempt to unite religion and liberty, his claim that Tocqueville's new political science is primarily directed at correcting Enlightenment liberalism is perhaps overemphasized. Enlightenment rationality, especially Spinoza's, was a problem that Tocqueville sought to counter, but the central task of his new political science was to understand the nature of modern democracy. The primary problem, in other words, is democracy, not Enlightenment rationality or liberalism. Herold is clearly aware of this fact (130), but he emphasizes the anti-Enlightenment Tocqueville to better unite his comparative study.
Herold's depiction of Tocqueville as someone who “differed sharply from that of his Enlightenment predecessors” (11) raises important questions. Tocqueville does not make Enlightenment liberalism his bête noire, so why must his more philosophically informed readers, like Herold, emphasize the anti-Enlightenment aspect of Tocqueville's thought? Did Tocqueville fully understand the problematic foundations of liberalism, especially as they were developed by thinkers like Spinoza? Herold's illuminating study implies and admits important limitations to Tocqueville's thought. For example, Herold admits that Tocqueville lacked “Spinoza's philosophic vision” and that he failed to thoroughly examine “the question of religion's ultimate truth” (207–8). Tocqueville, no doubt, is essential for understanding the crisis of liberal democracy and for helping us recover a liberalism with soul, but one is left wondering if Tocqueville was able to fully escape the early modern horizon. In short, what if the crisis of liberal democracy requires a return to ancient thinkers, or perhaps a new postliberal way of thinking? If liberalism is worth saving, Tocqueville certainly paves the way for a better form of political community; but if the opposite is true, if the crisis of liberalism requires an overcoming, a radical reimagining, of our current political horizons, we must go beyond Tocqueville.
Overall, The Democratic Soul is an essential read for anyone concerned with the crisis of liberalism. A proper understanding of the origin and future of liberalism requires an apprenticeship with Spinoza and Tocqueville. Herold's book induces us to revive these great thinkers of the past and to enter into dialogue with them concerning the new and enduring problems of human existence.
