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Tong (organization)

A tong  is a type of organization found among Chinese immigrants predominantly living in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. In Chinese, the word tong means "hall" or "gathering place". These organizations are described as secret societies or sworn brotherhoods and are often tied to criminal activity. In the 1990s, in most American Chinatowns, clearly marked tong halls could easily be found, many of which have had affiliations with Chinese organized crime.

These associations often provide services for Chinatown communities such as immigrant counseling, Chinese schools, and English classes for adults. Tongs follow the pattern of secret societies common to southern China and many are connected to a secret society called the Tiandihui, which follows this pattern. Other groups worldwide that follow this pattern and are connected with the Tiandihui are known as hui, Hongmen, and triads.

History
Tongs first appeared in China in 1644 when the Ming dynasty was overthrown by the Qing dynasty. One of the first tongs was established by the secret society Chee Kung Tong, which aimed to restore the power of the Ming dynasty by removing the new Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty. These Zhigongtang tongs were located in the province of Guangdong, which was home to many of the first Chinese migrants heading to the United States—some of whom would take with them the notion of a tong as an organization to set up there.

Establishment of tongs in various Asian countries
After the 17th century, large numbers of Chinese, particularly from the Fujian and Canton areas, migrated to seek their fortunes in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. These Chinese immigrants quickly formed a trader and merchant class in many societies in various Asian countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Tongs in English-speaking countries
Before the 1840s, very few Chinese had emigrated to the United States, Canada, or Australia. However, by the mid-19th-century Chinese immigrant numbers dramatically increased. Beginning with a few hundred immigrants, their numbers increased to an estimated hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants.

Former Taiping Heavenly Kingdom military commander Yang Fuqing is alleged to have fled to the United States following the rebel state's defeat and started a secret society in Los Angeles.

Tongs in America
After settling in San Francisco and other California cities, Chinese workers faced hostility from their American peers who felt threatened by their willingness to work for lower wages. As labor unions and angered workers became more aggressive, many Chinese felt pressure to leave and go east, where they heard life would be less dangerous. As a result, many Chinese immigrants moved to cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Today these cities still have ethnic Chinese communities large enough to have developed Chinatowns. They have also been joined by new immigrants of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Many Chinese soon organized voluntary benevolent associations for support and protection. These are usually formed by people originating in their district in China, family name, or depending on what native dialect, for example in the case of Hakka speakers, or sworn brotherhoods. The tongs provided services for immigrants such as employment and housing opportunities. They also helped resolve individual and group disputes within the community. Many of these volunteer societies did not have the financial ability to fund community events or look after their members, and those that did tended to focus inward and provide help only to their own members. As a result, many tongs with little or no hereditary financial value had to either disband or operate criminal activities such as gambling houses and prostitution. This transformed them from benevolent associations to providers of illegal services. The term tong became unfavorably associated with the secret brotherhoods in Chinatowns, and they often battled with other associations in that area. Tongs were usually composed of young men, some with criminal backgrounds, or outcasts who had been expelled from their associations. Notably, many of the traditional tong activities, such as gambling, were legal in China, but not in North America.

Early Chinese populations in the United States and Canada were overwhelmingly male, especially after sex-restrictive immigration laws were passed in 1882 in the U.S. and 1923 in Canada, respectively (see Chinese Exclusion Act and Chinese Immigration Act, 1923). For this reason tongs participated heavily in importing women from China for both marriage and prostitution. Many of these women did not come to America by choice, and some were deceived and forced into prostitution by procurers. Tongs associated with importing women to America fought over territories and profits. This became known as the "Tong Wars", which were a series of violent attacks between two branches of the Tong Gang, the Hip Sing Tong and On Leong Tong. The reasons for this conflict vary, from struggles over territory to assassinations of members. The "Tong Wars" of the 19th and early 20th centuries were often based on control of these women. In the early years the tongs employed "hatchet men" or boo how doy (斧頭仔), also called highbinders, as hired killers to fight the street battles that ensued over turf, business and women.

San Francisco, California
San Francisco was the home of the first Tong in the United States; it formed in reaction to the hostility that Chinese immigrants faced from American workers upon their arrival to America. In Bill Lee's memoirs in "The Chinese Playground", which recalls the activities of the Tong Gang in San Francisco, he states that the oppression Chinese immigrants faced led them to turn to the Tong for protection. While it is true that the Tong offered protection, it is unclear if this protection was forced as a means to gain control of territory for the distribution of the group's illicit activities. During the plague outbreak in Chinatown of San Francisco in the 1900s, the Chinese Six Companies recommended the vaccination plan to their members and the tongs. Doubting the effectiveness of vaccinations, many Chinese residents of Chinatown refused inoculations. Several tongs went so far as to threaten harm to those who did get vaccinated, as well as the Chinese leadership that endorsed doing so.

Structure and aims
Tongs in North America showed many similarities to the triads of Hong Kong and British colonies in Southeast Asia. These included similar initiation ceremonies and paying respect to the same deities. This is because both are similar organizations that follow the patterns of southern Chinese secret societies and sworn brotherhoods. The triad societies were underground organizations in British colonies that also existed for self-help of members, but spoke of the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. Ko-lin Chin outlined that most tongs have similar organization and have a headquarters where one can find a president, a vice president, a secretary, a treasurer, an auditor, and several elders and public relations administrators. Today their main aims are to care for their members and their respective communities.

Notable Chinese tongs

 * Bing Kong Tong, California, Washington
 * Hip Sing Tong, New York and branches in 13 other states
 * On Leong Tong, New York
 * Suey Sing Tong, California, Oregon, Washington, U.S. and British Columbia, Canada
 * Hop Sing Tong, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado.

title: Tong (organization)


text:
Talk:Moral panic

Concern about "Editing" of this "talk" page.
This page contained many issues. They were all deleted. This is very weird. Is somebody trying to rewrite the history? Please recover the old page with all of the discussions. A.H192.114.3.241 (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * A discussion with no recent edits was archived by . The discussion is now archived at Talk:Moral_panic/Archive_3 — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 18:12, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I object. This archiving is rewriting the history, by hiding important discussions that were made in this page. Even if there is access to archives almost no one sees them. Most read the Moral panic page itself, few read the "Talk" page, and almost no one reads archives. A. 192.114.3.241 (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You seem to be trying to induce a moral panic over talk page archival. 2600:8802:5913:1700:9437:A29C:2134:C0C0 (talk) 09:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Here is the discussion that was archived for further discussion on the issue:

Title: Reaction to Covid 19 restrictions (2020–present)

Fear of Covid-19 pandemic that was followed by governmental policy was postulated to result in global economic recession. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Infection Fatality Rate for Covid-19 is around 0.5-1%, describing the true severity of a disease. Accordingly, fear of losses, and potential burden on health system have lead governments around the world to impose policies (e.g., lockdowns, tests for Covid-19) that are likely to cause worldwide economic recession.--192.114.3.241 (talk) 05:45, 11 August 2021 (UTC) Explanation: According to definition of moral panic it does not have to be irrational. Accordingly, HIV, Islamic terror, Human traffic, sex offenders are described in this Wikipage. Thus, reaction of Covid-19 can be also a Moral panic. It would be great to read your thoughts about it. A. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 13:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Hrm. I was gonna say I don't see sources making the connection, but there are some sources that do discuss how the theory of moral panic can be applied to studying reactions to infectuous diseases - eg. Toilet Paper Thrones and Heated Tweets: Applying Moral Panic and Social Network Theory to Responses Over Panic Buying during COVID-19 is one connecting it to panic buying specifically, and here is one talking about how it relates to panic over COVID in the Philippines. But I'd be cautious - these sources are more talking about how Cohen's framework can be repurposed to analyze other types of panic than saying that it is (or created) a moral panic, so it wouldn't make sense to put it in the list of moral panics directly. --Aquillion (talk) 01:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC) Looks like there is some interesting similarity with "Cohen's stages of moral panic": 1. Perceived and defined as a threat to societal safety. 2. Amplified by the mass media. 3. Social anxiety(? not sure about this term but anxiety for sure). 4. Politicians respond to the threat. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 10:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC) At this point, I would say that such an addition would be an NPOV violation. There is little or no evidence from reliable sources that matches the responses of health agencies and governments to a moral panic definition. If anything, there is a sort of inverted moral panic, where legitimate responses are opposed and deprecated on ideological or propagandistic grounds. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:10, 16 August 2021 (UTC) Very interesting. It is not my field but googling it up I can see some publications supporting this claim (1, 2, 3, 4). If some of these were peer reviewed than they should be Neutral. Meaning, it is probably not a Neutral point of view (NPOV) violation. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 10:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC) Also, considering the fact that the great majority of Covid cases (confirmed by PCR) are simply healthy as they have no symptoms, it does seem like panic. Panic which is highly promoted by the media. This results in governmental regulations that violate freedom. Again, without being an expert in the field, reading the wikipage about moral panic, the Covid seems like moral panic to me. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 12:20, 22 September 2021 (UTC) More researchers supporting the idea that reaction to Covid may have been a moral panic [see 1234] or an anxiety epidemic 5. The first is an opinion written by by John Scott, an honorable Professor of Sociology (Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.). I dare say that article of such an "heavy weight" Sociologist is a case against the NPOV violation claim --192.114.3.241 (talk) 12:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC) According to the definition, a moral panic demonizes an "other". What is the "other" being demonized in the case of Covid-19? Just because someone uses the words "moral panic" doesn't mean that it counts as a moral panic for the purpose of this article. This article is on a scholarly topic with a rigid definition. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:51, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Demonization is already here across the board. The "other" have been: children demonized for being the vector for transmission of Covid, Medical Doctors and scientist that dont agree with governmental regulations, those who did not take only the booster shot, people that don't put on facemask, those who don't take any of covid vaccinations; all of these groups have been terribly demonized by being accused to cause direct or/and indirect death to others. This was done by the the media, and democratic governments reacted by new laws and regulations. Again, I am not expert in the field, but seems very similar to stages of moral panic. Here are some examples: stop-demonizing-students-for-covid, hear-scientists-different-views-dont-attack-them, open-plea-for-dignity-and-respect-in-science, Don’t demonize parents who are hesitant to vaccinate, why-demonizing-the-unvaccinated-wont-work, unvaccinated-different-from-antivax, Stop demonizing one anothe, new-wave-of-covid-19-is-not-the-fault-of-the-unvac, medias-all-out-blitz-to-demonize-the-unvaccinated, millions-unvaccinated-risk-losing-civil-liberties, children_acused_fo_transmission_of_COVID. Speaking of scholary rigid wiki-article- see article of expert in the field- Professor Scott (Fellow of the Royal Society of Art) Risk and Moral Panic: A Sociological View of Covid-19. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 16:17, 30 September 2021 (UTC) I think this example would be clearer if reframed as "reaction to Covid 19 restrictions". Recommendations from medical authorities changed rapidly during 2020 (e.g., usefulness of masks, which types were best, whether fake N-95 were proliferating), which might seem like panic but it was often simply urgent adaptation. IMO, the real *moral* panic is condemnation and censorship of dissenting voices, justified in moral terms as banning "dangerous" misinformation rather than supporting free speech and open scientific inquiry. The role of the media fits the classic definitions of moral panic given in this article. In particular, authoritative pronouncements have closely mimicked many of the exaggerations seen in the early years of the AIDS crisis. If the latter qualifies as moral panic, then it seems logical to include an aspect of Covid 19, which has more widespread political and economic implications than HIV did. Martindo (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Following your insightful suggestion: changed the Title of the suggested section into "Reaction to Covid 19 restrictions (2019–present)". Suggesting to write this revised content instead of the content suggested on top: Condemnation and censorship of dissenting voices during Covid 19 pandemic, justified in moral terms as banning "dangerous" misinformation rather than supporting free speech and open scientific inquiry. See examples: stop-demonizing-students-for-covid, hear-scientists-different-views-dont-attack-them, open-plea-for-dignity-and-respect-in-science, Don’t demonize parents who are hesitant to vaccinate, unvaccinated-different-from-antivax, Stop demonizing one another, new-wave-of-covid-19-is-not-the-fault-of-the-unvac, medias-all-out-blitz-to-demonize-the-unvaccinated, millions-unvaccinated-risk-losing-civil-liberties.--192.114.3.241 (talk) 09:57, 14 November 2021 (UTC) I reverted an addition related to this today. The sources I spot checked did not mention moral panic at all. I believe an addition of this type would need better sourcing to not be WP:OR. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:22, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The citations should only illustrate that Condemnation and censorship of dissenting voices were part of reaction to COVID. Since they play a role in moral panic it is enough to illustrate we have elements of moral panic (as discussed above), and therefore there is no need for these citations to contain the wordings moral panic. However, it is possible to add also citations correlating reaction to COVID-19 to moral panic if you think it will strengthen the suggestion above. See for example: 123456. We can add them to the suggested paragraph. A. --192.114.3.241--192.114.3.241 (talk) 13:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC) I disagree. In my opinion, the relevant policy is WP:SYNTH. do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be improper editorial synthesis of published material to imply a new conclusion, which is original research. Sources used need to mention moral panic. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC) But it is the opposite of synthesis: 1) There is enough scientific literature to call some aspects of reaction to Covid a moral panic; as given by sources 1 to 6 cited above (see also 7th example: 7). 2) Since condemnation and censorship of dissenting voices were part of reaction to COVID (as explained above) it is enough to show that reaction to COVID had this characteristic of moral panic. Each one of these two is enough. They do not need each other to support the claim. Thus it is not a synthesis. Considering two independent evidences support the same claim, it only makes it stronger. A.--192.114.3.241 (talk) 08:03, 12 December 2021 (UTC) A public health crisis isn't a moral panic. There may be instances of people promoting moral panic type that align with the framework, but those reactions happen to any sufficiently divisive political decision. The sources presented are then the media themselves, and then of the next 6 are all over the shop, and 7 is specifically about panic in and of itself (which is probably a broader response to the pandemic than specific "moral" issues). Koncorde (talk) 10:08, 14 December 2021 (UTC) The health crisis argument is invalid because a public health crisis could be certainly associated with moral panic. For example, AIDS is associated with Moral panic in current Wikipage. It appears because the reaction to this crises has some characteristics of moral panic. Similarly the reaction to COVID19 has characteristics of moral panic. A. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 15:17, 5 January 2022 (UTC) The argument that such reactions are found in any sufficiently divisive political decision is invalid, because it excludes other politically-divisive cases which are considered as moral panic in this wikipage, see for example Terrorism and islamic extremism and Gender and transgender panics. Thus, the only way wiki editors can agree that reactions to certain events (e.g., health crises) are considered a moral panic is by scientific literature supporting this claim. As previously mentioned in 123456 see also Meida framing moral panic and Covid. Since real case of moral panic is supported by the media and policy makers, it is very hard to recognize it for those which are involved. Some may argue in the future, that the difficulty to add "reaction to Covid as moral panic" to this wikipage was stemming from this argument. A. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 15:17, 5 January 2022 (UTC) Here is another scientific publication illustrating reaction to COVID was moral panic: "... public health guidelines was construed as a moral imperative and a civic duty, while those who failed to comply with these guidelines were stigmatized, shamed as "covidiots," and discursively constructed as a threat to public health and moral order". How long can it be ignored in Wikipedia? -- Let's vote on this suggestion. This way, everyone gets to the decide on which side of the history he/she wants to be :). Here is a revised suggestion: Title: Reaction to Covid 19 restrictions (2020–present) Content: Study of public health guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in Canadian newspapers has illustrated that public health guidelines were construed as a moral imperative and a civic duty, while those who failed to comply with these guidelines were stigmatized, shamed as "covidiots," and discursively constructed as a threat to public health and moral order. A. --192.114.3.241 (talk) 09:06, 30 January 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.114.3.241 (talk)
 * Please don't pull months-old massive walls of text from the archive and quote them here; it makes the page unwieldy and unreadable. Archiving is automatic and normal. If you want to start an WP:RFC on some question you feel is unresolved (including things that were discussed before), you can follow the instructions on WP:RFC, and even directly link to archived discussions if you think they're relevant. But discussions do end eventually, and that one was largely from last year; pulling them out in their entirety just to keep discussion going until you get a specific outcome goes against WP:BLUDGEON and WP:DEADHORSE. --Aquillion (talk) 05:01, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, so people don't have to exposed themselves to the collapsed text wall, this was all about COVID and whether it counted as a moral panic.

 * Of course some aspects of (particularly the American) reaction did, but most of the 'discussion' was just ranting and no one is missing much that they haven't already heard from one side or the other of their family. — Llywelyn II   11:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Pedophilia Section Edits
The section entitled 'Sex offenders, child sexual abuse, and pedophilia (1970s–present)' contains some problems that I have noticed which I was hoping could be discussed. I am a new user of Wikipedia so please bear with me for any mistakes I may make.

Here are the issues in question that I would like to bring up to start with: The source used for the entirety of the third paragraph provides no sources itself to backup the claims that are made in this section. I am not sure that one PhD thesis published in an obscure Brazilian gender studies journal provides sufficient evidence for, or is representative of, a majority consensus on this topic.

The sources used regarding low recidivism rates in the fifth paragraph uses non-objective language (what is considered "low" or "high" rates of recidivism regarding sex offenses?) and appears to suggest that there is an objective majority consensus on recidivism rates, which is inconsistent with other articles on Wikipedia exploring this topic already. The sources used are also repetitive, at least two of which reference the same meta-analysis to backup their claims, and only one of which being an actual academic reference.

The source used for the sixth paragraph down is an opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

I'm personally of the opinion that this section needs to be majorly overhauled if not completely removed, but again I am new to Wikipedia and not sure how things work here so this is why I am hoping to generate some discussion around this. Thanks again.

Pray4sleep (talk) 14:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Hi. It is unfortunate that the entire third paragraph is sourced so badly, as you note. However, I do recall a few of the authoritative SRA sources going into detail about how the criminalization of child sexual abuse and incest during the 1970s did cause anti-abuse activists' goals to dovetail well with conservative Christians. (Actually I did an essay on this for uni ages ago.) So the source is poor but the assertion is correct.
 * But yes, generally, I could see this entire section requiring a very heavy rewrite: the subsequent paragraphs all use quite piss-poor sources when I'm certain we have a lot of good scholarly literature available for this topic. This article has generally been held to a much higher standard than the rest of Wikipedia, so this whole section should be very heavily rewritten and properly re-sourced.
 * By the way, for every one of these "example" sections, we always have to ask "has the section cited an authoritative third-party source that identified this topic as a moral panic according to the standard sociological definition?". On cursory reading I don't see this section meeting that standard; we usually delete any section that doesn't meet that standard, since otherwise this article would become a cruftjungle of thousands of examples where some kid writing for Buzzfeed called something a "moral panic" once. An entire paragraph sourcing from one person's thesis is a big red flag to me.
 * So, thank you indeed for flagging this. Let's give some time for other editors to wade in to discuss whether this section should be saved, or just deleted - I no longer remember if "pedophilia" was identified as a classic example of moral panic in the literature (my area of interest was SRA, specifically). But yes, I agree with you that this section needs a major overhaul, or just removal. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:57, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your response, and I'm glad that I could generate a thoughtful discussion.
 * It is reassuring for myself to see that someone else with more experience on Wikipedia has also came to the same conclusion that many of the sources in this section are seemingly dubious at best. I also agree with you that many of them likely have better and more authoritative sources available to back up their claims.
 * However, after reading your comment and taking another look at this section - I realized that many of these paragraphs could perhaps be refactored somehow under the 'Satanic panic' section instead. By comparison, the 'Satanic panic' section is undeservedly short, when, at least in my opinion, it is probably the most well known, heavily researched, and agreed upon example of moral panic. Several of the paragraphs currently under the 'Pedophilia' section are referencing events that are inextricably tied to the 'Satanic Panic' era anyway (the mcmartin preschool trial, ensuing child abduction panic, serial killer sensationalism, etc).
 * There is also the article 'Day-care sex-abuse hysteria', which references many of these types of events occurring well into the mid-to-late 1990's as a result of the 'Satanic Panic' era.
 * I think migrating some of these paragraphs over to the 'Satanic panic' section with some light editing and better source references could be a good alternative to consider compared to complete deletion. This way, the article itself is not losing otherwise valuable information, and instead is expounding more upon topics that people are likely interested in reading more about anyway if they are on the moral panic Wikipedia page. Pray4sleep (talk) 10:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Cites from FiveThirtyEight, Slate, and other pop media won't improve the Satanic Panic section: that topic alone is supported by something like 10 scholarly books in the professional literature, plus loads of good documentary/journalistic literature. (Check out the main article, it even has a bibliography - that's how we used to do things in the old days.) But it's sad that the "Satanic panic" section here is 4 lines, while cruft sections are pages long. So I guess the proper solution is replacing the section in this article with a larger summary of the Satanic ritual abuse article - or, alternately, trimming the crufty or less-scholarly sections to shorter lengths. My reasoning here is that WP:WEIGHT requires more weight be given to the traditional exemplars of moral panic, and less weight to what's been less-studied.
 * By the way, upon rechecking after my trim was reverted, I'd go further now and say the whole pedophilia/child abuse section should be removed as WP:OR. It is obviously trying to make the case that it is a "moral panic", but (1) Wikipedia articles are not supposed to make a case (because that is WP:OR); and (2) the cites do not seem to make reference to sociological (Stanley Cohen) moral panics.
 * Moral panic is a sociology topic, so we cite sociology and not pop media; and the job of Wikipedia is to report, not to present original research. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:46, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Definitionally limited to 20th century & later? Why use that definition?
'''If so, we should clarify that. Right now we're clearly suffering Americentric and modern in the coverage.''' For example, Red Scares were not an exclusively or even importantly American phenomenon. The German right coalescing behind the Nazis was far more impactful given that the Cold War would've happened anyway. We're not discussing anti-Americanism/anti-"Rightism" within Russia, Iran, or China here for reasons that seem obvious when it's someone else's culture.

A) More importantly, obviously moral panics have been around since prehistory but at the moment we lead the article with an image of a witch hunt that we don't bother to include in the #History section. Given the article has 100k bytes, 2.5k edits, and 500 page watchers, I assume that's because someone ruled it doesn't meet Cohen's definition (?) and assume the reason is because it prominently features media that wasn't technologically possible before the advent of radio (?). Is that right?

B) If our definition of a major social phenomenon is restricting us from discussing the quintessential example of that phenomenon, why are we using it? Mods/rockers weren't important to British culture to begin with; they happened after the empire was over and Britain wasn't important to the world generally (outside of their occasional ability to leverage access to the US pop music market which didn't happen here); and they shouldn't even be here, seeming to get focus because they're in his book. (It's valid to discuss them in the section on his book as part of his argument but they aren't historically relevant let alone notable enough for inclusion in what should be a greatest hits overview.)

C) Meanwhile, is it his fault or ours that we're ignoring Greek debates, Roman and Chinese public postings and addresses, and early modern pamphleteers in a way that leads to us ignoring Athens's reaction to just about anything; Cato the Elder & co. in the late Republic; the Catholic Church and pointy shoes; early modern Europe and witchcraft; up and coming Britain and anything that got in its upper class's way (up to and including industrialization); China and (for worse or better) the on-the-ground implementation of any given 5 year period under Mao; and many of the issues contributing to AIDS in Africa? Any of those is a bigger deal than the 6 churches who actually gave a 'darn' about D&D in the 80s and it's utterly silly we're pretending otherwise or acting like (on the basis of the current list) this is a peculiarly American issue. — Llywelyn II   10:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

 * The answer to nearly everything you ask is, basically, that (1) (I assume) the sociological scholarship on moral panics has limited itself to what we have in the article (aside from the cruft that's constantly added), and (2) us limiting ourselves to what is in third-party scholarship in moral panic studies enables us to stop this article from getting filled with WP:SYNTH from everyone who wants to add an example based on a Buzzfeed article that uses the words "moral panic".
 * Now I'm 20 years removed from studying this, but I'm pretty sure that Cohen concentrated on "mass media" examples of moral panic because mass media is an integral part of the mechanism by which a "Cohen moral panic" spreads. You need a moral entrepreneur (generally someone who uses mass media to persuade), a mass media network that is motivated to spread panic for business reasons, and a hype loop caused by feedback between those two. Non-western conspiracist race libels like the Sudanese penis-melting Zionist robot combs panic, for example, may not count because the functionalist purpose of a moral panic is to reinforce morality in the subject population by driving out its own evils, not by ascribing evils to an outside other (I'm not sure if I've got that part right). And state propaganda like Soviet/Maoist anti-rightism won't count because the moral entrepreneur is the state - that's just top-down propaganda. Similarly anti-witchcraft (and anti-Judaism) in medieval Europe was driven by the Sovereign and the Church, who don't count as moral entrepreneurs. (I think Cohen and/or others must have clarified this themselves at one point.)
 * Anyway, maybe the best answer to your question is that this article itself is failing to satisfactorily answer your questions about what counts and doesn't count as a "moral panic", and that therefore we need to concentrate on improving the definition part of the article! AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:25, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Crime and Media
— Assignment last updated by Dmaccartney (talk) 04:07, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Moral panic


text:
Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (, ; 29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, sociologist, political scientist, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.

Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under King Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals.

Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum.

Life
Tocqueville came from an old aristocratic Norman family. He was the great-grandson of the statesman Malesherbes, who was guillotined in 1793. His parents, Hervé Louis François Jean Bonaventure Clérel, Count of Tocqueville, an officer of the Constitutional Guard of King Louis XVI; and Louise Madeleine Le Peletier de Rosanbo narrowly escaped the guillotine due to the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in 1794. Under the Bourbon Restoration, Tocqueville's father became a noble peer and prefect. Tocqueville attended the Lycée Fabert in Metz.

Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career in 1839. From 1839 to 1851, he served as member of the lower house of parliament for the Manche department (Valognes). He sat on the centre-left, defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade while supporting the colonisation of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe's regime.

In 1842, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

In 1847, he sought to found a Young Left (Jeune Gauche) party which would advocate wage increases, a progressive tax, and other labor concerns in order to undermine the appeal of the socialists. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of Manche in 1842 and became the president of the department's general council between 1849 and 1852; he resigned as he refused to pledge allegiance to the Second Empire. According to one account, Tocqueville's political position became untenable during this time in the sense that he was mistrusted by both the left and right and was looking for an excuse to leave France.

Travels
In 1831, Tocqueville obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in the United States and proceeded there with his lifelong friend Gustave de Beaumont. While he did visit some prisons, Tocqueville traveled widely in the United States and took extensive notes on his observations and reflections. He returned within nine months and published a report, but the more well-known result of his tour was De la démocratie en Amérique, which appeared in 1835. Beaumont also wrote an account of their travels in Jacksonian America: Marie or Slavery in the United States (1835). During this trip, Tocqueville made a side trip to Montreal and Quebec City in Lower Canada from mid-August to early September 1831.

Apart from North America, Tocqueville also made an observational tour of England, producing Memoir on Pauperism. In 1841 and 1846, he traveled to the French colony of Algeria. His first travel inspired his Travail sur l'Algérie, in which he criticized the French model of colonisation which emphasized assimilation to Western culture, advocating that the French government instead adopt a form of indirect rule, which avoided mixing different populations together. He went as far as openly advocating racial segregation as a form of consociationalism between European colonists and Arabs through the implementation of two different legislative systems for each ethnic group (a half century before implementation of the 1881 Indigenous code based on religion).

In 1835 Tocqueville journeyed through Ireland. His observations provide one of the best pictures of the state of Ireland before the Great Famine (1845–1849). They chronicle the growing Catholic middle class and the appalling conditions in which most Catholic tenant farmers lived. Tocqueville made clear both his opposition to aristocratic power and his affinity for his Irish co-religionists.

After the fall of the July Monarchy in the French Revolution of 1848, Tocqueville was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, where he became a member of the commission charged with the drafting of the new Constitution of the Second Republic (1848–1851). He defended bicameralism and the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage. As the countryside was thought to be more conservative than the labouring population of Paris, he conceived of universal suffrage as a means to counteract the revolutionary spirit of Paris.

During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the Party of Order against the socialists. A few days after the February 1848 insurrection, he anticipated that a violent clash between the Parisian workers' population led by socialists agitating in favour of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and the conservatives, which included the aristocracy and the rural population, would be inescapable. Indeed, these social tensions eventually exploded in the June Days Uprising of 1848.

Led by General Cavaignac, the suppression of the uprising was supported by Tocqueville, who advocated the "regularization" of the state of siege declared by Cavaignac and other measures promoting suspension of the constitutional order. Between May and September, Tocqueville participated in the Constitutional Commission which wrote the new Constitution. His proposals, such as his amendment about the President and his reelection, reflected lessons he drew from his North American experience

Minister of Foreign Affairs
A supporter of Cavaignac and of the Party of Order, Tocqueville accepted an invitation to enter Odilon Barrot's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 3 June to 31 October 1849. During the troubled days of June 1849, he pleaded with Interior Minister Jules Armand Dufaure for the reestablishment of the state of siege in the capital and approved the arrest of demonstrators. Tocqueville, who since February 1848 had supported laws restricting political freedoms, approved the two laws voted immediately after the June 1849 days which restricted the liberty of clubs and freedom of the press.

This active support in favor of laws restricting political freedoms stands in contrast of his defense of freedoms in Democracy in America. According to Tocqueville, he favored order as "the sine qua non for the conduct of serious politics. He [hoped] to bring the kind of stability to French political life that would permit the steady growth of liberty unimpeded by the regular rumblings of the earthquakes of revolutionary change″.

Tocqueville had supported Cavaignac against Louis Napoléon Bonaparte for the presidential election of 1848. Opposed to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup which followed his election, Tocqueville was among the deputies who gathered at the 10th arrondissement of Paris in an attempt to resist the coup and have Napoleon III judged for "high treason" as he had violated the constitutional limit on terms of office. Detained at Vincennes and then released, Tocqueville, who supported the Restoration of the Bourbons against Napoleon III's Second Empire (1851–1871), quit political life and retreated to his castle (Château de Tocqueville).

Against this image of Tocqueville, biographer Joseph Epstein has concluded: "Tocqueville could never bring himself to serve a man he considered a usurper and despot. He fought as best he could for the political liberty in which he so ardently believed—had given it, in all, thirteen years of his life [....]. He would spend the days remaining to him fighting the same fight, but conducting it now from libraries, archives, and his own desk". There, he began the draft of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, publishing the first tome in 1856, but leaving the second one unfinished.

Death
A longtime sufferer from bouts of tuberculosis, Tocqueville would eventually succumb to the disease on 16 April 1859 and was buried in the Tocqueville cemetery in Normandy.

Tocqueville's professed religion was Roman Catholicism. He saw religion as being compatible with both equality and individualism, but felt that religion would be strongest when separated from politics.

Democracy in America
In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through the United States in the early 19th century when the Market Revolution, Western expansion and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life.

According to political scientist Joshua Kaplan, one purpose of writing Democracy in America was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order and to help them sort out the confusion. Tocqueville saw democracy as an enterprise that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as for the community. However, on a negative note, Tocqueville remarked that "in democracies manners are never so refined as amongst aristocratic nations."

Tocqueville was an ardent supporter of liberty. "I have a passionate love for liberty, law, and respect for rights", he wrote. "I am neither of the revolutionary party nor of the conservative. [...] Liberty is my foremost passion". He wrote of "Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans" by saying: "But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom".

The above is often misquoted as a slavery quote because of previous translations of the French text. The most recent translation by Arthur Goldhammer in 2004 translates the meaning to be as stated above. Examples of misquoted sources are numerous on the internet such as "Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom", but the text does not contain the words "Americans were so enamored by equality" anywhere.

His view on government reflects his belief in liberty and the need for individuals to be able to act freely while respecting others' rights. Of centralized government, he wrote that it "excels in preventing, not doing".

Tocqueville continues to comment on equality by saying: "Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. As none of them is strong enough to fight alone with advantage, the only guarantee of liberty is for everyone to combine forces. But such a combination is not always in evidence".

Tocqueville explicitly cites inequality as being incentive for the poor to become rich and notes that it is not often that two generations within a family maintain success and that it is inheritance laws that split and eventually break apart someone's estate that cause a constant cycle of churn between the poor and the rich, thereby over generations making the poor rich and the rich poor. He cites protective laws in France at the time that protected an estate from being split apart among heirs, thereby preserving wealth and preventing a churn of wealth such as was perceived by him in 1835 within the United States.

On civil and political society and the individual
Tocqueville's main purpose was to analyze the functioning of political society and various forms of political associations, although he brought some reflections on civil society too (and relations between political and civil society). For Tocqueville, as for Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, civil society was a sphere of private entrepreneurship and civilian affairs regulated by civil code. As a critic of individualism, Tocqueville thought that through associating for mutual purpose, both in public and private, Americans are able to overcome selfish desires, thus making both a self-conscious and active political society and a vibrant civil society functioning according to political and civil laws of the state.

According to political scientist Joshua Kaplan, Tocqueville did not originate the concept of individualism, instead he changed its meaning and saw it as a "calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and to withdraw into the circle of family and friends [...]. [W]ith this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look for itself". While Tocqueville saw egotism and selfishness as vices, he saw individualism as not a failure of feeling, but as a way of thinking about things which could have either positive consequences such as a willingness to work together, or negative consequences such as isolation and that individualism could be remedied by improved understanding.

When individualism was a positive force and prompted people to work together for common purposes and seen as "self-interest properly understood", then it helped to counterbalance the danger of the tyranny of the majority since people could "take control over their own lives" without government aid. According to Kaplan, Americans have a difficult time accepting Tocqueville's criticism of the stifling intellectual effect of the "omnipotence of the majority" and that Americans tend to deny that there is a problem in this regard.

Others such as the Catholic writer Daniel Schwindt disagree with Kaplan's interpretation, arguing instead that Tocqueville saw individualism as just another form of egotism and not an improvement over it. To make his case, Schwindt provides citations such as the following: "Egoism springs from a blind instinct; individualism from wrong-headed thinking rather than from depraved feelings. It originates as much from defects of intelligence as from the mistakes of the heart. Egoism blights the seeds of every virtue; individualism at first dries up only the source of public virtue. In the longer term it attacks and destroys all the others and will finally merge with egoism."

On democracy and new forms of tyranny
Tocqueville warned that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny because radical equality could lead to the materialism of an expanding bourgeoisie and to the selfishness of individualism. "In such conditions, we might become so enamored with 'a relaxed love of present enjoyments' that we lose interest in the future of our descendants...and meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one", wrote The New Yorker's James Wood. Tocqueville worried that if despotism were to take root in a modern democracy, it would be a much more dangerous version than the oppression under the Roman emperors or tyrants of the past who could only exert a pernicious influence on a small group of people at a time.

In contrast, a despotism under a democracy could see "a multitude of men", uniformly alike, equal, "constantly circling for petty pleasures", unaware of fellow citizens and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an "immense protective power". Tocqueville compared a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep its citizens (children) as "perpetual children" and which does not break men's wills, but rather guides it and presides over people in the same way as a shepherd looking after a "flock of timid animals".

On the American social contract
Tocqueville's penetrating analysis sought to understand the peculiar nature of American political life. In describing the American, he agreed with thinkers such as Aristotle and Montesquieu that the balance of property determined the balance of political power, but his conclusions after that differed radically from those of his predecessors. Tocqueville tried to understand why the United States was so different from Europe in the last throes of aristocracy. In contrast to the aristocratic ethic, the United States was a society where hard work and money-making was the dominant ethic, where the common man enjoyed a level of dignity which was unprecedented, where commoners never deferred to elites and where what he described as crass individualism and market capitalism had taken root to an extraordinary degree.

Tocqueville writes: "Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living. [...] Labor is held in honor; the prejudice is not against but in its favor". Tocqueville asserted that the values that had triumphed in the North and were present in the South had begun to suffocate old-world ethics and social arrangements. Legislatures abolished primogeniture and entails, resulting in more widely distributed land holdings. This was a contrast to the general aristocratic pattern in which only the eldest child, usually a man, inherited the estate, which had the effect of keeping large estates intact from generation to generation.

In contrast, landed elites in the United States were less likely to pass on fortunes to a single child by the action of primogeniture, which meant that as time went by large estates became broken up within a few generations which in turn made the children more equal overall. According to Joshua Kaplan's Tocqueville, it was not always a negative development since bonds of affection and shared experience between children often replaced the more formal relation between the eldest child and the siblings, characteristic of the previous aristocratic pattern. Overall, hereditary fortunes in the new democracies became exceedingly difficult to secure and more people were forced to struggle for their own living.

As Tocqueville understood it, this rapidly democratizing society had a population devoted to "middling" values which wanted to amass through hard work vast fortunes. In Tocqueville's mind, this explained why the United States was so different from Europe. In Europe, he claimed, nobody cared about making money. The lower classes had no hope of gaining more than minimal wealth while the upper classes found it crass, vulgar and unbecoming of their sort to care about something as unseemly as money and many were virtually guaranteed wealth and took it for granted. At the same time in the United States, workers would see people fashioned in exquisite attire and merely proclaim that through hard work they too would soon possess the fortune necessary to enjoy such luxuries.

Despite maintaining that the balance of property determined the balance of power, Tocqueville argued that as the United States showed, equitable property holdings did not ensure the rule of the best men. In fact, it did quite the opposite as the widespread, relatively equitable property ownership which distinguished the United States and determined its mores and values also explained why the United States masses held elites in such contempt.

On majority rule and mediocrity
Beyond the eradication of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as a result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power and claimed too great a voice in the public sphere to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted mediocrity. Those who possessed true virtue and talent were left with limited choices.

Tocqueville said that those with the most education and intelligence were left with two choices. They could join limited intellectual circles to explore the weighty and complex problems facing society, or they could use their superior talents to amass vast fortunes in the private sector. He wrote that he did not know of any country where there was "less independence of mind, and true freedom of discussion, than in America".

Tocqueville blamed the omnipotence of majority rule as a chief factor in stifling thinking: "The majority has enclosed thought within a formidable fence. A writer is free inside that area, but woe to the man who goes beyond it, not that he stands in fear of an inquisition, but he must face all kinds of unpleasantness in every day persecution. A career in politics is closed to him for he has offended the only power that holds the keys". According to Kaplan's interpretation of Tocqueville, he argued in contrast to previous political thinkers that a serious problem in political life was not that people were too strong, but that people were "too weak" and felt powerless as the danger is that people felt "swept up in something that they could not control".

On enslavement, black people, and Indigenous communities
Uniquely positioned at a crossroads in American history, Tocqueville's Democracy in America attempted to capture the essence of American culture and values. Although a supporter of colonialism, Tocqueville could clearly perceive the evils that black people and natives had been subjected to in the United States. Tocqueville devoted the last chapter of the first volume of Democracy in America to the question while his travel companion Gustave de Beaumont wholly focused on slavery and its fallouts for the American nation in Marie or Slavery in America. Tocqueville notes among the American races: "The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them."

Tocqueville contrasted the settlers of Virginia with the middle class, religious Puritans who founded New England and analyzed the debasing influence of slavery: "The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony. [...] Artisans and agriculturalists arrived afterwards[,] [...] hardly in any respect above the level of the inferior classes in England. No lofty views, no spiritual conception presided over the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character, the laws and the whole future of the South. Slavery [...] dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. On this same English foundation there developed in the North very different characteristics."

Tocqueville concluded that return of the Black population to Africa could not resolve the problem as he writes at the end of Democracy in America: "If the colony of Liberia were able to receive thousands of new inhabitants every year, and if the Negroes were in a state to be sent thither with advantage; if the Union were to supply the society with annual subsidies, and to transport the Negroes to Africa in government vessels, it would still be unable to counterpoise the natural increase of population among the blacks; and as it could not remove as many men in a year as are born upon its territory within that time, it could not prevent the growth of the evil which is daily increasing in the states. The Negro race will never leave those shores of the American continent to which it was brought by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will not disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist. The inhabitants of the United States may retard the calamities which they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their efficient cause."

In 1855, Tocqueville wrote the following text published by Maria Weston Chapman in the Liberty Bell: Testimony against Slavery: "I do not think it is for me, a foreigner, to indicate to the United States the time, the measures, or the men by whom Slavery shall be abolished. Still, as the persevering enemy of despotism everywhere, and under all its forms, I am pained and astonished by the fact that the freest people in the world is, at the present time, almost the only one among civilized and Christian nations which yet maintains personal servitude; and this while serfdom itself is about disappearing, where it has not already disappeared, from the most degraded nations of Europe. An old and sincere friend of America, I am uneasy at seeing Slavery retard her progress, tarnish her glory, furnish arms to her detractors, compromise the future career of the Union which is the guaranty of her safety and greatness, and point out beforehand to her, to all her enemies, the spot where they are to strike. As a man, too, I am moved at the spectacle of man's degradation by man, and I hope to see the day when the law will grant equal civil liberty to all the inhabitants of the same empire, as God accords the freedom of the will, without distinction, to the dwellers upon earth."

French historian of colonialism Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison argues that Tocqueville (along with Jules Michelet) was ahead of his time in his use of the term "extermination" to describe what was happening during the colonization of Western United States and the Indian removal period.

On policies of assimilation
According to Tocqueville, assimilation of black people would be almost impossible and this was already being demonstrated in the Northern states. As Tocqueville predicted, formal freedom and equality and segregation would become this population's reality after the Civil War and during Reconstruction as would the bumpy road to true integration of black people.

However, assimilation was the best solution for Native Americans, and since they were too proud to assimilate, they would inevitably become extinct. Displacement was another part of America's Indian policy. Both populations were "undemocratic", or without the qualities, intellectual and otherwise needed to live in a democracy. Tocqueville shared many views on assimilation and segregation of his and the coming epochs, but he opposed Arthur de Gobineau's theories as found in The Inequality of Human Races (1853–1855).

On the United States and Russia as future global powers
In his Democracy in America, Tocqueville also forecast the preeminence of the United States and Russia as the two main global powers. In his book, he stated: "There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. [...] Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world".

On civil jury service
Tocqueville believed that the American jury system was particularly important in educating citizens in self-government and rule of law. He often expressed how the civil jury system was one of the most effective showcases of democracy because it connected citizens with the true spirit of the justice system. In his 1835 treatise Democracy in America, he explained: "The jury, and more especially the civil jury, serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit, with the habits which attend it, is the soundest preparation for free institutions. [...] It invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy; it makes them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge toward society; and the part which they take in the Government".

Tocqueville believed that jury service not only benefited the society as a whole, but enhanced jurors' qualities as citizens. Because of the jury system, "they were better informed about the rule of law, and they were more closely connected to the state. Thus, quite independently of what the jury contributed to dispute resolution, participation on the jury had salutary effects on the jurors themselves".

Views on Algeria
Alexis de Tocqueville was an important figure in the colonization of Algeria. A member of French parliament during the French conquest of Algeria and subsequent July Monarchy, Tocqueville took it upon himself to become an expert on the “Algeria Question,” and to this end penned a number of discourses and letters. He also made a point of studying Islam, the Quran, and the Arabic language, in order to better understand the country.

1837 letters on Algeria
In a series of letters penned by Alexis de Tocqueville, he describes the situation of France as well as the geography and society of Algeria at the time.

"“Suppose that the Emperor of China, landing in France at the head of an armed power, should make himself master of our largest cities and of our capital. That after having burned all the public registers before suffering to read them, and having destroyed or dispersed all of the civil service without inquiring into their various attributions, he should finally seize every functionary⸺from the head of the government to the campesino guards, the peers, the deputies, and in general the whole ruling class⸺and deport them all at once to some distant country. Do you not think that this great prince, in spite of his powerful army, his fortresses and his treasures, will soon find himself extremely unprepared in administering the conquered country; that his new subjects, deprived of all those who conducted or could conduct affairs of state, will be unable to govern themselves, while he, coming from the antipodes, knows neither the religion, nor the language, nor the laws, nor the habits, nor the administrative customs of the country, and who has taken care to remove all those who could have instructed him in them, will be in no state rule them. You will therefore have no difficulty in foreseeing that if the parts of France which are materially occupied by the victor obey him, the rest of the country will soon be given over to an immense anarchy.”"

Despite being initially critical of the French invasion of Algeria, Toccqueville also believed that geopolitical necessities of the time would not allow for a withdrawal of military forces for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France's position in the world; and second, changes in French society. Tocqueville believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride; threatened", he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism".

1841 discourse on the conquest of Algeria
Tocqueville expressed himself in an 1841 essay concerning the conquest of Algeria in which he called for a dual program of “domination” and “colonization.”

"For my part, I have brought back from Africa the distressing notion that at the moment we are waging war in a much more barbaric manner than the Arabs themselves. At present, theirs is the side of civilization. This way of waging war seems to me as stupid as it is cruel. It can only enter into the crude and brutal mind of a soldier. It was not worth putting displacing the Turks to reproduce that which in them deserved the detestation of the world. That, even from the point of view of interest, is much more harmful than useful; because, as another officer said to me, if we only aim to equal the Turks we will be by the fact in a position much lower than them: barbarians among barbarians, the Turks will always have on us the advantage of being Muslim barbarians. It is thus to a principle superior to theirs that we must appeal. I have often heard in France men whom I respect, but whom I do not agree with, say that it wrong to burn the harvests, to empty the silos and finally to imprison unarmed men, women and children. These are, in my opinion, unfortunate necessities, but ones to which any people who want to make war on the Arabs will be obliged to submit. And, if I must say what I think, these acts do not revolt me more or even as much as several others which the law of war obviously authorizes and which take place in all the wars of Europe. Why is it more odious to burn harvests and take women and children prisoner than to bombard the harmless population of a besieged city or to seize merchant ships belonging to the subjects of an enemy power at sea? The one is, in my opinion, much crueler and less justifiable than the other."

Applauding the methods of General Bugeaud, Tocqueville went so far to claim that "war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science".

Tocqueville advocated racial segregation as a form of consociationalism in Algeria with two distinct legislations, one for European colonists and one for the Arab population. "Without doubt, it would be as dangerous as it would be useless to try to suggest to them our morals, our ideas, our customs. It is not in the direction of our European civilization that we must now push them, but in the direction of their own civilization; we must ask of them what they desire and not what they despise. Individual property, industry, sedentary living are not contrary to the religion of Mohammed. Arabs have known or know these things elsewhere; they are appreciated and enjoyed by some of them in Algeria itself. Why should we despair of making them familiar to the greatest number? It has already been attempted on some points with success. Islam is not absolutely impenetrable to the Enlightenment; it has often admitted in its bosom certain sciences or certain arts. Why should we not try to make these flourish under our empire? Let us not force the natives to come to our schools, but let us help them to raise theirs, to multiply those who teach there, to train the men of law and the men of religion, of whom the Muslim civilization cannot do without any more than us."

Such a two-tier arrangement would be fully realised with the 1870 Crémieux decree and the Indigenousness Code, which extended French citizenship to European settlers and Algerian Jews whereas Muslim Algerians would be governed under the Code de l'indigénat. However Tocqueville hoped for an eventual mixing of the French and Arab populations into a single body:

"Every day the French are developing clearer and more accurate notions about the inhabitants of Algeria. They learn their languages, become familiar with their customs, and one even sees some who show a kind of unthinking enthusiasm for them. On the other hand, the whole of the young Arab generation in Algiers speaks our language and has already taken on some of our customs. [...] There is therefore no reason to believe that time cannot succeed in amalgamating the two races. God does not prevent it; only the faults of men could impede it."

Opposition to the invasion of Kabylia
In opposition to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Jean-Louis Benoît said that given the extent of racial prejudices during the colonization of Algeria, Tocqueville was one of its "most moderate supporters". Benoît said that it was wrong to assume Tocqueville was a supporter of Bugeaud despite his 1841 apologetic discourse. It seems that Tocqueville modified his views after his second visit to Algeria in 1846 as he criticized Bugeaud's desire to invade Kabylia in an 1847 speech to the Assembly.

Although Tocqueville had favoured retention of distinct traditional law, administrators, schools and so on for Arabs who had come under French control, he compared the Berber tribes of Kabylia (in his second of Two Letters on Algeria, 1837) to Rousseau's concept of the "noble savage", stating:

"If Rousseau had known the Kabyles [...] he would not have spouted so much nonsense about the Caribbean and other American Indians: He would have looked to the Atlas for his models; there he would have found men who are subject to a kind of social police and yet almost as free as the isolated individual who enjoys his wild independence in the depths of the woods; men who are neither rich nor poor, neither servants nor masters; who appoint their own chiefs, and scarcely notice that they have chiefs, who are content with their state and remain in it"

Tocqueville's views on the matter were complex. Although in his 1841 report on Algeria he applauded Bugeaud for making war in a way that defeated Abd-el-Kader's resistance, he had advocated in the Two Letters that the French military advance leave Kabylia undisturbed and in subsequent speeches and writings he continued to oppose intrusion into Kabylia.

In the debate about the 1846 extraordinary funds, Tocqueville denounced Bugeaud's conduct of military operations and succeeded in convincing the Assembly not to vote funds in support of Bugeaud's military columns. Tocqueville considered Bugeaud's plan to invade Kabylia despite the opposition of the Assembly as a seditious act in the face of which the government was opting for cowardice.

1847 "Report on Algeria"
In his 1847 "Report on Algeria", Tocqueville declared that Europe should avoid making the same mistake they made with the European colonization of the Americas in order to avoid the bloody consequences. More particularly he reminds his countrymen of a solemn caution whereby he warns them that if the methods used towards the Algerian people remain unchanged, colonization will end in a blood bath.

Tocqueville includes in his report on Algeria that the fate of their soldiers and finances depended on how the French government treats the various native populations of Algeria, including the various Arab tribes, independent Kabyles living in the Atlas Mountains and the powerful political leader Abd-el-Kader.

The latter stresses the obtainment and protection of land and passageways that promise commercial wealth. In the case of Algeria, the Port of Algiers and the control over the Strait of Gibraltar were considered by Tocqueville to be particularly valuable whereas direct control of the political operations of the entirety of Algeria was not. Thus, the author stresses domination over only certain points of political influence as a means to colonization of commercially valuable areas.

Tocqueville argued that though unpleasant, domination via violent means is necessary for colonization and justified by the laws of war. Such laws are not discussed in detail, but given that the goal of the French mission in Algeria was to obtain commercial and military interest as opposed to self-defense, it can be deduced that Tocqueville would not concur with just war theory's jus ad bellum criteria of just cause. Further, given that Tocqueville approved of the use of force to eliminate civilian housing in enemy territory, his approach does not accord with just war theory's jus in bello criteria of proportionality and discrimination.

The Old Regime and the Revolution
In 1856, Tocqueville published The Old Regime and the Revolution. The book analyzes French society before the French Revolution—the so-called Ancien Régime—and investigates the forces that caused the Revolution.

References in popular literature
Tocqueville was quoted in several chapters of Toby Young's memoirs How to Lose Friends and Alienate People to explain his observation of widespread homogeneity of thought even amongst intellectual elites at Harvard University during his time spent there. He is frequently quoted and studied in American history classes. Tocqueville is the inspiration for Australian novelist Peter Carey in his 2009 novel Parrot and Olivier in America.

Works

 * Travels in Algeria, The United Empire Loyalists, translated by Yusuf Ritter (Tikhanov Library, 2023, ISBN 9781777646097), 252 pages. Includes an essay by W. Stewart Wallace on the history of English Canada.
 * Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America: Their Friendship and Their Travels, edited by Olivier Zunz, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (University of Virginia Press, 2011, ISBN 9780813930626), 698 pages. Includes previously unpublished letters, essays, and other writings.
 * Du système pénitentaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France (1833) – On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application to France, with Gustave de Beaumont.
 * De la démocratie en Amérique (1835/1840) – Democracy in America. It was published in two volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. English language versions: Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. and eds, Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, University of Chicago Press, 2000; Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Arthur Goldhammer, trans.; Olivier Zunz, ed.) (The Library of America, 2004) ISBN 9781931082549.
 * L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856) – The Old Regime and the Revolution. It is Tocqueville's second most famous work.
 * Recollections (1893) – This work was a private journal of the Revolution of 1848. He never intended to publish this during his lifetime; it was published by his wife and his friend Gustave de Beaumont after his death.
 * Journey to America (1831–1832) – Alexis de Tocqueville's travel diary of his visit to America; translated into English by George Lawrence, edited by J.-P. Mayer, Yale University Press, 1960; based on vol. V, 1 of the Œuvres Complètes of Tocqueville.
 * L'État social et politique de la France avant et depuis 1789 – Alexis de Tocqueville
 * Memoir on Pauperism: Does public charity produce an idle and dependant class of society? (1835) originally published by Ivan R. Dee. Inspired by a trip to England. One of Tocqueville's more obscure works.
 * Journeys to England and Ireland, 1835.

title: Alexis de Tocqueville