We live in the 21st century, and it is instructive to discuss which ones of the many predictions that we find in Tocqueville's books have turned out to be correct, and which ones went wrong. There are some very striking remarks about future developments. For example, in the chapter where he says that two powers will become dominant in the world of tomorrow, Russia and the United States. Let me quote a few lines from the very last page of volume one. Today there are two great peoples on Earth who, starting from different points seem to advance toward the same goals. These are The Russians and the Anglo-Americans. Their point of departure is different, their paths are varied. Nonetheless, each one of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold in its hands one day the destinies of half the world. Now that is a stunning prediction at a point in time when nobody could foresee the dominance of Russia and America in the 20th, and the 21st century. But there are other chapters that are more debatable with the wisdom of hindsight, of course. And one of them is Tocqueville's conviction that the arts and the sciences cannot flourish in America. He says that among the civilized people of today, there are few where the advanced sciences have made less progress than in the United States, and who have produced fewer great artists, industrial poets or celebrated writers than the United States. He is not convinced that this is a necessary consequence of the democratic spirit. It may have something to do with other elements of American culture. But the readers of this book could safely conclude that Europe had no competition to fear from the United States when it came to music, painting, poetry, or those sciences whose practical applicability is not clear at first sight. Now today, America is one of the leading countries in, for example, painting or sculpture, or ballet. New York is the mecca for artists and art collectors alike. When Tocqueville traveled across America, he could not find the equivalence of the great French and German composers. But in the twentieth century, it was America that gave us not only very important serious music from John Cage to Phillip Glass but also the great gift of jazz music with such geniuses as Duke Ellington or John Coltrane. And America has become a superpower on the world scale when it comes to popular music, of course. As for the sciences, it is safe to say that the United States have become dominant in almost every scientific discipline. It's the land of the best universities, and some of the most excellent research institutes. It is no accident that first year students here in Amsterdam who study sociology, or anthropology, or history, or political science have to read in their first year books in the English language written by American professors. And when they prove to be excellent, they are allowed to follow a special master program that is often entirely taught in the English language. Even if the large majority of the students and their teachers have the Dutch language as their mother tongue. And here I am, a Dutch sociologist, speaking to you in English. Because that has become for sociologists today, the Esperanto of the social sciences. And very, very reluctantly, even the French began to accept this linguistic subjection. Now all of this was not foreseen by Tocqueville. He didn't have the slightest suspicion. And it is a very interesting question, why even this sharp observer could not foresee this worldwide dominance of the United States in the arts and the sciences. That is not a criticism. On the contrary, it only shows that we are still engaged in a lively discussion with this profound thinker whose crystal clear and blight style of writing can still bring on the the face of his readers a smile of happiness.
