Soft tyranny is an idea first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work titled Democracy in America. In effect, soft tyranny occurs whenever the social conditions of a particular community hinder any prospect of hope among its members. For Tocqueville, hope is the driving force behind all democratic institutions. As such, whenever this all-encompassing hope is taken away from the people, liberal democracy fails. Examples of this failure can be seen in the Weimar Republic of Germany during the 1930s or in the French Third Republic around 1940. Hope for a better future effectively died in both of the aforementioned situations. As a result, fascist regimes were established to fill the void left by the departure of hope.
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Famous quotes containing the words soft and/or tyranny:
“To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)