Pet Peeve

I like Alexander de Toqueville.  For the most part.  He has many interesting insights to why America, closer to its founding, worked and operated.   I think part of this ability to examine our society is due to his being foreign.   However, his being from Europe also lends him a certain superiority of tone which can be extremely aggravating.   For example, Toqueville spends several pages gushing and praising the American spirit and American patriotism, but then goes on to say, "Nothing is more irritating in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans.  A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused"(237).   Perhaps this is simply my "irritating patriotism"  shining through, but I think it unlikely that one of any pleasant company enjoys being criticized by one who has very, very limited experience with his/her way of life.  Toqueville praises himself as somewhat of an "America expert" because he lived here for a time.  This may give him more experience than many of his fellow Europeans, but his experience and view is limited by his birth, and as an American myself, I think I can say that it is one thing to ask questions of a society, it is another to criticize. Toqueville would be a lot more readable if he didn't carry on in such a pompous air.