Question

Individualism, according to Alexis de Tocqueville, asserts that citizens were able to flourish without hereditary distinctions. How would this value directly conflict with Tocqueville's upbringing?

Answer 1

Tocqueville was raised in an aristocratic family and that gave him certain privileges he could not have otherwise achieved.

Answer 2

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in an old Norman aristocratic family, his father was a Count and an officer of the Constitutional Guard of King Louis XVI.

But despite of that, when Tocqueville went to the US he argued that Democracy dissolves the chain that Aristocracy hold together. He also noticed that American democracy made people more equal, the opposite of the Aristocratic system.