KEYWORDS
Liberty
Materialism
Equality
Multiculturalism

COURSES FOR WHICH THE MODULE IS MOST APPLICABLE
American Studies
American Government
International Politics
Political Theory
Political Sociology
Race and Minorities
American Social Problems and Social Issues

This module can be used in high school through senior-level college courses.

Module I- The Tensions between Liberty and Equality

WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Have students READ Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Vol. I, Chapter 4. (Possibly expand the reading to include Vol. I, Chapters 14 and 18 and/or Vol. II, Part II, Chapters 1 and 2.)

ASSIGN students to come to class with a one-paragraph answer to each of following questions:

DISCUSS written assignments in small groups. Share responses and compose a collaborative response (25-30 minutes). Consider two different methods of creating groups. Some groups might be composed of homogeneous sets of students while others could be created to ensure diversity. As a part of the discussion consider the impact of group composition on the conclusions they reach.

Choose a spokesperson to PRESENT ideas to the larger class.

Module II- Principals of Materialism and Restlessness in American Character

IN-CLASS DISCUSSION
Have students DISCUSS what the following Tocqueville quotes mean to them.
"The taste for physical pleasures must be regarded as the first cause of this secret restlessness betrayed by the action of the Americans, and of the inconstancy of which they give daily examples."

"A man who has set his heart on nothing but the good thing of this world is always in a hurry, for he has only a limited time in which to find them, get them, and enjoy them. Remembrance of the shortness of life continually goads him on. Apart from the foods he has, he thinks of a thousand others which death will prevent him from tasting if he does not hurry. This thought fills him with distress, fear, and regret and keeps his mind continually in agitation, so that he is always changing his plans and his abode."

"Add to this taste for prosperity a social state in which neither law nor custom holds anyone in one place, and that is a great further stimulus to this restlessness of temper. One will then find people continually changing path for fear of missing the shortest cut leading to happiness."
-- Democracy in America, Vol. II, Part II

INTERVIEW three persons to respond to this quotation. Write their response and add one paragraph of your own views.

VISIT the Tocqueville Web site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CLASSROOM RESOURCES
GENERAL:
Samuels, Shirley, ed. The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth Century America, New York: Harper and Row, 1992.

Webster's World of Cultural Democracy, The World Wide Web center of the Institute for Cultural Democracy, icd@wwcd.org (Don Adams, Project Director), Mailing address-- P.O. Box 404, Talmage, CA 95481-0404, U.S.A.

INDIVIDUALISM:
Ambecombie, Nicholas, et. al. Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism. London: Allen and Unwin, 1986.

Bellah, Robert H., Habits of the Heart. Berkeley, New York: Minton Balch and Co., 1930

Dewey, John, Individualism: Old and New. New York: Minton Balch and Co., 1930.

Gans, Herbert J., Middle American Individualism: The Future of Liberal Democracy. New York: Free Press, 1988.

Heller, Thomas C., et. al, Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1962.

Lukes, Steven, Individualism. Oxford: Basis Blackwell, 1973.

Macpherson, C.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism,. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, 13th ed. J.P. Mayer, ed, George Lawrence, trans. New York: Doubleday, 1969.

Ullman, Walter, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.

MATERIALISM:
Anderson, Perry, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism. London: New Leaf Books, 1983.

Bertram, Christopher, "International Competition in Historical Materialism," New Left Review, 183: 116-128, 1990.
O'Connor, John, Modern Materialism: Readings on Mind-Body Identity. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1969.

Giddens, Anthony, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.

Whicher, George F., The Transcendentalist Revolt Against Materialism. Boston: Heath, 1949.