《论美国的民主·卷二·二部·第二章·民主国家的个人主义》第3节
Amongst democratic nations new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant broken, and the track of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; of those who will come after no one has any idea: the interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself. As each class approximates to other classes, and intermingles with them, its members become indifferent and as strangers to one another. Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community, from the peasant to the king: democracy breaks that chain, and severs every link of it. As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellow-creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里，用了一个非常形象的比喻来说明民主社会如何切断了人与人之间的纵向联系。他说时间像一块布，贵族时代这块布是连续的，祖辈、自己、子孙都生活在同一张织物上，彼此看得见、想得到。民主则让这张布不断被撕断——新家族冒出来，旧家族沉下去，就连还站着的家族也在不断改变处境。结果是，前代人很快被遗忘，后代人根本想不起来，一个人的关心收缩到他身边最近的那个…