Archbishop Chaput and Tocqueville

Perhaps this is very old news in our 24 hour news cycle, but MOJ readers who haven't yet read Archbishop Chaput Tocqueville Lecture at Notre Dame last week, should do so. It's a quick read but worth it-- and really, who would want to skip a lecture so named at a time in our nation's history when the great Frenchman's insights are so desperately needed? Democracy in America should be required reading these days -- or, if the tome is just too vast, maybe this forthcoming book would do? 

My favorite paragraph of Chaput's is this one -- really the Tocquevillian hermeneutic through which one can understand this election cycle, and really the ever-present threat to American democracy: 

People unwilling to rule their appetites will inevitably be ruled by them — and eventually, they’ll be ruled by someone else.  People too weak to sustain faithful relationships are also too weak to be free.  Sooner or later they surrender themselves to a state that compensates for their narcissism and immaturity with its own forms of social control.