Religious Fanaticism and Materialism according to De Tocqueville

(From the Second Volume of Democracy in America)
Chapter XII
WHY SOME AMERICANS MANIFEST A SORT OF FANATICAL SPIRITUALISM
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained and to soar impetuously towards heaven. In all the states of the Union, but especially in the half-peopled country of the Far West, itinerant preachers may be met with who hawk about the word of God from place to place. Whole families, old men, women, and children, cross rough passes and untrodden wilds, coming from a great distance, to join a camp-meeting, where, in listening to these discourses, they totally forget for several days and nights the cares of business and even the most urgent wants of the body.
Here and there in the midst of American society you meet with men full of a fanatical and almost wild spiritualism, which hardly exists in Europe. From time to time strange sects arise which en- deavor to strike out extraordinary paths to eternal happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the United States.
Nor ought these facts to surprise us. It was not man who implanted in himself the taste for what is infinite and the love of what is immortal; these lofty instincts are not the offspring of his capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in human nature, and they exist in spite of his efforts. He may cross and distort them; destroy them he cannot.
The soul has wants which must be satisfied; and whatever pains are taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amid the enjoyments of sense. If ever the faculties of the great majority of mankind were exclusively bent upon the pursuit of material objects, it might be anticipated that an amazing reaction would take place in the souls of some men. They would drift at large in the world of spirits, for fear of remaining shackled by the close bondage of the body.


One of the great errors of the recent past was the assumption, the grand mistake of both capitalism and communism, that man can live on bread alone. During the Cold War religion while used as a tool for anti-communist actions such as can be seen in Poland and Afghanistan, was not taken seriously as a force in itself worthy of respect. Whenever man is forced to believe that "it's all money and whores" something inside him is wounded and his heart is eaten away with a special hollowness. For if there is not a greater end than mere accumulative and technological means and know how, human life is ultimately meaningless. Some violent reactions will result as can be seen by events since 1979 with the fall of the Shah in Iran and the rise of Jihadism and all the consequences we are seeing now. Not to mention the peculiar phenomena found in Christian sects in the United States that De Tocqueville describes. All is directed against the Technochratic assumptions of the West, and the interior turmoil of the Muslim World.
By voting for the Democrats last Tuesday we Americans were not in effect endorsing the secularist agenda but assumed that the Dems were smart enough not to ignore the emminent threats facing our country and the West in general.