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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: the public affairs, its national pride naturally assumes this
reserved, indifferent, and haughty form, which is imitated by all
the other classes of the nation.
When, on the contrary, social conditions differ but little,
the slightest privileges are of some importance; as every man
sees around himself a million of people enjoying precisely
similar or analogous advantages, his pride becomes craving and
jealous, he clings to mere trifles, and doggedly defends them.
In democracies, as the conditions of life are very fluctuating,
men have almost always recently acquired the advantages which
they possess; the consequence is that they feel extreme pleasure
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