“In most of the operations of the mind each American appeals only to the individual effort of his own understanding…they are constantly brought back to their own reason as the most obvious and proximate source of truth. It is not only confidence in this or that man which is destroyed, but the disposition to trust the authority of any man whatsoever. Everyone shuts himself up tightly within himself and insists upon judging the world from there. Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America,”