Pascal’s notion of “diversions” is implicit in Tocqueville’s examination of the differences between aristocratic and democratic poetry in Volume II of Democracy in America. Tocqueville believes that in an aristocracy, the poet “speaks outside and above the human condition” portraying the eternal, the good, and the spiritual rather than the temporal, the human, and the tangible. In democracy, the converse is true; the poet portrays the banal and the earthly. In the aristocracy, the poet is a member of the leisure class and has time to engage in an education that allows him to come to terms with his mortality. In a democracy, though, the poet is equal to all other men; he has no leisure through which he can receive such an education. Instead, the democratic poet must portray what will earn him a profit. The easiest way to do this is to portray the “diversions”—something simple that provides a distraction (however fleeting it may be) from man’s mortality. Thus, Tocqueville describes the subject matter of democratic poetry by stating, “Democratic peoples will scarcely worry about what has been, but they willingly dream of what will be, and in this direction their imagination has no limits; here it stretches and enlarges itself beyond measure.” The democratic poet, then, continually helps distract man from reflection on the past and the present through his depiction of the future.

The distinction between aristocratic and democratic poetry has existential significance for Tocqueville. In the aristocracy, man grounds his existence in an order that is found outside of himself, be it in God, the Eternal Truth, or a Stoic natural order. Conversely, in democracy, man grounds his existence in himself. This grounding is not a tenable way of allowing man to reconcile himself with his mortality, because he has no way to understand death. Instead, the democratic man slowly becomes overtaken with a “feverish ardor” that manifests itself in the form of material goods. Tocqueville states, “He who has confined his heart solely to the search for the goods of this world is always in a hurry, for he only has a limited time to find them, take hold of them, and enjoy them. His remembrance of the brevity of life constantly spurs him.” Rather than coming to terms with his death, the democratic man distracts himself from his mortality and engages in a futile “pursuit of happiness.”

For Pascal, the “diversion” take’s man’s focus away from coping with his mortality to being distracted by something outside of himself. In doing this, the personhood of the “diverted” man becomes related to an external object. Pascal uses the skeptic philosopher as the ultimate example of a “diverted” person. According to Pascal, the skeptic philosopher finds his grounding outside of himself in external reason and doubt. By grounding himself in this outside framework, the diverted man can stably avoid confrontation with his mortality, for his gaze is not on himself. For Tocqueville, on the other hand, the “feverish ardor” of the democrat takes man’s focus away from coping with his mortality by making him focused on himself. This, for sure, is a far less stable grounding than the Pascalian diversion allows, for man cannot place himself in an external framework. Thus, the democratic man’s gaze is on himself, and he becomes hyper-aware of his mortality. It is for this reason, then, that Tocqueville believes the democratic man so “feverishly” pursues well-being.