A Harsh Reality: Understanding Mill’s Message from ‘On Liberty’ When people consider John Stuart Mill, they usually quote his views on the importance of the individual without looking deeper into his true message. Many believe him to be the poster child of individualism. They praise him for standing behind the ideal society in which the individual conducts a life doing what they are passionate about. However, what most they don’t tend to grasp is that Mill believed people should do things for their own self-interest, but only if the individual had a certain maturity level.
This excluded the working class who Mill believed (along with the rest of the bourgeoisie) them to be drunkards, promiscuous and unable to think for themselves. This is where most people tend to overlook Mill and his harsh criticism on society. In Mill’s eyes, the majority of society were the equivalent to sheep, who follow the herd in order to be accepted by others. In his book, “On Liberty”, Mill tackles major institutions as the components which hold society and it’s people back such as – religion, education, the government and popular opinion.
Although Mill seemed to have very tough feelings on society and the tyranny of majority, his opinions were spot on. People should chase after their own interest, but only if it won’t harm others which most individuals can not seem to do. Mills had a righteous fear in believing that it would be dangerous if the working class were allowed to do whatever was in their own self interest because they would mistake it as permission to do whatever they desired. Mill believed that in order for citizenry become better,we would need to encourage a state where it’s individuals were intelligent enough to make smart decisions.
Mill was one of the forefathers of liberalism which emerged during the 19th century. He believed that the good of the individual would produce the good of society. He preached an utilitarian view that the individual had the right to do whatever they wish with their lives. This could only be obtained if the individual’s choices didn’t hinder the growth of the state and/or harm others.
However, Mill felt that the power popular opinion has a big influence on the individual causing them to not depend on their own personal thoughts, but instead the thoughts of the majority. … The nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. ” (Mill, Introduction). Mill feels that the will of the people is actually the will of the majority of those who are in charge of governing others.
To Mill, this is the tyranny of the majority which to him is just as evil as the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way. In order to fight against this tyranny by preserving dissenting ideas. Encouraging dissenting ideas are important because a person’s opinion might be true or it might be false. Mill believed that there was no right or wrong answer to anything, but instead a combination of both since the majority has no true authority and no absolute certainty.
Although Mill was a Christian man himself, he didn’t think that people should force their own views on others unless they can prove that they are an absolute truth. Because of this, Mill didn;t have an problem with atheists, homosexuals or socialists. Approval of any of these ideals was extremely controversial at the time. In terms of religion, Mill found it to be halting people from finding out the truth. He feels that religion pushes the idea that it’s wrong to be skeptical and/or have an opposing opinion about it. “Christian morality (so called) has all he characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active… It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell… doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man’s feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them”(Mill 106). He doesn’t like how someone’s faith in god determines what kind of person someone is.
Being an atheist, shouldn’t make you less trustworthy according to him. Religion is something that most people don’t follow to the latter, but it is still something that society tends to use as a basis to judge others who go against it. Mill is a heavily believer in human beings having original thoughts. People who have original thoughts are more successful in their careers and are active thinkers. “As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living” (Mill Chapter 3).
While Mill encourages the ideal of freedom to live one’s life according to one’s self interest, he did not believe that the working class wouldn’t be able to do so. He felt that dealing with people who are non-educated and of the working class could not be treated as if they could make liable decisions on their own. Because of this, they don’t have the right to do what interests them. He felt that those who did things out of their own pure selfishness were the rot of society and would not generate wealth for the state.
Mill argued that those of the working class shouldn’t be grant such a right due to their desire to tend to their primary needs: wages, food and employment. The fear of not having a stable hand on either one of these needs will sway a person’s thinking. People crave acceptance by their peers which Mill finds to be a troublesome flaw in human beings. Human beings have a uniqueness to them and should embrace their individuality so long as it serves the majority.
Mill encourages people to seek out these differences and adhere to this new found freedom nd spontaneity in hopes of gaining knowledge from their environment surrounding them. Here, he is speaking of the bourgeois lifestyle and how they carry themselves. The gist of Mill’s argument is in any case still positive – he wished to create a society in which people fend for themselves by making smart choices and living a life following their own self interest with strict discipline in hopes to lead a more functioning nation. In my opinion, Mill may have had radical views on certain components of society, but his views are spot on.
People are very heavily influenced by others and don’t want to feel excluded from anything. That being said, they also love to want to claim that they are different and unique from their peers. Everyone wants to be original but to a certain extent. For example, children today sometimes feel obligated to claim a religion simply because they were raised in a household dominated by that religion. Based on that religion’s rules and beliefs, the child will feel restricted to think and do things a certain way in order to not break from the ‘norm’.
Mill states “I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those secular standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics, receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of character” (Mill Chapter 2). The fear of being outcasted does indeed stop people from challenging the majority opinion.
Some people refuse to voice their true feeling about a topic, such as politics, due to their rational fear of being criticized. I agree with Mills that not everyone can do what is of the own self interest unless they have a firm grasp of what that means. Maturity plays a big role on one’s decisions and people both back then and now don’t have a clue on what it truly means to be mature. Mill’s criticism of the people around him may be hard for people to adjust to with our newfound “safe for everyone” general mindset, but it is the type of truth that we as society need to pay more attention to.