On Liberty

Book Review:

Title: On Liberty
Author: John Stuart Mill
Publisher: Penguin Classics

 By Leo Kee Chye

No man, I believe, can possibly have read this book without being persuaded by Mill’s eloquent arguments or moved by his sincerity and candor in his defense of free speech and individual liberty.

While most men do not doubt the necessity of individual liberty, most, including myself, hardly knew to what purpose or on what justification liberty should be defended and encouraged. We cannot be too often reminded that drastic consequences in exchanging freedom for the so-called “the good” of society in the last century.

Until one comprehends the creed he believes in, he can then only defend it fearlessly.

What extent should government limit the freedom of speech? To what extend should an individual live as he pleases however others may find his lifestyle repugnant? Where to draw the line between individual liberty and the good of society? These are the questions Mill seeks to address in this book published 1859.

Superseded all defenders of liberty before him, Mill, with the publication of this little book, has since commenced a new epoch to the meaning of liberty.

Unlike most defenders of free speech, Mill does not rest his case simply on the abstract concept of natural rights that men are born free and liberty is rightfully and naturally theirs. In fact, he abhorred nothing more than defending liberty for the sake of liberty, for if so, this reasoning can and could be used for justify almost anything for anyone. If a person isn’t all too convinced with any law imposed upon him, then he should conceive he has every rights to defy it. And if he conceives that he has every rights to defy anything, then what law can there possible be to restraint the excesses of such men.

Mill, instead, sees liberty merely as a means to an end, that is, it satisfies the underlying principle of utilitarianism, the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Only when men are allowed to voice their opinions and live their lives the way they please, without reservation from themselves, and without molestation from the state, can the society as a whole be the ultimate beneficiary. Of course, the only caveat is individuals in pursuing whatever they deem proper in words or actions do not cause injuries to others.

Even if there is one and the only one individual in the whole society who shares not the convictions, acts not the mottos of the rest of population, his voice should still be heard, his actions seen, for there is a possibility that he may be right and the rest wrong.

Look no further than in history which teems with individuals who at one point were regarded as the vilest of men, prosecuted and put to death by their society, have since come to be regarded as the wisest of men. Socrates and Jesus Christ, just to name two.

Men are not infallible. So are their thoughts and actions. Censoring views of any individual risks something that could be potentially right to slip away, throwing back the potential advancement of the human civilisation by centuries.

Some critics however argue that truth, if it is indeed the truth, will ultimately prevail and Mill’s concerns amount to nothing besides undue worry. Not so, Mill wrote. Truth will eventually prevail is a kind of falsehood that scatters into common places. History has shown us that countless philosophical works and religious doctrines were lost forever by relentless persecution. Christianity could be one of them had the Romans being more conscientious and consistent in their persecution.

But what if the belief is wrong? Even if the thoughts and actions of some individuals are shown to be inherently wrong, argues Mill, they should still be allowed to air their views and live out their lives according to their beliefs. Dissenting views, opposing arguments and alternative opinions only make men vigilant and clearer to the things they believe in, rather than to take these things for granted. Moreover, being consistently exposed to all kinds of alternative doctrines and opinions, people are less easily to be taken in without some serious contemplation.

T. R. Malthus could not agree more when he wrote: “…well-informed people would be much less likely to be led away by inflammatory writings, and much better able to detect the false declamation of interested ambitious demagogues, than an ignorant people.”

“No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty, ” Mill wrote. No man should be punished for what he utters or what he does unless they cause direct injuries to others. In modern jurisdiction, laws are promulgated to deter harmful activities rather than to promote beneficial ones. One often hears of people being punished for stealing or raping but almost unheard of for being less charitable or benevolent. No one is to judge and impose what others can and should believe. If really he must, then it must be through persuasion rather coercion.

Mill was one of the few then who recognised that in popular government, the majority could potentially tyrannise the minority. Such undesirable situation should be guarded against with legislations protecting the basic rights of individuals, all the more reasons to allow every voices speak and every actions seen without suppression.

Also unlike his contemporaries, Mill celebrates individual uniqueness over conformity, even to the extent of eccentricity, and spontaneity over predictability. Only when individual liberty is condoned, Mill believes, can creativity flourish, geniuses blossom and thereby elevating the human civilisation to a greater height.

He ends his book with succinct paragraph that reads: “The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation…a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments…will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments

Mill is an extreme libertarian, even by today’s standard, let alone two centuries before. Though eloquently argued and put across, this book, I think, did not stress more on “active” liberty as compared to “passive” liberty. I define “passive” liberty as making an environment that condones the exercise of individual freedom to the fullest, while “active” liberty is when the people partake it as a way of life to the fullest. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, it was his genius to recognise that the American democracy was not just a political system but “a way of life” by which most Americans embraced. No man can guarantee the constitution, the legislations, to remain unchanged. It is quite possible that a political system, however liberal it may begin with, can slowly encroach the rights of people if the population chooses, by customs or habits, to be oblivious to their freedom and fail to live to the fullest what they have inherited.

Such a danger can only be avoided when every individual embrace this creed like the way he does for his religion. One can succeed in the destruction and annihilation of an entire religious body but he may not be able to extinguish the religious flame of every devotee. As long as one of those flames continues to burn, the religion can be resurrected. Therefore nothing survives, if we look at history, as well as religious beliefs because they are not merely a system of rituals but a way of life for their devotees.

Leo Kee Chye

Thursday, April 29, 2004