Stuart Mill Individuality
Summary
Having already examined whether people should be allowed to hold and express unpopular beliefs, Mill looks at the question of whether people should be allowed to act on their opinions without facing legal punishment or social stigma. Mill observes that actions should not be as free as opinions, and reasserts that both must be limited when they would cause harm to others and be "a nuisance to other people." However, many of the reasons for respecting different opinions also apply to respecting actions. Since humans are fallible, different "experiments of living" are valuable. The expression of individuality is essential for individual and social progress.
Individuality is essential to the cultivation of the self. A basic problem that …show more content…
Seeing people's dissimilarities is key in learning about one's own weaknesses. Diversity also lets us see the potential of combining the positive traits of different people. Forced conformity, in contrast, keeps people from learning from each other. Mill writes that it is "despotism of custom" that prevents the improvement of England, and that it is Europe's relative diversity of lifestyles and paths that makes it more progressive than conformist China. However, Mill worries that Europe is progressing towards the Chinese ideal of "making all people alike," and will thus face …show more content…
Mill subscribes to the belief that there are better and worse ways to live life: barbarians and savages, Mill believes live more poorly than civilized man. But, with civilization comes a tendency toward conformity. And since Mille believes that it is through a free and dynamic development of one's self and the interaction with people with different ways of life that an individual perfects himself, and similarly, that it is through discussion and dissent that "truth" is kept alive in society, conformity leads to social stagnation. There may be such a thing as too much individuality, as a barbarian nation is structured (or unstructured). Conformity, however, the opposite of too much individuality, is similarly problematic, and leads only to a lack of vitality. Mill here outlines a relationship between the liberty of man and society that is dynamic, a constantly negotiated terrain; there is a delicate balance, the individual must always be free, but the specter of too much freedom, as embodied by the uncivilized world, does
Having already examined whether people should be allowed to hold and express unpopular beliefs, Mill looks at the question of whether people should be allowed to act on their opinions without facing legal punishment or social stigma. Mill observes that actions should not be as free as opinions, and reasserts that both must be limited when they would cause harm to others and be "a nuisance to other people." However, many of the reasons for respecting different opinions also apply to respecting actions. Since humans are fallible, different "experiments of living" are valuable. The expression of individuality is essential for individual and social progress.
Individuality is essential to the cultivation of the self. A basic problem that …show more content…
Seeing people's dissimilarities is key in learning about one's own weaknesses. Diversity also lets us see the potential of combining the positive traits of different people. Forced conformity, in contrast, keeps people from learning from each other. Mill writes that it is "despotism of custom" that prevents the improvement of England, and that it is Europe's relative diversity of lifestyles and paths that makes it more progressive than conformist China. However, Mill worries that Europe is progressing towards the Chinese ideal of "making all people alike," and will thus face …show more content…
Mill subscribes to the belief that there are better and worse ways to live life: barbarians and savages, Mill believes live more poorly than civilized man. But, with civilization comes a tendency toward conformity. And since Mille believes that it is through a free and dynamic development of one's self and the interaction with people with different ways of life that an individual perfects himself, and similarly, that it is through discussion and dissent that "truth" is kept alive in society, conformity leads to social stagnation. There may be such a thing as too much individuality, as a barbarian nation is structured (or unstructured). Conformity, however, the opposite of too much individuality, is similarly problematic, and leads only to a lack of vitality. Mill here outlines a relationship between the liberty of man and society that is dynamic, a constantly negotiated terrain; there is a delicate balance, the individual must always be free, but the specter of too much freedom, as embodied by the uncivilized world, does