John Stuart Mill - Against Censorship & Political Correctness
John Stuart Mill has long been considered one of the greatest defenders of individual rights to ever live. In his 1859 book On Liberty, Mill states “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
But sadly many in power today don’t share Mill’s commitment to free speech. Under the guise of political correctness and tolerance, free speech has steadily eroded in recent years. Though Mill himself died long before the term political correctness was first coined, the idea that certain harmful or offensive speech should not be allowed is far from new.
Mill writes, “There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society... It is also often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise... Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil, should consider... that in consequence of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear.”
On this last point, I must disagree with Mill. In his time, it may have been possible to suppress certain views through censorship or social pressure, but in the internet era, it is impossible to censor anything without dedicating tremendous resources to the task and even then efforts are seldom very effective. However, Mill’s arguments against censorship are not practical, but moral.
He writes, “it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral?…
Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings.”
Mill believes that if people are not allowed to freely explore taboo ideas then they will become intellectually stunted and unable to reach their full potential. People will avoid even considering the important questions of life out of fear it may eventually lead them to some sacrilegious conclusion.
Mill continues, “However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth… The words which convey it, cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of those they were originally employed to communicate. Instead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer essence being lost.”
Think of phrases like “diversity is our strength” or “all men are created equal.” Even free speech itself is a dead dogma to many. These ideas are frequently evoked, but they have gone unchallenged for so long that the deeper reasons behind these concepts have been lost to most people.
Mill goes on, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred.”
Mill’s words are as true today as they were when he wrote them. The nature of intellectual taboos change – in Mill’s time it was blasphemy, today it’s topics like racial and gender differences – however the effect is the same. Students only ever learn what they are supposed to believe without ever fully understanding the underlying reasons for those beliefs.
Mill continues, “[I]f opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up… If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labor for ourselves… [O]nly through diversity of opinion is there... a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence.”
Some argue that is not opinions that should be restricted, but speech that is combative or, to use a modern expression, potentially triggering. Mill dismisses these arguments as well, writing:
“[I]t is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent... With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, [personal attacks], and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation.”
In other words, people who call for vitriolic speech to be restrict rarely hold themselves and their allies to the same standard as the adversaries.
Mill also reminds us that rarely does any one side of an issue have a monopoly on truth. “[A] party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life... Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity. Unless opinions favorable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to coöperation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due... On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining less than its share… [T]here is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.”
We gain much more by listening to one another than by trying to silence one another. As tantalizing as may be to censor our ideological adversaries, the most horrific excesses of both the right and the left have always been carried out at times when opposition is silenced. And we should take note that any censorship we advocate against our opponents will always backfire on us as soon the pendulum of history inevitably swings back in their favor.
I’ll leave you with one final quote from Mill to encourage all those who value truth to favor the side of free speech:
“Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favorable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.”