It should be noted that I am not
being entirely fair to Mill, who unlike our current liberal theorists, does not
indicate that his ideas have general or universal application. He does believe that the state can regulate
the lives of children, and prevent children from self-harm. This exception is generally accepted by most
purveyors of Mill-style liberty. But
more interesting, he notes:
For the same reason we may leave out of consideration
those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as
in its nonage. The early difficulties in
the way of spontaneous progress are so great that there is seldom any choice of
means for overcoming them: and a ruler
full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients
that will attain an end perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government
in dealing with Barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the
means justified by actually affecting that end.
It is clear for Mill that Liberty, as he
understands it, is only fit for a race of Victorian Englishmen, and whoever
might resemble them. The Barbarians can
and should be subject to no less than despotism. Within Mill, there is a clear belief in a
progressive historical process of Progress.
Man begins a savage barbarian, and over time develops in ever increasing
levels of moral improvement, until the world reaches perfection. This belief goes toward why Liberty is
important to Mill: so that smart fellows
like Mill can continue develop moral and intellectual developments that will
further the development of mankind.
Political repression will retard this process of improvement. But because Mill conceives of this progress
as taking place almost mechanically, he does not consider the possibility that
all the liberty he seeks to grant to citizens could possibly backfire, making
people more barbaric. Supposing history
to be a series of cycles, of civilization, collapse, and barbarism, we can have
little faith that people will use their liberty for good ends, or whether they
will simply become decadent and the social order will collapse. Perhaps it is custom and tradition that makes
a nation or a culture great, and failure to preserve that culture in the name of
“progress” is first step toward destruction?
These are question that Mill never addresses, because he uncritically
believes in progress, and he uncritically accepts that all change must be for
the good. We must ask: what historical
evidence is there that supports Mill’s belief?
If this belief is rejected, does it not call into question the whole
basic assumptions of Mill’s thought?
Mill
lays out three basic freedoms characteristic of a free society: freedom of conscience, freedom of the press,
and freedom of association. With respect
to the first freedom, I have previously discussed my support of liberalism in
such matters as freedom of conscience and the rights of parents to educate
their children as they see fit, which is directly related to freedom of
conscience. People in a pluralistic
democracy should have a broad right to practice their religion, and transmit
their traditions to their children. But
the justification for this right, as I noted, was based on bloodshed generated
in the attempt to homogenize a modern society under one religious tradition,
not based on a belief in the inevitable progress of the human race. It is a good rule, in the current day and
age, to maintain order and to prevent people from killing each other. On the other hand, freedom of conscience
cannot be absolute, I would not extend it to a tradition that practiced human
sacrifice, polygamy and child marriage, ritual suicide like sati, female
genital mutilation, or honor killings.
Unlike Mill, I would not simply label these traditions as barbaric, but
I would have to look to the differences between the practitioners of these
customs and myself, which is based on culture.
My cultural framework is Western, and influenced by modern secular liberalism,
which is itself simply a watered-down version of Liberal Protestant
Christianity. I would ban these
traditions out of a desire to protect my own cultural forms, as would probably Mill. But my embrace of freedom of conscience is not
general or universal, it is an operative historical fact in modern
America. Clearly, a country like England
has an established church, and other societies and political systems have had
different relations between religion and the state. I would not condemn these societies, provided
civil order and peace could be maintained amongst classes of citizens.
Freedom
of Speech is an interesting issue, which Mill acknowledges is fundamentally
different from freedom of conscience, as freedom of speech is about the attempt
to influence or persuade others to one’s point of view. Invisible in Mill’s analysis is any awareness
or acknowledgment of the possibility of civil war, insurrection or
revolution. That is to say, any
existing political order, by virtue of its existence, has enemies. For example, the Soviet Union during the Cold
War financially supported individuals seeking to foment a violent revolution in
the United States, and the replacement of a democratic system with a
dictatorship. Can a democracy or a free
society protect itself against foreign governments seeking to overthrow or
weaken a democratic system of government, or must democracy afford its enemies a free reign to operate? After all, if these attempts were successful,
the result would be an end of liberty.
Can liberty protect itself? If it
cannot, it is clearly decadent and politically irresponsible. Likewise, speech maybe free, but mass media
companies and printing presses are not.
The principle of Free Speech puts mass culture into the hands of
concentrated financial interests, who are not disinterested political actors. Although Hollywood and the Corporate Media are
not clearly the enemies of the Nation-State, like the Communist Party was, they
clearly have a political interest, and their interests can diverge from the
National Interest. There is at least a
potential for a conflict of interest here.
Can we really support a rule that completely ties the hands of the
government to protect itself from the power of money? Apparently, our Supreme Court believes we
cannot. Although I support the concept
of Free Speech generally, I don’t see issues with exceptions to that rule, to
protect against sedition, corruption in morals, to protect the integrity of
elections and the legislative process, and to protect against reputational
harms in the case of libel or slander.
As an absolute rule, as Mill formulates it, it is indefensible. The same principles apply to the right of
voluntary association. If a group of
Neo-Nazis gets together and begins plotting to bomb Synagogues, I don’t see why
our government should have its hands tied up until the point that bombs are actually
planted. Clearly, a political process of
line drawing will need to take place, and the line should favor public safety.
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