The revival of bigotry
Guest post by John Stuart Mill.
On Liberty, Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
What is boasted of at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of persecution. 5 For it is this—it is the opinions men entertain, and the feelings they cherish, respecting those who disown the beliefs they deem important, which makes this country not a place of mental freedom. For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really effective, and so effective is it, that the profession of opinions which are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people, opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to enable them to bear. There is no room for any appeal ad misericordiam in behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and enlarge men’s minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.
Those last 10 or 12 lines seem to be a direct critique of accommodationists. Weird and amazing.
J’accuse.
“Guest post by John Stuart Mill.”
lol! brilliant.
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme shit!
I especially like this part:
“But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.”
John Gnuart Mill :)
One of my favorite essays in history :)
Also I’m now imagining Mooney writing advice columns saying that ” I think you will find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of your convictions within your own breasts, and attempt, in what you address to the public, to fit as much as you can of their own conclusions to premises which you have internally renounced.”
Yet another shrill, bile filled gnu atheist screed. The only difference here is that the author seems incapable of using paragraphs or other formatting to make his hateful diatribe more readable.
Enough of this. I’m off for half a pint of shandy.
I’ve been meaning to talk to you about these publication delays.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Egads, man! One would think a man of your age would have acquired form in the art of formatting.
Hee.
No it’s true, OL is packed with very long paragraphs. The above isn’t even the whole of the paragraph – I omitted a few sentences at the beginning.
As one who just slogged through Hume, based on this sample of two, I can declare that long paragraphs were de rigueur back then.
Ah but back when? They weren’t exactly contemporaries!
That’s odd, if true. Endless paragraphs certainly were not universal. Jane Austen’s, for instance, were characteristically elegant.
Maybe shorter paragraphs were for the feeble ladies, who had no stamina, while great long blocks were for Manly Men, who had endurance.
More lowbrow Gnu Atheism! Will these Gnus never learn that religion and its associated biogotry deserve respect?
This Mill fellow must learn to engage religious philosophy seriously.
I used to think like that. My writing took the form of rock solid walls without gaps. My teachers were unable to grade me.
When I first learned to write, I even used hyphens in the stead of spaces.
That J.S. Mill comment is a fake. The real John Stuart Mill would never use a one sentence paragraph.