Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More relevant today than in 1859 :(, July 7, 2004
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was interested in the nature of Civil Liberty, and the limits to the power that a Government can legitimately exercise upon its citizens. He believed that some worrying tendencies could be observed in the England society of his time, and tried to warn others about them.The author basically explains his ideas regarding the preservation of individual liberties, not only due to the fact that they are rights owed to everyone, but also because they benefit society as a whole. For example, when he says that liberty of thought and of discussion must be preserved, he tells us that "Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but fact and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it". How can mistaken beliefs or actions be proven wrong, if dissent is forbidden?. The loss for society is clear: "If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error". In order to preserve the liberties included in the concept of Civil Liberty, the author points out that there must be limits to the action of the Government. He says that "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others". Any other reason is simply not good enough. Thus, Stuart Mill highlights the rights of the individual, but also the limit to those rights: the well-being of others. "On Liberty" is not too long, and I think you are highly likely to enjoy it, if you can get past the first few pages. The problem is that even though the ideas in this book are quite modern, the language is somehow dated. But then, we must remember that "On Liberty" was written a long time ago... Notwithstanding that, do your best to read the first pages, and you will realize that after a while it will be much easier. This book is well-worth the effort you need to make at the beginning, because it is even more relevant today than when it was first published, in 1859. Are individual rights important?. Why?. Do they have a limit?. You will found the answer for these questions, and much more, in "On Liberty". What else can I say?. I believe this is a book that will help you to reflect on many important issues... I certainly can't think of a better reason to read it. All in all, recommended :) Belen Alcat
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Penguin Version is Excellent, July 20, 2006
America's defense department should take some of the billions spent on the stealth bomber or the B1 and spend it to make Arabic and Farsi translations of this book in the hundreds of thousands. We could pack the bomb bays of a squadron of stealth bombers with the translations and carpet the cities of Muslim countries with this treatise on freedom. This is The Book, folks. You cannot read this little book without it changing your life. It is an extended argument about freedom, about true morality, about freeing your mind, about untrammeling the possibility of peace and prosperity in the world. This is the book that lays out the path for treating other human beings with respect and opening the way toward progress in any and all societies. For the discussion of the "harm to others" principle alone, this book merits the world's attention and praise.
Perhaps the most famous aspect of Mill's extended argument about liberty is his discussion of the "tyranny of the majority." His argument grows from the long history of religious persecution suffered throughout Europe that led to book bans, bigotry, and even torture and burning at the stake for people who did not conform to the majority superstition, namely the dominant form of Christianity wherever one lived. Mill lived in a time when even the staid and relatively moderate views of the English Church forced people to conform their lives or face public humiliation and financial ruin, and sometimes lynching. The resulting dynamic was that free thought was thus discouraged and progress thwarted. Mill's point is that in such a psychological milieu, people are not mentally free to seek a better way. They are rather trammeled to superstition and the concomitant tyranny of the majority, the majority being emotionally dependent and mentally ham-strung by religion and religious fears and prejudices.
America today is witnessing the truth of this dynamic through the virulent and underhanded tactics of the fundamentalist X-tian political right who seek to thwart medical research and impose a legislated theocracy in parts of the country. The effort to put dark-age arguments about "intelligent design" on a scientific par with evolutionary theory is a perfect and alarming example. Mill's argument in On Liberty was prescient in demonstrating what can happen when people allow religion to influence political life. The brand of literalist religion we see in America has been the bane of societies throughout history and respresents a true pragmatic evil on a scale far worse than any imagined "Satanic" sinfulness that Christians associate with popular and secular humanism. Fundamentalist religion, especially in the forms of Christian and Muslim extremism, is a societal cancer when viewed through the lense of reason and of Mill's enlightened utilitarianism. No society that allows religion to make in-roads to politics can flourish. Proof is in the failed Middle East, where no country can manage to pull its people out of poverty and squalor in spite of sitting on the world's richest oil reserves. Mill's argument in this small book speaks volumes about why Muslim countries are doomed to failure and why the Christian right in America (the blood cousins of Islamic radicals) represent the biggest and most un-American evil in our country's history. If America represents freedom, there can be no room for the "ten commandments" in the county court house.
Highly recommended as a must read for everyone.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Libertarian and useful writings., February 28, 2005
The terms 'liberal' and 'socialist' have undergone many changes in meaning over the past one and a half centuries. By the definitions of his own day, Mill was certainly the former and arguably the latter. By today's definitions, he would be neither. For his time, he was a remarkably progressive, even radical, thinker. He was, for example, an ardent advocate of women's rights. On the other hand, his paternalistic attitude toward developing societies is typical of his age.
The basic principles of both liberty and ethics that Mill propounds have been much criticized. It is easy to list exceptions, provisos and limitations to them, but they relate to extremely complex and intractable problems, and with such issues it is necessary to start with greatly simplified models, on which you can build. As first approximations, Mill's principles are actually quite good. That they are not the last words on the subjects should not distress us. Nothing ever will be. Only bigots arrive at final, absolute answers.
Mill's writing style oscillates between great (sometimes sublime) eloquence, and long, tortuous meanderings. He is often reluctant to finish a sentence and mortally afraid of relinquishing a paragraph. Some parts have to be carefully reread to make sense of all the subordinate clauses. But when he is good, he is very good. The section on free speech is classic.
For a contrasting contemporary view of social justice, the Communist Manifesto is useful. Like these two essays, it is relatively short and readable.
In Utilitarianism, Mill is building on the work of Jeremy Bentham, who in turn was part of a tradition that can be traced back to ancient Greece and the philosopher Epicurus. So if you are looking to achieve a more complete picture, you may want to read a little about those two thinkers first.
The Bantam edition conveniently comprises Mill's two most famous works and is compact and cheap, but the introduction by Alan Dershowitz is appallingly bad. It in no way illuminates the text and serves only as a vehicle for Dershowitz's own prejudices. So if you just want to read the texts, get the Bantam edition, but if you would like useful editorial contributions, look elsewhere.
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