Does diversity of opinion contribute to a society’s health?

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

[Originally published on a weblog called “What Is Liberalism?”]

Later, I’m going to quote a passage from John Stuart Mill’s book, On Liberty, but first, I’d like to start by quoting an anonymous, critical review of the book:

Mr. John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty is a very melancholy book on a great subject. It is written in the sincere foreboding that the strong individualities of the old types of the English character are in imminent danger of being swallowed up in those political and social influences which emanate from large masses of men. It might almost, indeed, have come from the prison-cell of some persecuted thinker bent on making one last protest against the growing tyranny of the public mind, though conscious that his will be in vain, – instead of from the pen of a writer who has perhaps exercised more influence over the formation of the philosophical and social principles of cultivated Englishmen than any other man of his generation. While agreeing with Mr. Mill, as most thoughtful politicians must, in some at least of the most important practical conclusions at which he eventually arrives as to the fitting limits of legislate interference, and the proper bounds to the jurisdiction of that secondary tribunal which we call public opinion, we differ from him widely and fundamentally with regard to the leading assumptions from which he starts, and the main principle which he takes with him as his clue in the inquiry. … But before we follow him into his political philosophy, we must explain why we think him totally wrong in the most important of his preliminary assumptions.

We differ widely from Mr. Mill as to the truth of the painful conviction which has evidently given rise to this essay. We do not for a moment doubt that English “public opinion” is a much more intelligible and homogeneous thing in our own day than it has ever been at any previous time; that it comprehends much fewer conflicting types of thought, much fewer distinctly divergent social tendencies, much less honest and sturdy controversy between diametrical opposites in intellectual theory. Sectarian lines are fading away, political bonds are sundering, even social attractions and repulsions are less marked than they used to be; and to this extent we willingly concede to Mr. Mill that considerable progress is rapidly making towards that universal assimilation of the social conditions of life…But to what do these facts point? Mr. Mill believes they point to an increasing despotism of social and political masses over the moral and intellectual freedom of individuals. To us his conclusions appears singularly hast, and utterly unsustained by the premises he lays down. If, indeed, Mr. Mill still holds, as many passages in his earlier works would seem to indicate, that there is no such thing as an inherent difference in the original constitution of human minds, – the varieties in the characters of men are due entirely to the varieties of physical, moral, and social influence to which they are exposed, – then , no doubt, he must argue that the great assimilation of outward circumstances which civilization necessarily brings, will naturally end in producing a fatal monotony in human character. But we would suggest that any moral monotony which springs exclusively from the assimilation of social conditions is not only inevitable, but a necessary result of social and political liberty, instead of a menace to it.

This from the Norton edition of Mill’s book “On Liberty”, 1975.

Two thoughts:

One, I find it interesting that Mill and his critic agree that England has reached a point of relative calm, of widespread agreement. The hot battles of the previous two centuries, Whigs versus Tories, is dissolved to a point of widespread consensus. It’s interesting that such a calm should coincide with the period that England began to decline. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, for reasons similar to what Mill is alarmed at. Consensus equals stagnancy. Consensus is maladaptive, for when circumstances change, where will the spark for a new consensus come from? Diversity of thought is adaptive, it means there is a pool of ideas from which a new direction can be plucked, when circumstances change. Mill is aware of the social benefits of sharp opposition, and I’ll later try to make clear that such sharp opposition is equally important for long-term economic health.

Two, cultures tend to remain stable over time. Fernand Braudel emphasizes this in his histories. Crises arise like storms and then blow over. Large scale structures change the slowest, thus the Mideast is Islamic and was 3 centuries ago, India is mostly Hindu and was 3 centuries ago, America is Christian and was 3 centuries ago. Change happens but only slowly. The path to a liberal society begins in November of 1640 and we’re still not all the way there yet. A crisis like the English Revolution can run hot for a few years, 1642 – 1651, and for awhile it looks like everything has been changed forever, but then reaction sets in. The goals of the Parliamentarians of 1640 were not achieved till 1688 (the subset of Parliamentarians that simply wanted limits on the monarchy). Cultures revert to norms. Mill was worried about the death of individualism in English society in 1859, yet in 2005 most of the world still regards the English-speaking countries as the countries that place the greatest value on individualism.

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