Mill on Free Speech

Important.

Read this.

Relevant excerpts:

‘On Liberty’ by John Stuart Mill appeared two centuries later (in 1859) and yet the sentiments are remarkably close to Milton.  Mill’s work remains the classic defence not just of the right of free speech but the necessity of it: the right from which every other right flows.  Mill says:

‘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 power, would be justified in silencing mankind.’

Mill goes on to outline four reasons why a society must allow itself to hear contrary opinions.

‘First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true.  To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

‘Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

‘Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt convictions, from reason or personal experience.’

This is relevant:.

“Truth sounds like hate to those that hate the truth."

Of course, I’ve been beating this drum a long time.