Four Victorian Thinkers In Three Minutes: A Microlecture
Channel: English Readings
Date: 2017-12-13

Concerning individual liberty and the state: Samuel Smiles, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer.

Text:

Samuel Smiles proposes that the best way to improve your lot in life is through energetic individualism. By dint of this persevering application and energy, he says, you may rise from the humblest ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness and influence. This benefits both the individual and the nation. The exercise of this individuality is also a guarantee of liberty because it counteracts despotism.

John Stuart Mill proposes what is now an accepted definition of freedom, that is liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. He advocates the encouragement of eccentricity to counteract the apathy produced by conformity; and councils against the dangers of “social rights”, that is, the demand by some to have their opinions enforced upon others by the government (recognisable today as a form of political correctness).

Matthew Arnold dislikes the notion that one should do as one likes because it leads to anarchy, ie, chaos. Doing as one likes is, according to him, “mechanical”, a vague term of reproach under which he classes anything he feels is indulged in for its own sake, including railroads, wealth, coal, religious organisations and even the concept of freedom itself. The antidote to this anarchy is the nebulous idea of culture. Because we need some form of authority, culture (somehow - he is unclear on the process) suggests the idea of the State. And the State (with a capital S), whoever may administer it, is sacred.

Herbert Spencer values individual liberty as much as Smiles and Mill, perhaps even more. He recognises the dangers inherent in the Arnoldian philosophy of state control. Two forms of society are possible, he says: the militant and the industrial. We can use more modern terms for these - militant = closed; industrial = open. The open society will fare better than the closed one because individual liberty produces benefits for society at large. The closed society on the other hand, as advocated by the socialists of his time, will not; it will stifle enterprise and deprive the individual of his or her liberty, which is a form of servitude. All socialism, he notes, involves slavery.


Reading List:

Self-Help, Samuel Smiles
On Liberty, J S Mill
Culture and Anarchy, Matthew Arnold
The Man versus the State, Herbert Spencer

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