Protection against the tyranny of government isn’t enough, there also needs to be protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion / views, and against the tendency of society to turn its ideas into "practices" and later "rules of behaviour", and then try to impose them, by legal or other means, on those who don't even subscribe to t…
Protection against the tyranny of government isn’t enough, there also needs to be protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion / views, and against the tendency of society to turn its ideas into "practices" and later "rules of behaviour", and then try to impose them, by legal or other means, on those who don't even subscribe to them.
There should be hard limits on how much the prevailing/collective opinion can impose itself on any individual.
And as John Stuart Mill counselled us, finding and defending that limit is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as is protection against political despotism.
Protection against the tyranny of government isn’t enough, there also needs to be protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion / views, and against the tendency of society to turn its ideas into "practices" and later "rules of behaviour", and then try to impose them, by legal or other means, on those who don't even subscribe to them.
There should be hard limits on how much the prevailing/collective opinion can impose itself on any individual.
And as John Stuart Mill counselled us, finding and defending that limit is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as is protection against political despotism.