History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
Following the Restoration of King Charles II, the country charted a well-planned course between the extremes of civil licence and Government control.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, won for himself the nickname of ‘the Trimmer’ for his ability to sail a course between political extremes. It was intended as a snub, but he wore the badge with pride, maintaining that we needed both Charles II’s strong government and also Parliament’s vigorous defence of civil liberties in order for our country to prosper.
After getting lost on a woodland walk and spraining his ankle, Samuel Pepys felt amply compensated when he stumbled across a flock of sheep.
On Sunday 14th July, 1667, Samuel Pepys took his party for a woodland walk in Epsom, near the home of his cousin John. Much to Samuel’s chagrin, he managed to get them lost, so they never found the pleasant woodland paths he had been looking forward to. And indeed, it seemed that things were fated to get worse before they got better.
Guy de Maupassant reflects on the way that a statesman’s place in history has so often been defined not by deeds or character but by his one-liners.
Guy de Maupassant is looking back over the sayings of some of France’s most famous rulers. Some sayings were witty, some heroic, some fatuous; many, he admitted, probably spurious. But all fixed the speaker in the mind, even making up for a humiliating defeat or an oppressive reign. It shows that what every statesman chasing a place in history really needs is a glib one-liner.
Those in Power may imagine that a docile and compliant public makes Government run more smoothly, but a society of that kind just won’t move forward.
John Stuart Mill was a firm believer in individual freedom, a conviction which led him to dissent from then-fashionable economic and social policy on women’s rights and American slavery. In On Liberty (1858), he warned politicians that a docile, on-message public might let the engine of State run more smoothly, but it will also rob it of any power to move forward.
Even where freedom of speech and conscience are not curtailed by law, there is another kind of censorship that is just as destructive to progress.
In the 1850s, those who held opinions felt by Authority to be untrue, antisocial or extreme were still being frozen out of academic, political and commercial roles, not by law so much as by denying them preferments or a public platform. John Stuart Mill warned that such censorship would not silence dissent, but would nurture a generation so feeble-minded that progress itself would be slowed to a crawl.
John Stuart Mill set out three kinds of liberty essential to a truly free society: freedom of conscience, of tastes, and of association.
In his essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill has been talking about the proper role of Government, arguing that the State authorities should not meddle in the lives of individual citizens. He now lays out three freedoms essential to any truly liberal society: those of thought, choice and association. Every man should have the freedom to go his own way in life, so long as he extends the same courtesy to his neighbours.