Interest in the current flurry of stuff about happiness has led me to re-read John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty" - in the bicentenary year of his birth. [A second generation Utilitarian, he modified the utilitarian objective of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" to include some non-hedonistic qualities of life.] What a wonderful man he was! "On Liberty" was published 147 years ago, but it could have been yesterday, so topical is his thinking and understanding of society. He sets out with the utmost clarity why the individual should be free to express whatever opinion he or she likes regardless of what the government or the majority believes. Likewise freedom of action, regardless of what harm might befall the individual, provided that it does not harm others. But Mill's robust defence of individual liberty is not the anti-social individualism of modern libertarians; it is always set in the context of the good of the community. Dr John Reid should have it by his bedside and read a chapter each night.
Two examples of how little things have changed in 150 years. "… every one lives as under the eye of a hostile censorship. …. Even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds …peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes." And (in pre-Gallup days): "In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. "… governments make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses."