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All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty--just the 2nd chapter--made accessible for the 21st century, with gorgeous illustrations. Reeves (a biographer of Mill) and Haidt (a social psychologist) summarize Mill's three timeless arguments for free speech and the value of viewpoint diversity. They then reduce the text to half its original length, allowing Mill's best arguments and metaphors to shine. Artist Dave Cicirelli illustrates those metaphors to amplify their intuitive power. Ideal for use in college courses, or in any organization in which people would benefit from productive disagreement.
71 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2018
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1,206 people want to read
About the author
John Stuart Mill
1,756 books1,809 followersJohn Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an exponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
January 11, 2019
A really great text about speech.
What's interesting is Mill was writing in the 1800's, and he was writing about the problems with speech oppressed by societal norms as opposed to government suppression of speech. It's pretty relevant in modern times, which is sort of surprising. You'd think our gizmos would render something like this ancient and worthless, but there's a lot of applicable good in here.
He's got three very basic tenets:
1. Dissenting opinion is important because it may be correct. This is a tougher one that it sounds because we all like to believe that we're mostly right, and when we look back at history we like to think that we'd somehow know things the people living in that time didn't know. We've all heard someone wax on about how they surely would have behaved during witch trials, civil rights struggles, wars, etc. But the truth of the matter is that most of us have been wrong most of the time, and this hasn't stopped being true. We are all wrong about something today, and 50 years from now we'll be seen as monsters. Count on it. Hey, if it turns out that in 2069 people are like, "Those 2019 folks had it all figured out!" I'll buy you a drink.
2. It's in arguing with a dissenting opinion that we reaffirm our understanding of the truth. When truths become accepted and are no longer challenged, we lose touch with their meaning and origin, and future challenges to the truth are more difficult to dismiss. To make a technology analogy, we all use lamps, but very few of us could wire one from scratch. Having received knowledge on an issue challenged forces us to understand the issue and our stance on it completely.
3. Both the correct and incorrect opinions contain portions of the whole of truth, and it's by those opinions combining that we get closer to truth. Without dissenting opinions, we only get the portion of the truth that serves our purposes.
All of this requires a lot of listening skills and patience, but there are some really thoughtful ideas in this piece, and it's only like a 30-minute read.
What's interesting is Mill was writing in the 1800's, and he was writing about the problems with speech oppressed by societal norms as opposed to government suppression of speech. It's pretty relevant in modern times, which is sort of surprising. You'd think our gizmos would render something like this ancient and worthless, but there's a lot of applicable good in here.
He's got three very basic tenets:
1. Dissenting opinion is important because it may be correct. This is a tougher one that it sounds because we all like to believe that we're mostly right, and when we look back at history we like to think that we'd somehow know things the people living in that time didn't know. We've all heard someone wax on about how they surely would have behaved during witch trials, civil rights struggles, wars, etc. But the truth of the matter is that most of us have been wrong most of the time, and this hasn't stopped being true. We are all wrong about something today, and 50 years from now we'll be seen as monsters. Count on it. Hey, if it turns out that in 2069 people are like, "Those 2019 folks had it all figured out!" I'll buy you a drink.
2. It's in arguing with a dissenting opinion that we reaffirm our understanding of the truth. When truths become accepted and are no longer challenged, we lose touch with their meaning and origin, and future challenges to the truth are more difficult to dismiss. To make a technology analogy, we all use lamps, but very few of us could wire one from scratch. Having received knowledge on an issue challenged forces us to understand the issue and our stance on it completely.
3. Both the correct and incorrect opinions contain portions of the whole of truth, and it's by those opinions combining that we get closer to truth. Without dissenting opinions, we only get the portion of the truth that serves our purposes.
All of this requires a lot of listening skills and patience, but there are some really thoughtful ideas in this piece, and it's only like a 30-minute read.
March 11, 2019
A book full of great arguments for 100% free speech. Although written in the 19th century, Mills argument are more than relevant to this day and I urge anyone who beliefs in truth, freedom and non-censorship to read the book. I even urge folk who do belief in the censorship of hate speech or controversial topics to read the book as I hope this will give you a new perspective on the beliefs you hold.
October 19, 2020
A digestible commentated excerpt of Mills's writings on free speech. So incredible important. Man I hope classical liberalism survives the ideological attacks its sustaining today. Glad Haidt and Reeves are among its defenders.
Heres a quote that basically summarizes the book:
“Mill believed the pursuit of truth required the collation and combination of ideas and propositions, even those that seem to be in opposition to each other. He urged us to allow others to speak-and then to listen to them- for three main reasons:
First, the other person's idea, however controversial it seems today, might turn out to be right. ("The opinion may possibly be true.")
Second, even if our opinion is largely correct, we hold it more rationally and securely as a result of being challenged. ("He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.")
Third, and in Mill's view most likely, opposing views may each contain a portion of the truth, which need to be combined. ("Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.")”
And here's a quote where Haidt relates the book's contents to college campuses today:
“The right to provoke, offend, and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment. This is particularly so on college campuses. Intellectual advancement has traditionally progressed through discord and dissent, as a diversity of views ensures that ideas survive because they are correct, not because they are popular.”
Heres a quote that basically summarizes the book:
“Mill believed the pursuit of truth required the collation and combination of ideas and propositions, even those that seem to be in opposition to each other. He urged us to allow others to speak-and then to listen to them- for three main reasons:
First, the other person's idea, however controversial it seems today, might turn out to be right. ("The opinion may possibly be true.")
Second, even if our opinion is largely correct, we hold it more rationally and securely as a result of being challenged. ("He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.")
Third, and in Mill's view most likely, opposing views may each contain a portion of the truth, which need to be combined. ("Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.")”
And here's a quote where Haidt relates the book's contents to college campuses today:
“The right to provoke, offend, and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment. This is particularly so on college campuses. Intellectual advancement has traditionally progressed through discord and dissent, as a diversity of views ensures that ideas survive because they are correct, not because they are popular.”
February 9, 2019
Enlightening, challenging, and refreshing. Anyone who is upset with the evolution of the worlds of politics and ideologies, anyone who is concerned for the future of these worlds, and, most importantly, anyone who finds it difficult to talk to people with differing opinions, need to read this.
There is so much to consume in this short text.
There is so much to consume in this short text.
November 11, 2023
En veldig fin, enkel og kortfattet oppsummering av den liberale tenkeren John Stuart Mills sentrale ideer om ytringsfrihet.
«Uansett hvor sann din overbevisning muligens er, dersom den ikke fullt ut, frekvent, og fryktløst er diskutert, vil den kun bli redusert til en død dogme, og ikke en levende sannhet».
«Uansett hvor sann din overbevisning muligens er, dersom den ikke fullt ut, frekvent, og fryktløst er diskutert, vil den kun bli redusert til en død dogme, og ikke en levende sannhet».
August 7, 2022
The art for this book was really interesting and I understood the concepts the book was talking about. If I could do half stars, I’d do three and a half because the complex sentence structures required me to read the book many times over in order to be able to understand what it was saying. It is a good book if you want to deepen your understanding about free speech but with the complex language, it’s better absorbed by reading chunks at a time.
February 2, 2019
Must read...
If Mill’s book ‘Liberty’ is too long and too dense, this is a great read. Recommend highly. Thanks to Reeves, and Haida.
If Mill’s book ‘Liberty’ is too long and too dense, this is a great read. Recommend highly. Thanks to Reeves, and Haida.
April 7, 2020
Quick read, full of insightful wisdom and should be read by all. Took me reading this twice to fully understand everything mentioned.
October 30, 2020
I'd like to assume that Cicirelli and the folks at the Heterodox Academy understand the irony of 'All Minus One' and have simply chosen to ignore the humor. I can see only a few justified reasons explaining why this book was published. Maybe the nonprofit, Heterodox Academy, had a down year and was forced to brainstorm ways to quickly cash in; or perhaps the team needed to throw together a completed project that resembled their mission statement so to not lose their government funding. Either way, they have happened into a great hypocrisy that is almost too ridiculous to believe. Somehow Cicirelli and his team convinced themselves to reprint John Stuart Mill's essay 'On Liberty' and then proceed to violate fundamental aspects of Mill's liberalist philosophy. The essay stresses the importance of presenting and receiving a complete thought, while always avoiding mindless regurgitation and oversimplified analysis when presenting those ideas. This is so society can properly compare ideas and cultivate a free marketplace of ideas where absolute truth can surface. This is of course placed in a book that edits and cuts aspects of Mill's essay alongside visual companions that oversimplify and demonize the counterpoints to Mill's assertions.
Perhaps the most outrageous offender of this contradiction is the image titled "Living Truth/Dead Dogma" on page 26. The illustration depicts the Living Truth half the page as a vibrant paradise, and the Dead Dogma half as a decaying wasteland - creating a visual binary of the two conceptual components within the text. The "Living Truth/Dead Dogma" image is only seven pages before highlighting Mill's third law of speech, "Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them; and non conforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, in which the received doctrine only embodies a part." Not only does this image (as well as the other illustrations in the book) wildly oversimplify Mill's philosophy, but they blatantly violate a Mill's third law to create an easy-to-understand binary. The contradiction between Mill's philosophy and Cicirelli's interpretation of text is so fundamentally flawed it's as if... as if Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer were endorsing George Washington's farewell address.
Above all else, "On Liberty" warns of the dangers of religious and political dogma, "...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 conviction, from reason or personal experience." It can only be with an unfathomable degree of obliviousness that Cicirelli and the Heterodox Academy team use an anti-dogma text to lay down a set principles by an established authority to be understood as incontrovertibly true. Just so there's no confusion about it - Heterodox Academy, whom champions the anti-PC, anti-coastal elite, anti-UC Berkeley position that is now fundamental to modern day conservatism (one might even say dogmatic), is attempting to use an anti-dogma, anti-binary essay as the foundation for their fear and disdain for leftist universities.
It is still unclear to me whether 'All Minus One' is a deliberate attempt to cherry-pick aspects of Mill's 'Liberty' essay to propel a conservative agenda (sporting illustrations that are borderline propagandistic) or if the scholars at Heterodox actually refuse to recognize the contradiction. Do yourself a favor: read the actual essay and decide what it means for yourself.
What a waste.
Perhaps the most outrageous offender of this contradiction is the image titled "Living Truth/Dead Dogma" on page 26. The illustration depicts the Living Truth half the page as a vibrant paradise, and the Dead Dogma half as a decaying wasteland - creating a visual binary of the two conceptual components within the text. The "Living Truth/Dead Dogma" image is only seven pages before highlighting Mill's third law of speech, "Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them; and non conforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, in which the received doctrine only embodies a part." Not only does this image (as well as the other illustrations in the book) wildly oversimplify Mill's philosophy, but they blatantly violate a Mill's third law to create an easy-to-understand binary. The contradiction between Mill's philosophy and Cicirelli's interpretation of text is so fundamentally flawed it's as if... as if Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer were endorsing George Washington's farewell address.
Above all else, "On Liberty" warns of the dangers of religious and political dogma, "...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 conviction, from reason or personal experience." It can only be with an unfathomable degree of obliviousness that Cicirelli and the Heterodox Academy team use an anti-dogma text to lay down a set principles by an established authority to be understood as incontrovertibly true. Just so there's no confusion about it - Heterodox Academy, whom champions the anti-PC, anti-coastal elite, anti-UC Berkeley position that is now fundamental to modern day conservatism (one might even say dogmatic), is attempting to use an anti-dogma, anti-binary essay as the foundation for their fear and disdain for leftist universities.
It is still unclear to me whether 'All Minus One' is a deliberate attempt to cherry-pick aspects of Mill's 'Liberty' essay to propel a conservative agenda (sporting illustrations that are borderline propagandistic) or if the scholars at Heterodox actually refuse to recognize the contradiction. Do yourself a favor: read the actual essay and decide what it means for yourself.
What a waste.
December 14, 2019
The illustrations are beautiful. The text however has the really annoying quality that Victorian British prose has. The ideas are good, but presented in rather convoluted form. I would also have expected a little bit more emphasis on the "All minus one" society and idea. Unfortunately it simply is NOT in the text. I mean you can remove the few sentences when the description of "all minus one" society appears and the arguments would be the same as well... I was expecting some kind of distopyan society to be honest, but this is not like this.
Over all the ideas are valid, but the TEXT presentation is seriously lacking. The art is beautiful. So 3/5 it is a good enough rating.
Over all the ideas are valid, but the TEXT presentation is seriously lacking. The art is beautiful. So 3/5 it is a good enough rating.
January 16, 2019
A small booklet that every student should read as they enter college.
November 16, 2020
Why is freedom of speech so important? In this book three main arguments from John Stuart Mill are taken and elaborated:
1. The other person's idea may possibly be true.
2. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
3. Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.
I enjoyed learning about the dangers of what happens when we can't keep our identity as a person separable from our ideas that we endorse at a given moment and about how long contested and strong ideas stay there. To what extent does a living truth just become a dead dogma when it isn't being challenged? And to what extent can we enjoy the fruits of that?
Mill's main concern was not government censorship. It was the potential tyranny that can come from prevailing opinions and feelings in general.
This and much more all get explained. In a time where freedom of speech is under attack even in the places where it should be most celebrated like universities, I think understanding John Stuart's Mill's arguments can do a tremendous amount of good.
People seem to have forgotten the grounds of why freedom of speech is so important. Because there is such a lack of understanding of the grounds of it in my experience, we are becoming worse and worse in having civil discussions with each other at moments where we might disagree with each other. With a lack of understanding of it, we'll end up judging each other as a person for having an opinion different than our own (failing to keep ideas and identities separate). or in other words, we'll see each other as guilty until proven otherwise much quicker than the fundamental idea of seeing each other as innocent until proven otherwise (a very big difference of course). And civil discourse is one of the only ways to start seeing the other side of a coin. Without knowing the other side of a coin, the reason to hold an opinion strongly doesn't have strong grounds at all. If we limit speech and free-thinking, we'll miss out on innumerable amounts of great ideas and we'll be less protected from bad ideas being done in practice.
The amount of highly intellectual and valuable people that don't speak their minds is also innumerable, simply because they are worried to speak out their thoughts. This wouldn't happen to this extend if people understood the grounds of freedom of speech a bit better (I'm also learning still and need to learn much more about it).
If there is one big lesson I got from this book the following quote is fitting:
"For free speech to be valuable to the pursuit of truth, we all need to be both humble and open". The world is waaayyyy to complex to completely understand as a person by him or herself!
It's not the easiest read since John Stuart Mill's book is very old, but this would be one of the books I think should be mandatory in school so that we can be better equipped to defend bad ideas from happening and increase the number of good ideas from happening. I give it 5 stars not because how it is written, but because of the importance of the arguments in the book, in my humble opinion.
1. The other person's idea may possibly be true.
2. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
3. Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.
I enjoyed learning about the dangers of what happens when we can't keep our identity as a person separable from our ideas that we endorse at a given moment and about how long contested and strong ideas stay there. To what extent does a living truth just become a dead dogma when it isn't being challenged? And to what extent can we enjoy the fruits of that?
Mill's main concern was not government censorship. It was the potential tyranny that can come from prevailing opinions and feelings in general.
This and much more all get explained. In a time where freedom of speech is under attack even in the places where it should be most celebrated like universities, I think understanding John Stuart's Mill's arguments can do a tremendous amount of good.
People seem to have forgotten the grounds of why freedom of speech is so important. Because there is such a lack of understanding of the grounds of it in my experience, we are becoming worse and worse in having civil discussions with each other at moments where we might disagree with each other. With a lack of understanding of it, we'll end up judging each other as a person for having an opinion different than our own (failing to keep ideas and identities separate). or in other words, we'll see each other as guilty until proven otherwise much quicker than the fundamental idea of seeing each other as innocent until proven otherwise (a very big difference of course). And civil discourse is one of the only ways to start seeing the other side of a coin. Without knowing the other side of a coin, the reason to hold an opinion strongly doesn't have strong grounds at all. If we limit speech and free-thinking, we'll miss out on innumerable amounts of great ideas and we'll be less protected from bad ideas being done in practice.
The amount of highly intellectual and valuable people that don't speak their minds is also innumerable, simply because they are worried to speak out their thoughts. This wouldn't happen to this extend if people understood the grounds of freedom of speech a bit better (I'm also learning still and need to learn much more about it).
If there is one big lesson I got from this book the following quote is fitting:
"For free speech to be valuable to the pursuit of truth, we all need to be both humble and open". The world is waaayyyy to complex to completely understand as a person by him or herself!
It's not the easiest read since John Stuart Mill's book is very old, but this would be one of the books I think should be mandatory in school so that we can be better equipped to defend bad ideas from happening and increase the number of good ideas from happening. I give it 5 stars not because how it is written, but because of the importance of the arguments in the book, in my humble opinion.
March 24, 2019
This is the rare book that I believe ALL will be well served to read! It is SHORT and extremely important to possibly greatest challenge of our times.
The title of the book comes from this quote: "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 the power, would be justified in silencing mankind..."
Each of us is a unique consciousness with a uniqe perspective and thus ideas. The idea that silencing a voice is a "solution" attacks the core of our human essence.
In Mill's time, the "traditional culture" of church, community, tradition, etc acted as a strong brake on creative thought and intellectual discussion, and thus Mill took the time to write this book.
"Mill’s main concern was not government censorship. It was the stultifying consequences of social conformity, of a culture where deviation from a prescribed set of opinions is punished through peer pressure and the fear of ostracism. “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough,”"
How ironic it is that today we see speakers being shouted down, social media posts suppressed, jobs and careers being lost and destroyed, and even family and friends lost because ones ideas have been judged to not conform with current politically correct orthodoxy.
Vast human error and even the destruction of cultures often travels the exceedingly easy path of confirmation bias. As creatures whose tiny speck of intelligence is FAR too small to reliably interact with a nearly infinite universe, we MUST constantly "jump to conclusions", and then we MUCH prefer to find confirmation of that conclusion than indications we are in error. The ONLY way to avoid this is through rigorus and REGULAR exposure to discussion with those whose conclusions do NOT agree with ours!
"The only reliable cure for the confirmation bias is interacting with other people who have a different confirmation bias and do you the favor of criticizing your ideas."
"... our identity as a person must be kept separable from the ideas we happen to endorse at a given time. Otherwise, when those ideas are criticized, we are likely to experience a conversation, book, or lecture as an attack upon our self, rather than as an opportunity to think about something more deeply."
The previous quote was once considered a required mark of an educated person, and in fact of a worthy common citizen. To not be able to civily debate the various issues and personages of the day reflected badly on an individuals stature in their community in the age that men like Mill ushered in.
"Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think."
An idea that you do not feel comfortable discussing is NOT actually YOUR idea ... it is someone elses that you have chose ascribe to without understanding it. "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
"The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.”"
There is no such thing as a "decided opinion" in anything beyound tautologies, or self contained sytems (eg. mathematics).
For anything you hold as "decided", remember this quote "... he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth."
Do you really want your cherished beliefs to become dead dogma?
PLEASE take the time to read this book! This book is a great start at understanding why Western civliization worked, how it broke, and a key ingredient in it's potential repair! I covered this problem in more detail here if you want to explore further.
The title of the book comes from this quote: "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 the power, would be justified in silencing mankind..."
Each of us is a unique consciousness with a uniqe perspective and thus ideas. The idea that silencing a voice is a "solution" attacks the core of our human essence.
In Mill's time, the "traditional culture" of church, community, tradition, etc acted as a strong brake on creative thought and intellectual discussion, and thus Mill took the time to write this book.
"Mill’s main concern was not government censorship. It was the stultifying consequences of social conformity, of a culture where deviation from a prescribed set of opinions is punished through peer pressure and the fear of ostracism. “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough,”"
How ironic it is that today we see speakers being shouted down, social media posts suppressed, jobs and careers being lost and destroyed, and even family and friends lost because ones ideas have been judged to not conform with current politically correct orthodoxy.
Vast human error and even the destruction of cultures often travels the exceedingly easy path of confirmation bias. As creatures whose tiny speck of intelligence is FAR too small to reliably interact with a nearly infinite universe, we MUST constantly "jump to conclusions", and then we MUCH prefer to find confirmation of that conclusion than indications we are in error. The ONLY way to avoid this is through rigorus and REGULAR exposure to discussion with those whose conclusions do NOT agree with ours!
"The only reliable cure for the confirmation bias is interacting with other people who have a different confirmation bias and do you the favor of criticizing your ideas."
"... our identity as a person must be kept separable from the ideas we happen to endorse at a given time. Otherwise, when those ideas are criticized, we are likely to experience a conversation, book, or lecture as an attack upon our self, rather than as an opportunity to think about something more deeply."
The previous quote was once considered a required mark of an educated person, and in fact of a worthy common citizen. To not be able to civily debate the various issues and personages of the day reflected badly on an individuals stature in their community in the age that men like Mill ushered in.
"Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think."
An idea that you do not feel comfortable discussing is NOT actually YOUR idea ... it is someone elses that you have chose ascribe to without understanding it. "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
"The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.”"
There is no such thing as a "decided opinion" in anything beyound tautologies, or self contained sytems (eg. mathematics).
For anything you hold as "decided", remember this quote "... he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth."
Do you really want your cherished beliefs to become dead dogma?
PLEASE take the time to read this book! This book is a great start at understanding why Western civliization worked, how it broke, and a key ingredient in it's potential repair! I covered this problem in more detail here if you want to explore further.
September 11, 2019
It seems I went through the audiobook once before with illustration from the heterodox academy (FREEly available on their site; in case anything was stopping you); but I didn't remember enough of it, except a general distaste of the speculation "What would Mill have thought [of our college campuses]?". It's as though asking "what would Jesus do?" after having just re-read the synoptic Gospels (but refusing to read John). The only mortal to get away with such a description of Jezus of Nazareth is John Stuart Mill, in my proverbial book.
I'm marking All Minus One as read, but forgotten. Minus that part about "what would Mill do?".
This did cause me to want to start reading his Autobiography, which Librivox has. I'm looking forward to coming back to find I'll have also marked that as 'read' some years from now.
Upon re-reading/listening; I noticed how bland a summary of Mill's views may look to the interested eye. A more appreciating eye might look upon it as a rather apt graphic novel based on the Hero Archetype of Mill. But that would be pushing it.
I keep coming back to this because I make the same mistake of thinking I can skip the autobiography by reading Reeves' biography. The latter receives compliments in Adam Gopnik's review in the NewYorker:
Aristides the Just was banished from Athens because people were fed up with hearing him called Aristides the Just. It is one of the many virtues of Reeves’s funny, humane biography that it brings Mill to life in the only way sententious great men can be brought to life, and that is by showing us what he was like when he lost his heart and when he lost his reason.
This alluring piece of laughter-inducing prose, made me listen to All Minus One the first time around. To get a short version of the modern adaptation that's a summary of yet another work etc. ad infinitum.
Perhaps, these mostly serve to point us to Scripture. Freedom of religion is the only thing protecting freedom from religion after all.
I'm marking All Minus One as read, but forgotten. Minus that part about "what would Mill do?".
This did cause me to want to start reading his Autobiography, which Librivox has. I'm looking forward to coming back to find I'll have also marked that as 'read' some years from now.
Upon re-reading/listening; I noticed how bland a summary of Mill's views may look to the interested eye. A more appreciating eye might look upon it as a rather apt graphic novel based on the Hero Archetype of Mill. But that would be pushing it.
I keep coming back to this because I make the same mistake of thinking I can skip the autobiography by reading Reeves' biography. The latter receives compliments in Adam Gopnik's review in the NewYorker:
Aristides the Just was banished from Athens because people were fed up with hearing him called Aristides the Just. It is one of the many virtues of Reeves’s funny, humane biography that it brings Mill to life in the only way sententious great men can be brought to life, and that is by showing us what he was like when he lost his heart and when he lost his reason.
This alluring piece of laughter-inducing prose, made me listen to All Minus One the first time around. To get a short version of the modern adaptation that's a summary of yet another work etc. ad infinitum.
Perhaps, these mostly serve to point us to Scripture. Freedom of religion is the only thing protecting freedom from religion after all.
October 30, 2022
I believe this is the most compelling argument ever made for the necessity for Free Speech in the public discussion. Mill, already 200 years ago, was weary of the dangers of ‘’echo chambers’’, polarisation, dogmas, tribalism, rigid traditions, and censorship. He believes the truth, and thus human progress, depends on good conversation hygiene in which each individual conversation, and the public discussion as a whole, is engaged in as an honest and calm process, first truly understanding the other side’s opinion before reevaluating our own. Mill makes an excellent argument on why it is not only beneficial but essential, to confront true ideas with incorrect ones, but also to hear these opposing thoughts that more often than not, share the whole truth with the more correct ideas. Mill doesn’t explicitly talk about the cognitive distortion that is confirmation bias, but he eloquently states this in a more nuanced way when he says that the same reasons that make us a Christian in England, would have made us a Buddhist in China, and so on, all depending on the arbitrary circumstances of our birthplace and its particular culture.
The authors of this adaptation show a masterful knowledge of their trade as writers and educators. First and foremost, they present ways in which the reader can access the whole original text, should they wish to contrast the authors’ interpretation with the reader’s own, thus leading by example. In addition, they facilitate and encourage everyone to take the next step in spreading these good practices by suggesting essay-type exercises and providing further resources to easily and realistically do just that. I believe all individuals and societies would benefit from reading this work and applying its principles.
The authors of this adaptation show a masterful knowledge of their trade as writers and educators. First and foremost, they present ways in which the reader can access the whole original text, should they wish to contrast the authors’ interpretation with the reader’s own, thus leading by example. In addition, they facilitate and encourage everyone to take the next step in spreading these good practices by suggesting essay-type exercises and providing further resources to easily and realistically do just that. I believe all individuals and societies would benefit from reading this work and applying its principles.
January 21, 2019
This is a timely book. At a time when free speech is under attack – de-platforming, hate speech laws, the descent of twitter mobs upon “heretical” views -, it is an idea to remind ourselves just how important free speech is. A good place to start is with the Victorian writer, J.S.Mill. All Minus One is an abridged version of On Liberty with illustrations by Dave Cicirelli and an introduction by Richard V. Reeves and Jonathan Haidt.
In On Liberty, Mill gives a vigorous defense of free speech, which consisted of three principles. Firstly, that in order to disagree with someone, you have to know what that person’s view is and you can only do that by allowing him to speak. He may, after all, turn out to be right. Secondly, in order to have an opinion, you need to know the other side of the argument. “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that”, as Mill himself put it. Thirdly, opposing views, while being opposed to one another, contain areas when agreement concurs, and from that consensus can grow.
I won’t pretend that Mill is an easy read. His arguments are clear while his prose is not. Each sentence seems to hover around the thirty words mark and can be exhausting after several pages of this, so an abridged version of this book is welcome. If you believe in free speech then this is for you. The illustrations are nice although I am not so sure that they add anything to the text.
In On Liberty, Mill gives a vigorous defense of free speech, which consisted of three principles. Firstly, that in order to disagree with someone, you have to know what that person’s view is and you can only do that by allowing him to speak. He may, after all, turn out to be right. Secondly, in order to have an opinion, you need to know the other side of the argument. “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that”, as Mill himself put it. Thirdly, opposing views, while being opposed to one another, contain areas when agreement concurs, and from that consensus can grow.
I won’t pretend that Mill is an easy read. His arguments are clear while his prose is not. Each sentence seems to hover around the thirty words mark and can be exhausting after several pages of this, so an abridged version of this book is welcome. If you believe in free speech then this is for you. The illustrations are nice although I am not so sure that they add anything to the text.
January 16, 2019
I wish I could “everything from this text. It is incredibly relevant, especially in our current political society.
“ complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming it’s truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”
“ he is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone.”
“ whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections.”
“Truth.... The reconciling and combining of opposites.”
“ The worst offense of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.”
“ complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming it’s truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”
“ he is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone.”
“ whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections.”
“Truth.... The reconciling and combining of opposites.”
“ The worst offense of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.”
May 14, 2024
Great little containment of John Stuart Mill's arguments in favour of free speech.
1. The opinion we are attempting to stifle may possibly be true.
2. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
3. Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.
Great passage from the introduction:
"Mill’s main concern was not government censorship. It was the stultifying consequences of social conformity, of a culture where deviation from a prescribed set of opinions is punished through peer pressure and the fear of ostracism. “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough,” he wrote. “There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling”. Mill saw people even as brilliant as Charles Darwin living in fear of the response their views would provoke."
1. The opinion we are attempting to stifle may possibly be true.
2. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
3. Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.
Great passage from the introduction:
"Mill’s main concern was not government censorship. It was the stultifying consequences of social conformity, of a culture where deviation from a prescribed set of opinions is punished through peer pressure and the fear of ostracism. “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough,” he wrote. “There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling”. Mill saw people even as brilliant as Charles Darwin living in fear of the response their views would provoke."
February 3, 2025
A timely read on classical liberalism. Some highlights include:
He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that…But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no grounds for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be to suspend judgement…he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.
Simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest.
Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field.
Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that…But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no grounds for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be to suspend judgement…he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.
Simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest.
Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field.
Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
February 28, 2019
Dialogue.
That is one way to move a society, group or individuals, from point A to B, also... dialogue allow us to design and expose that point A and point B have many, many ways to be looked at or approached by any human being.
Internet, social media, the size of the population we have in the world today, competence and competition to get "something which fulfill a being", + 1000 etc more... you'll realize that probably there is going to be conflict or, at least friction, between members, groups, institutions or organs that make all societies operate.
This book, and Mill's essay, helps to "ad oil" in a place where all societies will have some kind of fiction trying to move from point to point in order to make sense of the inherent reality and "problems": dialogue.
Great read!
That is one way to move a society, group or individuals, from point A to B, also... dialogue allow us to design and expose that point A and point B have many, many ways to be looked at or approached by any human being.
Internet, social media, the size of the population we have in the world today, competence and competition to get "something which fulfill a being", + 1000 etc more... you'll realize that probably there is going to be conflict or, at least friction, between members, groups, institutions or organs that make all societies operate.
This book, and Mill's essay, helps to "ad oil" in a place where all societies will have some kind of fiction trying to move from point to point in order to make sense of the inherent reality and "problems": dialogue.
Great read!
January 13, 2019
Everyone in today's world should read this book...it's concepts are so IMPORTANT! An argument for free speech..." imagine a world in which just one person holds a view contrary to that held by the rest of humanity. What harm could be done by silencing this lone eccentric?" Read on and find out! Maybe we can skip going back to the dark ages by educating ourselves.
January 13, 2019
There perfect antidote?
A perfect antidote to today's fake news and alternative facts. Somewhat difficult to read but at the same time impactful once understood. It should be required reading for anyone who what's to understand the process of Truth. I learned about the book through podcast conversations featuring Jonathan Haidt.
A perfect antidote to today's fake news and alternative facts. Somewhat difficult to read but at the same time impactful once understood. It should be required reading for anyone who what's to understand the process of Truth. I learned about the book through podcast conversations featuring Jonathan Haidt.
December 23, 2022
An "OK" book. I bought it because of Haidt's association with it. Haidt is absolutely awesome and his books are profound. This work is mostly quotes of Mill which are profound but with that old timey flourishing round about way that is hard to follow with a 21st century mind (maybe i Just need more practice in reading early 19th century literature).
September 28, 2018
Wisdom and some poignant art- along with an invitation
“...However true [your belief] may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.”
“...However true [your belief] may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.”
September 8, 2018
Enlightenment.
January 21, 2019
A beautiful primer on free speech, constructive discussions, how to argue and why you should always listen to your opponents.
February 1, 2019
Very nicely put together. Mill's ideas are more important now than ever. Well worth a read.
February 4, 2019
Necessário nos dias de hoje.
February 5, 2019
Nicely done, an essential read and particularly relevant.
February 26, 2019
The ideas and thoughts of this book are timeless and relevant today as they were over a hundred years ago. My only critique is it can be hard to follow at times.
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