John Mills onLiberity

The fear that Mill expresses in On liberty about public opinion is communicated with three major ideas: individualism, liberty, and human nature. Public opinion has the ability of removing each one of these ideas from a democratic society, allowing for change that creates an environment that is unstable to new discoveries and ideas that are vital for evolution. This problem is deemed irrelevant by today’s democratic society. However the truth of the matter is …

…but the value system upon which society is based. It might prove impossible to put Mill’s plan into action with out creating an entirely new isolated society. Since a new society has not been created for our nation, the individual is still threatened by public opinion. This bleak outlook for liberty and human nature is why our society, at the 21st century, is still dealing with this threat to the individual called public opinion.