“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion
that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need
nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do
nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be
committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he
will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends on the
habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree
of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community,
whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards
others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened,
just and noble.”—English political philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873),
Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews (Feb. 1, 1867)More than a century and a half after its original publication,
Mill’s On Liberty remains relevant as the best defense of free speech
and, indeed, the foundation of modern notions of toleration and liberalism.
His views on what citizenship entails—and the need for
information-based judgment on the part of anyone who hopes to have a voice in
the governance of a country—in the above quote should be weighed and pondered
all the more.
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