john stuart mill's On Liberty

Question

Is it generally considered tobe declaration of individualism?

Answer 1

Yes.....

"On Liberty. Widely held as a seminal text on the rights of the individual, upon closer examination On Liberty reveals itself to be a euphemistic re-stating of Mill's economic ideas as applied within the social realm. In short, he advocates a cultural class system governed by an intellectual elite. "Individualism" is, it turns out, a concept that can only be utilized by a lucky, talented few. As Mill's delineates in the essay, "individualism" as an ideal must be sacrificed to economic interests if the two conflict. Furthermore, individual expression is deemed more important for "the exceptional" rather than the "commonplace" lower classes or colonial populations. Therefore individual liberty, as Mill's defines it, can only be enjoyed by those fovored by material status. Thus the individualist concept, so deeply intertwined with the capitalist system, cannot, and indeed is not meant to, be universally enjoyed; instead it is enjoyed mostly by the sector of the society it benefits the most, the owner/bourgeois class."

© 1993 Shirley Galloway

参考资料：http://www.cyberpat.com/shirlsite/lit.html