John Stuart Mill: On Liberty

4.5 stars

Honestly, I had to read this for a uni course. It's tedious. I think Mill can defend his ideas quite well, but this should have been edited down. It seems to me that he repeats the same concept more times, and at a certain point I just lost it. It's the same with the essays on women, really. He had such progressive ideas for the time, which is why I find that his imperialism and racism clash so hard with what he writes

A remarkably timeless analysis of our notions of individual freedom and our obligations to each other.

Some examples are topically 19th century of course, but these are not major distractions. The analysis tends to fall apart for a modern reader though because it does not address second order effects our behavior has on others that have become critical in our time. Pollution, global warming, overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, and the power of nongovernmental organizations radically affect the lives and limit the freedom of all people, ourselves and our children.

I think that had John Stuart Mill lived in our time, he would have addressed these issues as a major part of his analysis. As it is, this book is a milestone in our human thought on liberty, and a good start on framing a discussion, but it is only a start.