Mill on Repression Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mill on Repression - Essay Example Moreover, his individuality must be nurtured instead of hampered. This idea greatly affects his belief that social repression must be thwarted. This paper intends to look deeper into the ideas of Mill in order to understand further why he is so against social repression and to examine further the differences between social and political repression. As mentioned earlier, Mill strongly believes in individuality. Consequently, he also has considerable confidence in diversity. As human beings, each of us have differences and such differences often make us differ in tastes, opinions, interests and other important characteristics and traits. For Mill, such differences should be encouraged instead of stopped. He is against uniformity because this thwarts the expression of one’s unique attributes. As a result, uniformity encourages a few people to stand out because they take courage in being different however, ultimately, the numbered few will rise to rule over the uniform others. Suc h system eventually leads to other social problems such as political repression, tyranny, racism and sexism. On the contrary, when individual attributes are to be encouraged, there would be no uniformity but diversity. Diversity results to individualism which in turn inspires being informed. Information is very important in improving one’s self. As they say, knowledge is power. ... Whereas when there is uniformity, those who are able to access important information tend to keep it to themselves so that they will be the only ones to benefit from the knowledge. In addition, the numbered few who tend to rise when there is uniformity often alter information fed on the bigger percentage of the population so that they are deceived to believe that they are well-informed. This leads to tyranny because the misinformed public tends to trust the stronger majority. Consequently, people can be transformed to puppets who will simply obey what is asked of them. People will be dictated by a few individuals who are able to control the information being told and they will in turn ‘mere industrious sheep’ who will simply obey orders without questioning. This again can lead to abuses such as what was witnessed in the relationship between the Black slaves and the White masters during the recent century. Through social repression, the Blacks were made to believe that th ey are mere objects who were supposed to serve their White masters. However, as social beings, the Blacks came to learn that they, too, can have the liberty the Whites are enjoying and that they can also have their own lands by doing lesser jobs compared to when they are yet slaves. For decades, there have been no Blacks who excelled in art, music or other professions because they have been deprived of opportunities and information. This is the very reason why Mill is against social repression. He is afraid that there will come a day when the talents and creativity of individuals will not be encouraged because they have been limited to some standards. He sees this as a dangerous end because when such circumstance happens, people will eventually become accustomed to an