WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.980 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are doing 00:00:02.980 --> 00:00:05.120 something a little bit different. A little bit. 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:07.780 Usually we take a topic, you know, a concept 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:10.220 or an event, and we rip it open to see what makes 00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:14.039 it tick. But today we were looking at a man who 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:16.719 was, well, he was quite literally designed to 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:19.600 be a machine. That's not an exaggeration either. 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:23.120 No, not at all. We're tackling a figure who the 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:25.859 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls, and 00:00:25.859 --> 00:00:28.850 I'm quoting here, the most influential English 00:00:28.850 --> 00:00:31.609 -speaking philologist of the 19th century. It's 00:00:31.609 --> 00:00:33.530 a massive title, but honestly, it might even 00:00:33.530 --> 00:00:35.609 be an understatement. I mean, if you look at 00:00:35.609 --> 00:00:38.229 the way modern democracies function, how we think 00:00:38.229 --> 00:00:40.289 about free scooch, how we argue about gender 00:00:40.289 --> 00:00:43.310 equality, even how we define happiness itself. 00:00:43.609 --> 00:00:46.229 It all traces back to this one guy. It all, in 00:00:46.229 --> 00:00:48.609 some way, comes back to John Stuart Mill. But 00:00:48.609 --> 00:00:50.469 the thing that hooked me, looking through all 00:00:50.469 --> 00:00:53.060 these sources, isn't just the philosophy, as 00:00:53.060 --> 00:00:56.100 fascinating as it is, it's the biography. I mean, 00:00:56.100 --> 00:00:58.640 we're about to unpack the life of a man who is 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:01.740 essentially bred in a lab to be a genius. Bred 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:03.899 in a lab is a very colorful way to put it, but 00:01:03.899 --> 00:01:06.040 it's really not far from the truth at all. And 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:08.459 because of that, he suffers this massive mental 00:01:08.459 --> 00:01:11.299 breakdown. He falls deeply in love with a married 00:01:11.299 --> 00:01:13.879 woman and, you know, waits over 20 years for 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:17.140 her. And somehow, through all of that... He manages 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:21.260 to reconcile cold, hard logic with deep human 00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:23.640 emotion. And that tension, that's really the 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:25.459 key to understanding him, isn't it? The tension 00:01:25.459 --> 00:01:28.640 between the rigid, almost brutal logic he was 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:31.379 raised on and the messy, complicated human emotion 00:01:31.379 --> 00:01:33.859 he discovered for himself. Exactly. So that's 00:01:33.859 --> 00:01:36.040 our mission today. We want to understand how 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:38.540 he navigated that tension. We want to see how 00:01:38.540 --> 00:01:41.000 his ideas on things like the harm principle, 00:01:41.260 --> 00:01:44.640 utilitarianism, and the subjection of women became, 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.689 well, the bedrock for modern liberal democracy. 00:01:47.989 --> 00:01:50.329 And we have a huge stack of sources to draw from. 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:52.750 It's really a remarkably well -documented life. 00:01:52.969 --> 00:01:55.010 It is. We're looking at extensive biographical 00:01:55.010 --> 00:01:57.230 records, his own autobiography, which, by the 00:01:57.230 --> 00:01:59.730 way, reads like a psychological thriller in some 00:01:59.730 --> 00:02:01.909 parts. It's incredible. It really is. And then, 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:03.829 of course, his major works. We're digging into 00:02:03.829 --> 00:02:06.430 on liberty, utilitarianism, the subjection of 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:08.389 women, and his principles of political economy. 00:02:08.689 --> 00:02:11.389 Plus, we have all these historical accounts of 00:02:11.389 --> 00:02:14.189 his political career, his personal life, his 00:02:14.189 --> 00:02:17.060 letters. It's a lot. It's a lot of ground to 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:20.300 cover, but it paints a very, very complete picture 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:23.860 of an incredibly complex figure. So let's just 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:27.159 jump right into it. Part one, the experiment. 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:29.479 And I really think we have to frame it that way. 00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:32.120 This was an experiment. Absolutely. And to do 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.699 that, we have to introduce the architects of 00:02:35.699 --> 00:02:38.840 this project. His father, James Mill, and his 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:40.960 father's best friend, the famous philosopher 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:43.909 Jeremy Bentham. These two are crucial context. 00:02:44.129 --> 00:02:45.810 You can't understand John Stuart Mill without 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:47.969 understanding them. James Mill was a Scottish 00:02:47.969 --> 00:02:51.610 philosopher, historian, a very serious, very 00:02:51.610 --> 00:02:54.129 intense, almost severe man. And Bentham, of course, 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:56.469 was the father of utilitarianism. Right. They 00:02:56.469 --> 00:02:58.250 were part of this group called the Philosophic 00:02:58.250 --> 00:03:00.129 Radicals. Radicals makes them sound like they 00:03:00.129 --> 00:03:02.610 were, you know, throwing Molotov cocktails, but 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:06.069 they were really incredibly intense nerds. Intellectual 00:03:06.069 --> 00:03:09.150 radicals for sure. They had a very specific and 00:03:09.150 --> 00:03:12.719 to them a very scientific worldview. The core 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:16.139 of it was utilitarianism, the idea that actions 00:03:16.139 --> 00:03:18.139 are right if they produce the greatest happiness 00:03:18.139 --> 00:03:19.900 for the greatest number of people. The greatest 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:21.740 good for the greatest number. We've all heard 00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:24.719 that. But they were also very rigid, very analytical. 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:28.340 They believed the human mind was a tabula rasa, 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:32.419 a blank slate. So nurture over nature. To the 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:35.060 absolute extreme. To the absolute extreme. They 00:03:35.060 --> 00:03:37.939 genuinely believed that if you controlled all 00:03:37.939 --> 00:03:40.000 the input, every single piece of information 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.479 a child received, you could perfectly control 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:45.379 the output. You could design a person. And they 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:47.180 decided that young John Stuart Mill was going 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:49.419 to be their vessel. He was the test subject. 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:52.439 He was. The goal, their explicit goal, was to 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:55.120 create a genius intellect, a successor who could 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.560 carry on the cause of utilitarianism after they 00:03:57.560 --> 00:03:59.560 died. So they designed a curriculum to do it. 00:04:00.330 --> 00:04:02.250 And when I saw the details of this curriculum 00:04:02.250 --> 00:04:04.090 in our notes, I actually laughed out loud. It 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:07.069 is completely absurd. It is staggering. It creates 00:04:07.069 --> 00:04:09.750 a sense of profound inadequacy in anyone who 00:04:09.750 --> 00:04:11.889 reads it, I think. OK, let's just list some of 00:04:11.889 --> 00:04:13.469 this because you really need to hear it to believe 00:04:13.469 --> 00:04:16.269 it. Yeah. He started learning ancient Greek at 00:04:16.269 --> 00:04:19.009 age three. Three years old. I was eating dirt 00:04:19.009 --> 00:04:21.129 at three. I was learning not to walk into walls. 00:04:21.310 --> 00:04:23.389 Right. And this wasn't just, you know, learning 00:04:23.389 --> 00:04:25.910 the Greek alphabet. This was intensive. By the 00:04:25.910 --> 00:04:28.339 time he was eight years old, he had read. all 00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:31.500 of Aesop's fables in the original Greek. Okay. 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:34.399 Xenophon's Anabasis, the whole of Herodotus. 00:04:34.819 --> 00:04:37.459 Herodotus at eight. That's thousands of pages 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:40.439 of dense ancient history. Yeah. And he wasn't 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:42.459 just reading them passively, was he? No, absolutely 00:04:42.459 --> 00:04:44.860 not. That wasn't the method. He had to recount 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:47.899 everything to his father. Every evening, they 00:04:47.899 --> 00:04:49.860 would go for a long walk, and John would have 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:52.379 to give a full, detailed report of what he had 00:04:52.379 --> 00:04:54.360 learned that day. His father would correct him, 00:04:54.420 --> 00:04:57.540 quiz him. It was relentless. And it wasn't just 00:04:57.540 --> 00:05:00.019 the humanities. He was doing arithmetic, physics, 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:03.800 astronomy, and history alongside all of this. 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:06.339 All at the same time. The notes say that by age 00:05:06.339 --> 00:05:09.100 eight, he was starting Latin. And by age 10, 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:12.300 he was reading Plato and Demosthenes with ease. 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:14.379 In the original Greek. In the original Greek. 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:16.279 I mean, at an age when most kids are reading 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:18.500 fairy tales, he's reading Plato's dialogues. 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:22.399 By 12, he's moving on to scholastic logic Aristotle. 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:25.759 And then political economy. He's studying Adam 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:28.660 Smith and David Ricardo. And Ricardo is such 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:30.660 an interesting figure here. David Ricardo was 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:33.040 one of the great classical economists and a close 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:36.459 friend of James Mill. So sources describe these 00:05:36.459 --> 00:05:39.420 walking seminars where Ricardo would invite the 00:05:39.420 --> 00:05:41.579 young boy, remember a 12 or 13 year old kid, 00:05:41.660 --> 00:05:44.240 to go for walks with him just to discuss political 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:47.199 economy. Can you just imagine that? You're 13. 00:05:47.339 --> 00:05:49.379 You're having a casual stroll with one of the 00:05:49.379 --> 00:05:52.379 most famous economists in history. And you're 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:55.930 debating what? The labor theory of value. The 00:05:55.930 --> 00:05:58.509 law of diminishing returns. It's mind -boggling. 00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:01.129 It certainly set him apart. But, and this is 00:06:01.129 --> 00:06:03.569 the crucial part, there is a huge cost to this. 00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:06.230 Of course. You mentioned he was shielded. His 00:06:06.230 --> 00:06:08.410 father deliberately kept him away from other 00:06:08.410 --> 00:06:10.629 children. He didn't have friends his own age. 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:13.370 He wasn't allowed to play games. He didn't have 00:06:13.370 --> 00:06:16.029 play at all, in the way we understand it. His 00:06:16.029 --> 00:06:18.149 only companions were his father and his younger 00:06:18.149 --> 00:06:20.269 siblings. And he wasn't just hanging out with 00:06:20.269 --> 00:06:23.670 his siblings. He was their teacher. That part 00:06:23.670 --> 00:06:26.879 is just... It's brutal. That's a crucial point. 00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:29.819 It was part of the system. As soon as John learned 00:06:29.819 --> 00:06:31.699 something, he was immediately tasked with teaching 00:06:31.699 --> 00:06:33.720 it to the younger children. So not only did he 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:35.779 have the pressure of learning it perfectly himself. 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:38.160 And the pressure of performing for his father 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:40.420 on those walks. He then had the pressure of having 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:42.899 to instruct his siblings. It was a high pressure 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:45.180 cooker environment from the second he woke up 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:47.319 to the second he went to sleep. He was a brain 00:06:47.319 --> 00:06:50.600 in a jar. A very, very well educated jar. But 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:53.500 still, he was built to be a reasoning machine. 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:56.660 And for a while, it worked. I mean, the experiment 00:06:56.660 --> 00:07:00.220 was, in a way, a success. He was a prodigy. He 00:07:00.220 --> 00:07:02.259 was publishing in academic journals in his late 00:07:02.259 --> 00:07:05.160 teens. He was editing Bentham's massive, almost 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:08.279 unreadable manuscripts. But then, almost inevitably, 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:11.199 the machine broke. The crash. The great mental 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:14.519 crisis of 1826. He was 20 years old. This part 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:17.980 of the autobiography is so raw and so... Relatable, 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:20.860 actually, despite his bizarre upbringing. He's 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:23.339 grinding away. He's working for the cause of 00:07:23.339 --> 00:07:26.439 utilitarianism, promoting reform. And then suddenly 00:07:26.439 --> 00:07:29.220 he just hits a wall. He describes it as a dull 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:32.240 state of nerves. The joy just drains out of everything. 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:34.399 And he asked himself this one pivotal question. 00:07:34.600 --> 00:07:37.300 I think this is such a haunting, powerful moment. 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:39.600 It is the turning point of his entire life and 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:42.420 his entire philosophy. He asked himself, and 00:07:42.420 --> 00:07:44.079 you can feel the weight of it when you read it, 00:07:44.180 --> 00:07:47.160 if all your objects in life were realized, if 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:49.519 all the changes in institutions and opinions 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:52.240 which you are looking forward to could be completely 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:54.860 affected at this very instant, would this be 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:57.079 a great joy and happiness to you? And his heart. 00:07:57.100 --> 00:08:00.500 heart just sank. The answer was no. An emphatic 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:04.040 no. He says, an irrepressible self -consciousness 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:07.060 distinctly answered no. That is just devastating. 00:08:07.339 --> 00:08:09.500 It's the ultimate existential crisis, isn't it? 00:08:09.540 --> 00:08:12.339 He realized that even if he won, even if he achieved 00:08:12.339 --> 00:08:14.459 everything he'd been trained his entire life 00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:17.100 to achieve, if he fixed the world exactly how 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:19.420 his dad wanted, he wouldn't feel a thing. His 00:08:19.420 --> 00:08:22.170 purpose just evaporated. It completely dismantled 00:08:22.170 --> 00:08:24.930 him. He realized that his education had given 00:08:24.930 --> 00:08:27.949 him these incredible intellectual tools. He could 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:29.949 analyze, he could argue, he could deconstruct 00:08:29.949 --> 00:08:32.370 anything, but it had completely neglected the 00:08:32.370 --> 00:08:34.809 education of his feelings. He said his habit 00:08:34.809 --> 00:08:37.269 of analysis had become a perpetual worm at the 00:08:37.269 --> 00:08:39.769 root of his passions. He had no emotional connection 00:08:39.769 --> 00:08:42.389 to the work. He was, as he feared, just a machine. 00:08:42.649 --> 00:08:45.830 And he fell into a deep, deep depression. For 00:08:45.830 --> 00:08:48.360 months. He writes about contemplating suicide. 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:50.600 He felt like he had nothing left to live for. 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:55.820 But then, slowly, he found a cure. And it wasn't 00:08:55.820 --> 00:08:57.919 more logic. It wasn't a better argument. No, 00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:59.799 it was the last thing his father would have prescribed. 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:02.240 It was poetry, specifically the poetry of William 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.980 Wordsworth. Which is so funny because his dad 00:09:04.980 --> 00:09:07.720 and Bentham, they basically thought poetry was 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:10.340 nonsense, right? They viewed it as misrepresentation. 00:09:10.730 --> 00:09:12.970 If a statement wasn't factually, literally precise, 00:09:13.129 --> 00:09:15.629 it was basically a form of lying. It served no 00:09:15.629 --> 00:09:18.409 utility. But Mill is reading Wordsworth and he 00:09:18.409 --> 00:09:20.830 has this epiphany. He reads these poems about 00:09:20.830 --> 00:09:23.529 natural beauty, about common human feelings, 00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.950 and he finds himself moved. He realizes that 00:09:26.950 --> 00:09:29.929 beauty can generate compassion. It can stimulate 00:09:29.929 --> 00:09:32.669 joy. It wasn't just about calculating utility. 00:09:33.029 --> 00:09:36.470 It was about feeling something. He realized feelings 00:09:36.470 --> 00:09:39.210 were the source of all value. So emotion wasn't 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:42.549 a weakness or a bug in the system. It was the 00:09:42.549 --> 00:09:45.009 fuel. It was the whole point. Exactly. And that 00:09:45.009 --> 00:09:47.350 was a massive revolutionary shift for him. It 00:09:47.350 --> 00:09:50.590 moved him away from that cold, abstract, almost 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:53.690 mathematical benthamite calculation toward a 00:09:53.690 --> 00:09:56.110 much more human -centric worldview. And out of 00:09:56.110 --> 00:09:58.409 this depression, he develops an insight about 00:09:58.409 --> 00:10:00.549 happiness that I think is just brilliant. He 00:10:00.549 --> 00:10:03.649 calls it the paradox of hedonism. It's such a 00:10:03.649 --> 00:10:06.590 profound observation. So what is that? He realized 00:10:06.590 --> 00:10:09.269 that if you consciously ask yourself, am I happy, 00:10:09.409 --> 00:10:12.450 you immediately stop being happy. The very act 00:10:12.450 --> 00:10:14.690 of scrutinizing the feeling makes it disappear. 00:10:14.970 --> 00:10:16.750 Because you're analyzing it instead of just feeling 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:17.970 it. You're back in your head. You're back in 00:10:17.970 --> 00:10:20.570 your head. Exactly. So he concluded that happiness 00:10:20.570 --> 00:10:23.090 is best achieved en passant, in passing. You 00:10:23.090 --> 00:10:25.549 don't aim for happiness directly. You sort of 00:10:25.549 --> 00:10:28.350 sneak up on it. Yeah. You sneak up on it. You 00:10:28.350 --> 00:10:30.590 aim for some other object, the improvement of 00:10:30.590 --> 00:10:33.909 mankind, a creative pursuit, the happiness of 00:10:33.909 --> 00:10:36.889 others. And then, as he beautifully puts it, 00:10:37.029 --> 00:10:40.350 you inhale happiness with the air you breathe. 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:42.980 That is such a modern piece of advice. I mean, 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:44.279 that's what every therapist will tell you today. 00:10:44.419 --> 00:10:47.019 Stop chasing the idea of happiness and just go 00:10:47.019 --> 00:10:49.139 do meaningful things. It completely saved his 00:10:49.139 --> 00:10:51.639 life. And this emotional awakening, this new 00:10:51.639 --> 00:10:54.379 understanding of the inner life, it really set 00:10:54.379 --> 00:10:57.220 the stage for the next major chapter of his life, 00:10:57.320 --> 00:10:59.940 which involves the person who would become arguably 00:10:59.940 --> 00:11:02.559 the most important influence on his work. Harriet 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:05.379 Taylor. Harriet Taylor. So part two, the muse 00:11:05.379 --> 00:11:08.700 and the partner. It's 1830. Mill is around 24, 00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:12.259 25. He's coming out of this crisis. And he meets 00:11:12.259 --> 00:11:14.980 Harriet Taylor at a dinner party. And by all 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:17.039 accounts, the connection was immediate and electric. 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:19.740 She was brilliant. She was passionate. She was 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.000 radical in her thinking. She was everything he 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.000 was starting to realize he needed. And there's 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.279 just one small problem. She's married. Right. 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:28.899 Not just married. She has a husband, John Taylor, 00:11:29.059 --> 00:11:32.080 and children. But Mill and Harriet hit it off 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.320 immediately. They have this intense intellectual 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:38.600 and emotional connection. And thus begins one 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:41.620 of the most unusual and for its time scandalous 00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:44.299 relationships in Victorian history. It lasted 00:11:44.299 --> 00:11:47.759 for 21 years before they could marry. For two 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:50.200 decades, they maintained what they called an 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:53.220 intimate friendship. Which sounds like a euphemism, 00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:55.740 but it probably wasn't. The general historical 00:11:55.740 --> 00:11:58.240 consensus, based on their letters and everything 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:00.240 we know, is that the relationship was chaste 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:02.820 until her husband died. But they were constantly 00:12:02.820 --> 00:12:05.000 together. They were writing together, talking, 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.039 traveling together whenever they could. It was 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:08.759 a partnership in every way but the physical. 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:11.659 So how did the husband handle this? I mean, in 00:12:11.659 --> 00:12:14.000 Victorian England, that sounds like a recipe 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.779 for a duel. John Taylor seems to have been an 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:19.279 incredibly tolerant, if long -suffering man. 00:12:19.419 --> 00:12:21.779 He was a successful pharmacist, a decent person, 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:24.720 but he just wasn't Harriet's intellectual equal, 00:12:24.799 --> 00:12:27.279 and he seemed to know it. He accepted that Mill 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:29.980 provided a kind of mental and emotional companionship 00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:32.320 that he couldn't. It seems so. It was certainly 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:34.440 an awkward triangle. They would have dinner together, 00:12:34.659 --> 00:12:37.379 the three of them. It was very strange, but they 00:12:37.379 --> 00:12:40.019 made it work in their own way for two decades. 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:42.120 But we really need to clarify something here, 00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:44.840 because history, especially older biographies, 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:47.899 often writes Harriet off as just the love interest 00:12:47.899 --> 00:12:51.100 or the muse. But the source material... especially 00:12:51.100 --> 00:12:54.240 Mill's own writing, suggests she was way, way 00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:56.580 more than that. Oh, absolutely. We have to debunk 00:12:56.580 --> 00:12:59.340 the great man myth here. Mill himself credited 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:02.340 her constantly and lavishly. He called her mind 00:13:02.340 --> 00:13:04.899 a perfect instrument and considered her the most 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:07.559 eminently qualified of all the people he knew, 00:13:07.659 --> 00:13:09.840 including all the famous male thinkers of his 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:12.519 day. He actually said that in many cases he was 00:13:12.519 --> 00:13:15.649 just the amanuensis, which is basically a fancy 00:13:15.649 --> 00:13:17.610 word for a secretary writing down her ideas. 00:13:17.809 --> 00:13:20.649 He did. He saw their work as a complete collaboration, 00:13:21.110 --> 00:13:23.009 especially when it came to their most radical 00:13:23.009 --> 00:13:26.970 ideas on women's rights, on socialism. So specific 00:13:26.970 --> 00:13:29.309 works like The Subjection of Women and his most 00:13:29.309 --> 00:13:31.590 famous book on liberty, which was published shortly 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:33.940 after her death. He said those were joint productions. 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:36.799 The socialist chapters of his Principles of Political 00:13:36.799 --> 00:13:40.159 Economy, he says those were her influence. She 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:42.820 pushed him. She took his logical framework and 00:13:42.820 --> 00:13:45.779 filled it with this human urgency. She consistently 00:13:45.779 --> 00:13:48.960 made him more radical. They finally married in 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:51.840 1851, two years after her first husband, John 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:54.879 Taylor, died of cancer. And this is where we 00:13:54.879 --> 00:13:57.200 see Mel putting his money where his mouth is 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:59.399 when it comes to women's rights. He writes a 00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:01.340 marriage contract. Which was an extraordinary 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:03.519 thing to do. You have to remember, under Victorian 00:14:03.519 --> 00:14:06.320 law, when a woman married, she suffered what 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:08.830 was called civil death. Civil death. That's a 00:14:08.830 --> 00:14:11.129 chilling term. It is. She essentially became 00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:13.169 the legal property of her husband. Her entire 00:14:13.169 --> 00:14:16.409 legal identity was subsumed by his. She couldn't 00:14:16.409 --> 00:14:18.450 own property in her own name. She couldn't sign 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:21.250 contracts. She had no rights over her own children. 00:14:21.570 --> 00:14:24.789 So Mill writes this formal private document before 00:14:24.789 --> 00:14:27.769 they marry, basically saying, I refuse to be 00:14:27.769 --> 00:14:31.049 a tyrant. Exactly. He wrote a formal protest 00:14:31.049 --> 00:14:34.870 against the... odious marriage laws. He repudiated 00:14:34.870 --> 00:14:37.230 all the legal rights the law automatically gave 00:14:37.230 --> 00:14:40.269 him over her person and her property. He promised 00:14:40.269 --> 00:14:42.490 her absolute freedom of action, complete equality 00:14:42.490 --> 00:14:45.409 in the partnership. He refused to be a master 00:14:45.409 --> 00:14:48.049 in the eyes of the law, even if the law insisted 00:14:48.049 --> 00:14:51.330 on it. That is incredible allyship for 1851. 00:14:51.529 --> 00:14:54.230 But the story is just so tragic. They finally 00:14:54.230 --> 00:14:56.210 get to be together after waiting for 20 years. 00:14:56.350 --> 00:14:59.100 And she dies only seven years later. It's heartbreaking. 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:02.440 In 1858, they're traveling through France. She 00:15:02.440 --> 00:15:05.320 contracts a respiratory illness, likely tuberculosis, 00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:08.940 and dies suddenly in Avignon. It completely devastated 00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:11.399 him. He wrote that the spring of his life was 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:13.740 broken. He was absolutely broken. He bought a 00:15:13.740 --> 00:15:15.980 house in Avignon right across the road from the 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:18.080 cemetery where she was buried, just so he could 00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:20.440 be close to her grave. He did. He furnished it 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:22.179 with the furniture from the hotel room where 00:15:22.179 --> 00:15:24.649 she died. He spent a huge portion of his remaining 00:15:24.649 --> 00:15:26.850 life there, just writing and looking out the 00:15:26.850 --> 00:15:29.690 window at her grave. But in a way, her death 00:15:29.690 --> 00:15:31.909 spurred him to publish the works they had developed 00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:35.490 together. On Liberty, which came out in 1859, 00:15:35.570 --> 00:15:38.210 just a year later, is really a testament to their 00:15:38.210 --> 00:15:41.629 shared vision. He dedicated it to her. The dedication 00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:44.129 is beautiful and heartbreaking. He calls her 00:15:44.129 --> 00:15:47.549 the inspirer and in part the author of all that 00:15:47.549 --> 00:15:50.029 is best in my writings. Which brings us perfectly 00:15:50.029 --> 00:15:53.779 to part three. The Philosophy of Freedom on Liberty 00:15:53.779 --> 00:15:57.100 is probably his most famous, most enduring work. 00:15:57.299 --> 00:15:59.799 It's a short book, but it packs an incredible 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:03.480 punch. And it tackles this core, eternal struggle 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:06.100 in politics. The struggle between liberty and 00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:08.259 authority. And here's the nuance that people 00:16:08.259 --> 00:16:10.820 often miss. Mill wasn't just worried about the 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:12.779 government clamping down on you. He wasn't just 00:16:12.779 --> 00:16:14.620 worried about a tyrannical king or a corrupt 00:16:14.620 --> 00:16:16.740 parliament. He was worried about something he 00:16:16.740 --> 00:16:18.559 thought was much more insidious. He was worried 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:20.929 about... Social tyranny. The tyranny of the majority. 00:16:21.230 --> 00:16:23.769 Exactly. Which feels incredibly relevant in the 00:16:23.769 --> 00:16:26.250 age of social media, cancel culture, all of that. 00:16:26.389 --> 00:16:28.730 So what did he mean by that exactly? How is society 00:16:28.730 --> 00:16:31.870 a tyrant? He argued that society can practice 00:16:31.870 --> 00:16:34.970 a tyranny more formidable than many kinds of 00:16:34.970 --> 00:16:37.169 political oppression because it doesn't just 00:16:37.169 --> 00:16:40.149 punish your body. It enslaves the soul itself. 00:16:40.490 --> 00:16:43.470 Wow. It isn't about formal laws. It's about the 00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:45.590 crushing pressure to conform. It's about public 00:16:45.590 --> 00:16:49.350 opinion. It's about ostracization. shaming the 00:16:49.350 --> 00:16:52.529 collective weight of what everyone thinks, which 00:16:52.529 --> 00:16:54.950 can crush an individual's ability to be different. 00:16:55.110 --> 00:16:57.490 So even if the law says you're free to do something, 00:16:57.570 --> 00:16:59.389 if you know that doing it will make you a social 00:16:59.389 --> 00:17:01.970 outcast, will get you fired from your job, will 00:17:01.970 --> 00:17:04.380 make your neighbors hate you. You're not really 00:17:04.380 --> 00:17:06.920 free. They're not. Your soul is enslaved, as 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:09.640 he puts it. And Mill believed that individuality, 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:12.519 even eccentricity, was absolutely essential for 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:14.940 human progress. If everyone thinks the same, 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.799 if everyone lives the same, society stagnates. 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.400 We need the outliers, the nonconformists, the 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:22.660 people who are willing to experiment with different 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:25.079 ways of living. So to protect this space for 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:27.640 individuality, he establishes the central pillar 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.259 of the entire book, the harm principle. This 00:17:30.259 --> 00:17:32.740 is his one simple rule for when society can interfere. 00:17:33.230 --> 00:17:36.430 It is a very simple but incredibly powerful rule. 00:17:36.630 --> 00:17:39.410 The harm principle states that, and I'm paraphrasing 00:17:39.410 --> 00:17:42.369 slightly, the only purpose for which power can 00:17:42.369 --> 00:17:44.910 be rightfully exercised over any member of a 00:17:44.910 --> 00:17:47.769 civilized community against his will is to prevent 00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:50.269 harm to others. To prevent harm to others. Let's 00:17:50.269 --> 00:17:52.049 break that down because everything hinges on 00:17:52.049 --> 00:17:54.269 that phrase. It does. So can I stop you from 00:17:54.269 --> 00:17:56.309 doing something because it's bad for you? Like 00:17:56.309 --> 00:17:59.750 if I see you smoking or making a really bad financial 00:17:59.750 --> 00:18:03.190 decision. Absolutely not. That is the crucial 00:18:03.190 --> 00:18:06.410 anti -paternalism stance. He says your own good, 00:18:06.609 --> 00:18:09.529 whether it's physical or moral, is not a sufficient 00:18:09.529 --> 00:18:12.250 warrant for interference. You cannot force someone 00:18:12.250 --> 00:18:14.470 to do something or not do something just because 00:18:14.470 --> 00:18:16.690 you think it will make them happier or wiser 00:18:16.690 --> 00:18:19.529 or a better person. He has that great line over 00:18:19.529 --> 00:18:22.630 himself, over his own body and mind. The individual 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:25.329 is sovereign. Precisely. As long as you are not 00:18:25.329 --> 00:18:27.630 hurting anyone else, society needs to back off. 00:18:27.690 --> 00:18:29.630 Your life, your choices, your mistakes are your 00:18:29.630 --> 00:18:32.559 own business. But what counts as harm? That's 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:34.680 the million -dollar question, isn't it? If my 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:37.500 neighbor's lifestyle offends my religious beliefs, 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:40.779 is that harm? If you say something that hurts 00:18:40.779 --> 00:18:43.740 my feelings, is that harm? Mill would say no 00:18:43.740 --> 00:18:46.960 to both of those. Offense is not harm. Disgust 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:50.470 is not harm. Harm, for Mill, generally involves 00:18:50.470 --> 00:18:53.109 a direct violation of a distinct and assignable 00:18:53.109 --> 00:18:56.450 obligation or right. So things like violence, 00:18:56.670 --> 00:19:00.509 theft, fraud. He sets a very high bar for interference 00:19:00.509 --> 00:19:03.170 because he believes the cost of suppressing liberty 00:19:03.170 --> 00:19:05.829 is almost always higher than the cost of allowing 00:19:05.829 --> 00:19:08.670 someone to make a mistake. Now, he does carve 00:19:08.670 --> 00:19:10.150 out a couple of exceptions which are important. 00:19:10.490 --> 00:19:13.130 He says this principle doesn't apply to children. 00:19:13.329 --> 00:19:15.420 Right. Jitter need protection. They haven't reached 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:17.660 maturity. So paternalism is appropriate there. 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:19.539 And this is the controversial one we'll have 00:19:19.539 --> 00:19:21.400 to come back to. Yeah. He says it doesn't apply 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:24.539 to backward states of society. The colonial caveat. 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:26.299 Yeah, we will definitely unpack that later. It's 00:19:26.299 --> 00:19:28.359 a huge asterisk on the whole thing. It is. But 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:31.019 sticking with the principle for a second, this 00:19:31.019 --> 00:19:33.299 naturally leads to his defense of free speech. 00:19:34.089 --> 00:19:37.089 And Mill is an absolute radical here. He doesn't 00:19:37.089 --> 00:19:39.230 just say, oh, we should tolerate opinions we 00:19:39.230 --> 00:19:42.069 don't like. He says we need to protect and even 00:19:42.069 --> 00:19:45.069 encourage the opinions we find abhorrent, even 00:19:45.069 --> 00:19:47.690 false opinions. This is one of his most brilliant 00:19:47.690 --> 00:19:51.390 and enduring arguments. He gives three main reasons 00:19:51.390 --> 00:19:54.589 why we must never, ever silence an opinion, no 00:19:54.589 --> 00:19:56.309 matter how wrong we think it is. OK, what's the 00:19:56.309 --> 00:19:58.470 first one? First, the silenced opinion might 00:19:58.470 --> 00:20:01.609 actually be true. Right. And to deny that possibility. 00:20:02.269 --> 00:20:05.930 is to assume our own infallibility. If we ban 00:20:05.930 --> 00:20:09.009 an idea, we are effectively saying, I am God. 00:20:09.190 --> 00:20:11.029 I am absolutely certain that I am right and this 00:20:11.029 --> 00:20:13.190 idea is wrong and there's zero chance I'm mistaken. 00:20:13.450 --> 00:20:15.829 And history is just one long story of humanity 00:20:15.829 --> 00:20:17.930 being wrong about things it was certain about. 00:20:18.109 --> 00:20:20.490 We persecuted Galileo for saying the earth moved. 00:20:20.809 --> 00:20:22.670 We killed Socrates for corrupting the youth. 00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:24.869 We're very, very often wrong. Okay, that makes 00:20:24.869 --> 00:20:27.269 sense. What's the second argument? The second 00:20:27.269 --> 00:20:29.450 is that even if the silenced opinion is false, 00:20:29.630 --> 00:20:32.460 it might contain a portion of the truth. He says 00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:35.019 that popular or received opinions are rarely 00:20:35.019 --> 00:20:36.960 the whole truth. They're usually just part of 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.660 it. And we need the opposing erroneous view to 00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:43.440 supply the rest of the truth. So the truth is 00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:45.319 often found somewhere in the collision of two 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:48.420 opposing ideas. Exactly. The full picture emerges 00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:50.920 from the debate. All right. And the third argument. 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:53.759 This is the one that I find the most mind bending. 00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:56.900 it's the most powerful he says that even if the 00:20:56.900 --> 00:20:59.700 received opinion is the whole truth and the dissenting 00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:02.900 opinion is completely false we still need that 00:21:02.900 --> 00:21:05.259 false opinion we must allow it to be debated 00:21:05.259 --> 00:21:08.579 vigorously but why why do we need lies if we 00:21:08.579 --> 00:21:10.839 already have the truth because truth needs to 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:13.529 be challenged to stay alive If a truth is never 00:21:13.529 --> 00:21:16.049 debated, never has to defend itself against error, 00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:19.630 it becomes what Mill calls a dead dogma. A dead 00:21:19.630 --> 00:21:21.750 dogma. We just repeat the words like a parrot 00:21:21.750 --> 00:21:23.849 without any real understanding of why it's true. 00:21:23.990 --> 00:21:26.630 The meaning is lost. The conflict with an error 00:21:26.630 --> 00:21:28.789 is what forces us to understand the grounds of 00:21:28.789 --> 00:21:31.970 our own beliefs. It keeps the truth vital and 00:21:31.970 --> 00:21:34.450 meaningful. So the crazy person yelling on the 00:21:34.450 --> 00:21:36.390 street corner is actually performing a public 00:21:36.390 --> 00:21:39.509 service by forcing me to articulate why I disagree 00:21:39.509 --> 00:21:42.950 with him. In Mill's view, yes. A vital public 00:21:42.950 --> 00:21:46.710 service. However, and this is crucial, there 00:21:46.710 --> 00:21:49.750 is a limit. Speech is not absolutely protected. 00:21:49.890 --> 00:21:51.789 And this is where he gives the famous corn dealer 00:21:51.789 --> 00:21:54.470 example. I love this example. It's so wonderfully 00:21:54.470 --> 00:21:57.789 specific and British. It is. So Mill says you 00:21:57.789 --> 00:22:00.150 are perfectly free to write an editorial in a 00:22:00.150 --> 00:22:02.769 newspaper arguing that corn dealers are starvers 00:22:02.769 --> 00:22:05.650 of the poor. That's an opinion on economics or 00:22:05.650 --> 00:22:08.289 social policy. It's protected speech. OK, that's 00:22:08.289 --> 00:22:10.829 fine. But if you go to the house of a specific 00:22:10.829 --> 00:22:14.130 corn dealer where an angry, hungry mob has gathered 00:22:14.130 --> 00:22:16.690 with pitchforks and you wave a placard with those 00:22:16.690 --> 00:22:19.329 same words on it, that is no longer protected 00:22:19.329 --> 00:22:21.670 speech. Because the context has changed everything. 00:22:21.809 --> 00:22:24.410 It's no longer a contribution to a debate. It's 00:22:24.410 --> 00:22:27.309 an instigation to a mischievous act. It's incitement 00:22:27.309 --> 00:22:29.730 to violence. The connection between the speech 00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:32.789 and the harm, the riot, is direct and immediate. 00:22:32.910 --> 00:22:35.170 It's not an argument. It's a weapon. And that 00:22:35.170 --> 00:22:38.690 prefigures the clear and present danger legal 00:22:38.690 --> 00:22:41.930 standard that we use in law today. It's the direct 00:22:41.930 --> 00:22:44.670 ancestor of it. It's not about the content of 00:22:44.670 --> 00:22:47.650 the words themselves, but the context, the manner, 00:22:47.750 --> 00:22:50.509 and the immediate predictable consequence. That's 00:22:50.509 --> 00:22:52.730 a crucial distinction. Okay, so that's liberty. 00:22:53.049 --> 00:22:55.430 But what is the goal of all this liberty? For 00:22:55.430 --> 00:22:58.710 Mill... It's still happiness. But he had to update 00:22:58.710 --> 00:23:00.890 the family business, so to speak. He had to rescue 00:23:00.890 --> 00:23:03.950 utilitarianism from his mentors. He did. So, 00:23:04.029 --> 00:23:07.630 part four, redefining happiness. The basic foundation 00:23:07.630 --> 00:23:09.730 of utilitarianism remained the same for him. 00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:12.569 Actions are right in proportion as they tend 00:23:12.569 --> 00:23:15.329 to promote happiness, and wrong as they produce 00:23:15.329 --> 00:23:17.369 the reverse. And happiness is defined as pleasure 00:23:17.369 --> 00:23:20.430 in the absence of pain. Right. But you have to 00:23:20.430 --> 00:23:23.019 recall that Jeremy Bentham had a very... crude 00:23:23.019 --> 00:23:25.460 quantitative view of this. This is the infamous 00:23:25.460 --> 00:23:28.579 pushpin is as good as poetry line. Exactly. Pushpin 00:23:28.579 --> 00:23:31.740 was a simple child's game like tiddlywinks. Bentham's 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:33.960 point was that if an activity produces the same 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:36.559 quantity of simple pleasure, then it is just 00:23:36.559 --> 00:23:39.420 as good as any other activity. Playing a dumb 00:23:39.420 --> 00:23:41.680 game is just as valuable as reading Shakespeare 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:44.059 or listening to Mozart if the pleasure units 00:23:44.059 --> 00:23:46.759 are equal. And Mill, having had that breakdown 00:23:46.759 --> 00:23:49.500 and discovered the profound value of Wordsworth's 00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:51.680 poetry, just couldn't accept that. He couldn't. 00:23:51.690 --> 00:23:54.589 it struck him as a doctrine worthy only of swine 00:23:54.589 --> 00:23:57.569 so he introduces a revolutionary new concept 00:23:57.569 --> 00:24:01.609 into utilitarianism the idea of quality of pleasure 00:24:01.609 --> 00:24:04.880 some pleasures are just It's better than others. 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:07.819 Inherently better. He argues that there are higher 00:24:07.819 --> 00:24:09.980 and lower pleasures. The pleasures of the intellect, 00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:12.519 of the feelings and imagination and of the moral 00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:14.940 sentiments are intrinsically superior to the 00:24:14.940 --> 00:24:17.180 pleasures of mere physical sensation. And this 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:19.920 leads to my absolute favorite quote of his. It's 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:23.160 so wonderfully elitist, but also so true. It 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:25.519 is better to be a human being dissatisfied than 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:28.819 a pig satisfied. Better to be Socrates dissatisfied 00:24:28.819 --> 00:24:31.859 than a fool satisfied. It is a devastating put 00:24:31.859 --> 00:24:33.599 down, but it's also a profound philosophical 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:36.240 stance. He's saying there's a hierarchy of being. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:38.680 It's better to have a complex, developed mind 00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:41.039 that can appreciate art and truth and justice, 00:24:41.180 --> 00:24:43.559 even if that mind comes with anxiety and existential 00:24:43.559 --> 00:24:46.720 dread, than to be a simple, happy animal wallowing 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.180 in the mud. But how do you prove that? That's 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:51.200 the philosophical challenge, isn't it? How do 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:54.259 you prove that poetry is objectively better than 00:24:54.259 --> 00:24:57.279 pushpin? Mill proposes what he calls the competent 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:01.200 judge test. It's very clever, he says. Ask the 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:03.539 people who have experienced both types of pleasure. 00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:06.559 Okay, so you find someone who has read... Shakespeare 00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:10.059 and played pushpin. Exactly. And he argues that 00:25:10.059 --> 00:25:12.380 any person who is competently acquainted with 00:25:12.380 --> 00:25:15.039 both will invariably give a marked preference 00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:17.519 to the higher pleasure. They will prefer the 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:20.079 manner of existence which employs their higher 00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:22.480 faculties. Even if that higher pleasure comes 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:25.640 with more struggle or dissatisfaction? Even then. 00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:28.380 He says no intelligent human being would consent 00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:31.099 to be a fool. No instructed person would be an 00:25:31.099 --> 00:25:33.640 ignoramus, even if they were persuaded that the 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:36.480 fool or the ignoramus is better satisfied with 00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:38.460 his lot than they are with theirs. That's about 00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:41.240 dignity, really. It is. It saves utilitarianism 00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:43.460 from being a simple philosophy for hedonists. 00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:46.740 It transforms it into a philosophy about human 00:25:46.740 --> 00:25:49.460 flourishing, about aspiring to our higher modes 00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:52.039 of existence. Speaking of flourishing, we cannot 00:25:52.039 --> 00:25:54.279 talk about Mill without diving deep into part 00:25:54.279 --> 00:25:58.309 five. Women's rights. We've mentioned Harriet 00:25:58.309 --> 00:26:01.490 Taylor's immense influence here, but the work 00:26:01.490 --> 00:26:03.950 they produced together, the subjection of women, 00:26:04.089 --> 00:26:07.730 was just explosive for its time in 1869. Absolutely 00:26:07.730 --> 00:26:09.670 explosive. You have to remember the context. 00:26:09.730 --> 00:26:12.009 We mentioned he was only the second member of 00:26:12.009 --> 00:26:14.329 parliament ever to formally call for women's 00:26:14.329 --> 00:26:16.950 suffrage. But this book went so much further 00:26:16.950 --> 00:26:19.289 than just the right to vote. He attacks the entire 00:26:19.289 --> 00:26:21.750 legal and social structure of gender relations. 00:26:22.069 --> 00:26:25.049 The very first sentence of the book. is a declaration 00:26:25.049 --> 00:26:27.910 of war he says the principle which regulates 00:26:27.910 --> 00:26:30.369 the existing social relations between the sexes 00:26:30.369 --> 00:26:33.609 is wrong in itself and now one of the chief hindrances 00:26:33.609 --> 00:26:36.230 to human improvement he doesn't pull any punches 00:26:36.230 --> 00:26:38.809 he compares the position of married women to 00:26:38.809 --> 00:26:41.329 that of slaves he does and he's careful to say 00:26:41.329 --> 00:26:43.430 he's using the term rhetorically in some ways 00:26:43.430 --> 00:26:46.549 but also in a very real legal sense the lack 00:26:46.549 --> 00:26:48.849 of autonomy the inability to own property the 00:26:48.849 --> 00:26:50.869 lack of rights over one's own body and children 00:26:50.869 --> 00:26:54.079 he saw it as the last women of the ancient law 00:26:54.079 --> 00:26:57.140 of the strongest. And I know the standard argument 00:26:57.140 --> 00:26:59.200 against this back then and sometimes even today 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:02.380 was, but it's natural. Women are naturally more 00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:05.339 nurturing or subservient or naturally better 00:27:05.339 --> 00:27:09.539 at domestic tasks. absolutely destroys that argument. 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:11.720 He says we have no idea what female nature is 00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:13.720 because we have never seen it in a free state. 00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:17.519 He argues that what society calls nature is actually 00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:20.779 a completely artificial construct, the result 00:27:20.779 --> 00:27:23.119 of centuries of forced repression and a total 00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.980 lack of education and opportunity. He uses that 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:28.619 great analogy, right, about the tree. He does. 00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:31.019 He says you can't take a tree, grow it in a hothouse, 00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:33.299 bend it out of shape, and then claim that its 00:27:33.299 --> 00:27:35.960 stunted form is its natural state. You have to 00:27:35.960 --> 00:27:37.789 see what it becomes when it's... allowed to grow 00:27:37.789 --> 00:27:40.430 freely in the open air. So until women have the 00:27:40.430 --> 00:27:42.529 exact same opportunities, the same education, 00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:45.789 the same freedoms as men, any talk of their nature 00:27:45.789 --> 00:27:48.430 is just speculation used to justify oppression. 00:27:49.049 --> 00:27:52.170 Precisely. And he also brings in the classic 00:27:52.170 --> 00:27:55.869 utilitarian economic argument. He says, keeping 00:27:55.869 --> 00:27:57.910 half the human race in a state of subordination 00:27:57.910 --> 00:28:01.410 is a massive economic inefficiency. We are literally 00:28:01.410 --> 00:28:03.630 wasting half of the world's available talent. 00:28:03.809 --> 00:28:06.349 It's a drag on all human progress. It's just 00:28:06.349 --> 00:28:09.750 logic and justice hand in hand. Now, speaking 00:28:09.750 --> 00:28:12.589 of economics, this brings us to a really surprising 00:28:12.589 --> 00:28:16.829 part of his thought. Part six, economics, socialism 00:28:16.829 --> 00:28:19.900 and the environment. His economic views are fascinating 00:28:19.900 --> 00:28:22.400 because they evolve so much over his life. He 00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:24.920 starts out as a very conventional, classical 00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:27.880 free market economist, right? He's the intellectual 00:28:27.880 --> 00:28:30.359 heir to Adam Smith and his friend David Ricardo. 00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:33.039 Laissez -faire capitalism. Pretty much. But as 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:35.160 he gets older, and again, this is almost certainly 00:28:35.160 --> 00:28:37.920 Harriet Taylor's influence pushing him, he drifts 00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:40.039 much further to the left toward what we would 00:28:40.039 --> 00:28:42.660 today call market socialism. Market socialism. 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:44.680 Unpack that term for us. Well, he didn't want 00:28:44.680 --> 00:28:46.480 the state to run everything. He was a champion 00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:48.839 of liberty, so he hated... the idea of a top 00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:50.740 -down command economy. He thought it would kill 00:28:50.740 --> 00:28:53.079 innovation and freedom. So not Soviet -style 00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:56.900 communism. Definitely not that. No. But he also 00:28:56.900 --> 00:29:00.140 came to despise the wage system of capitalism. 00:29:00.539 --> 00:29:03.319 He didn't like the master -servant dynamic, where 00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:06.180 one person or group owns the capital and everyone 00:29:06.180 --> 00:29:08.700 else just rents their labor to them for a wage. 00:29:09.019 --> 00:29:12.000 He saw it as a transitional phase. So what was 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:14.240 the solution? What was the next phase? Cooperatives. 00:29:14.750 --> 00:29:17.109 He envisioned a future where the wage system 00:29:17.109 --> 00:29:19.589 would be gradually abolished and replaced by 00:29:19.589 --> 00:29:22.230 worker owned associations. Oh, democracy in the 00:29:22.230 --> 00:29:24.509 workplace. Exactly. The workers in a factory 00:29:24.509 --> 00:29:26.990 or a farm would collectively own the capital 00:29:26.990 --> 00:29:29.650 and they would elect their own managers from 00:29:29.650 --> 00:29:31.730 among themselves. They would share in the profits. 00:29:31.809 --> 00:29:33.990 So you still have competition between these different 00:29:33.990 --> 00:29:36.410 cooperative firms in the marketplace. Yes. You 00:29:36.410 --> 00:29:38.710 preserve the efficiency and innovation of the 00:29:38.710 --> 00:29:41.869 market. But you end the fundamental class division 00:29:41.869 --> 00:29:44.890 between capitalists and laborers. Everyone becomes 00:29:44.890 --> 00:29:47.069 a partner. That is incredibly progressive, even 00:29:47.069 --> 00:29:49.509 for today, let alone the mid -19th century. Yeah. 00:29:49.670 --> 00:29:52.369 But the thing that really, truly blew my mind 00:29:52.369 --> 00:29:55.049 in the research notes was his take on economic 00:29:55.049 --> 00:29:57.910 growth. Because almost every economist, then 00:29:57.910 --> 00:30:01.049 and now, is obsessed with growth, growth, growth. 00:30:01.390 --> 00:30:05.769 GDP has to go up. Forever. And Mill in 1848 says 00:30:05.769 --> 00:30:09.890 stop. This is his concept of the stationary state. 00:30:10.029 --> 00:30:12.150 Explain this because it feels so modern. In his 00:30:12.150 --> 00:30:14.569 Principles of Political Economy, he argues that 00:30:14.569 --> 00:30:16.849 unlimited economic growth is not only impossible 00:30:16.849 --> 00:30:18.869 in the long run, but it's not even desirable. 00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:23.160 He says he is not charmed with the ideal of life 00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:25.519 held out by those who think that the normal state 00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:27.759 of human beings is that of struggling to get 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:29.859 on. He has this beautiful visual description. 00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:32.680 He says a world with solitude, with natural beauty, 00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:34.940 with room to breathe, is better than a world 00:30:34.940 --> 00:30:37.579 where we've destroyed all of that just to support 00:30:37.579 --> 00:30:40.220 a larger population and more industry. He doesn't 00:30:40.220 --> 00:30:41.920 want to live in a crowded, wealthy industrial 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.039 hive. He's essentially one of the very first 00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:47.720 environmental economists. He argues that once 00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:50.200 a society has achieved a efficient level of wealth 00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:52.480 where everyone's basic needs are met and people 00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.220 are comfortable, we should stop trying to get 00:30:55.220 --> 00:30:57.200 collectively richer and start trying to live 00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.480 better. Focus on the art of living, not just 00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:02.240 the accumulation of stuff. Precisely. He looked 00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:04.660 forward to a stationary state where population 00:31:04.660 --> 00:31:07.420 and capital stop growing, allowing for moral, 00:31:07.539 --> 00:31:10.579 cultural, and spiritual progress to take center 00:31:10.579 --> 00:31:13.970 stage. That's so hard today. I feel like he would 00:31:13.970 --> 00:31:17.109 look at our 24 -7 consumer culture and just shake 00:31:17.109 --> 00:31:19.450 his head in despair. He likely would. He saw 00:31:19.450 --> 00:31:22.049 that endless growth was a recipe for destroying 00:31:22.049 --> 00:31:24.950 the planet and ultimately our own quality of 00:31:24.950 --> 00:31:28.430 life. Okay, but this. Before we completely canonize 00:31:28.430 --> 00:31:31.049 him as a progressive saint, we have to look at 00:31:31.049 --> 00:31:33.269 the messy parts. The really difficult parts. 00:31:33.329 --> 00:31:36.380 We do. Part 7. The complexities and contradictions. 00:31:36.740 --> 00:31:38.920 Because while he's writing these incredible books 00:31:38.920 --> 00:31:41.059 about liberty and feminism and environmentalism, 00:31:41.160 --> 00:31:45.160 he also has a day job. Yes. For 35 years, from 00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:48.400 the age of 17 until he was in his 50s, John Stuart 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:50.940 Mill worked for the East India Company. And he 00:31:50.940 --> 00:31:53.339 wasn't just a low -level clerk. He rose through 00:31:53.339 --> 00:31:55.500 the ranks to become the examiner of Indian correspondence. 00:31:55.980 --> 00:31:58.259 He was a high -ranking colonial administrator. 00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:01.160 A key figure in the governance of British India. 00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:04.109 So the man who wrote On Liberty. was helping 00:32:04.109 --> 00:32:06.789 to run the British Empire. How on earth did he 00:32:06.789 --> 00:32:09.210 justify that in his own mind? This is where we 00:32:09.210 --> 00:32:11.470 come back to that glaring exception in the harm 00:32:11.470 --> 00:32:14.230 principle. The caveat that it doesn't apply to 00:32:14.230 --> 00:32:17.390 barbarous or backward states of society. Oof, 00:32:17.450 --> 00:32:20.470 such an ugly phrase. So he just carved out an 00:32:20.470 --> 00:32:23.150 exception for entire civilizations he didn't 00:32:23.150 --> 00:32:25.400 think were ready for liberty. That's exactly 00:32:25.400 --> 00:32:28.359 what he did. He genuinely believed that representative 00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:30.859 government and individual liberty only work for 00:32:30.859 --> 00:32:33.680 people who were sufficiently improved or educated. 00:32:33.960 --> 00:32:37.380 For civilizations he viewed as stagnant or in 00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:39.880 their nonage, like India at the time, he argued 00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:42.720 that despotism is a legitimate mode of government 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.039 in dealing with barbarians. Provided the end 00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:47.079 is their improvement. That was the justification. 00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:50.519 It was a benevolent despotism. The idea was, 00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:54.170 we are ruling you for your own good. to modernize 00:32:54.170 --> 00:32:56.970 you, to educate you, and eventually you will 00:32:56.970 --> 00:32:59.210 be ready to rule yourselves. It's the classic 00:32:59.210 --> 00:33:03.170 paternalistic colonialist argument. And a massive 00:33:03.170 --> 00:33:05.630 blind spot in his philosophy, isn't it? It stands 00:33:05.630 --> 00:33:07.930 in total contradiction to his principles of individual 00:33:07.930 --> 00:33:11.170 sovereignty. It's a profound tension. He genuinely 00:33:11.170 --> 00:33:13.210 seemed to believe that British rule administered 00:33:13.210 --> 00:33:16.049 by enlightened men like himself was better for 00:33:16.049 --> 00:33:18.890 India's progress than the alternative. But it's 00:33:18.890 --> 00:33:21.329 impossible to square with the core ideas of On 00:33:21.329 --> 00:33:23.789 Liberty. It's just a reminder that even the most 00:33:23.789 --> 00:33:26.450 brilliant geniuses are products of their time, 00:33:26.529 --> 00:33:29.930 with massive cultural blind spots. But then, 00:33:29.950 --> 00:33:32.430 to complicate the picture even more, you look 00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:34.809 at his stance on the American Civil War. And 00:33:34.809 --> 00:33:36.329 he's absolutely on the right side of history 00:33:36.329 --> 00:33:38.900 there. Very much so. When the Civil War broke 00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:41.599 out, a lot of the British elite, the upper classes, 00:33:41.799 --> 00:33:44.119 were sympathetic to the South. They liked the 00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:46.759 aristocratic vibe of the plantation owners, and 00:33:46.759 --> 00:33:49.059 more importantly, they wanted the cheap cotton 00:33:49.059 --> 00:33:51.559 for their textile mills. They tried to frame 00:33:51.559 --> 00:33:53.960 the war as being about tariffs or states' rights. 00:33:54.339 --> 00:33:56.680 And Mill's old friend, the writer Thomas Carlyle, 00:33:56.700 --> 00:33:59.759 wrote that absolutely awful racist piece, The 00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:03.160 Negro Question, defending slavery. And Mill was 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:07.119 furious. He wrote a scathing public rebuttal. 00:34:07.140 --> 00:34:09.519 He argued passionately and correctly that the 00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:11.920 war was explicitly and solely about slavery. 00:34:12.260 --> 00:34:14.420 He cut through all the obfuscation and said, 00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:17.219 this is a war to preserve and extend slavery, 00:34:17.340 --> 00:34:20.119 and we must support the North. He saw the Union 00:34:20.119 --> 00:34:22.360 victory as a necessary shock to the conscience 00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:24.820 of the world, something needed to finally wipe 00:34:24.820 --> 00:34:27.739 out the stain of slavery from the civilized world. 00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:30.840 Exactly. So you end up with this deeply complex 00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.989 figure. an anti -slavery imperialist, a feminist 00:34:34.989 --> 00:34:37.829 who believes in benevolent despotism. It's not 00:34:37.829 --> 00:34:40.809 simple. Humans rarely are. Indeed. Okay, let's 00:34:40.809 --> 00:34:43.250 move to part eight, the public life and the saint 00:34:43.250 --> 00:34:45.750 of rationalism. He eventually leaves the East 00:34:45.750 --> 00:34:48.250 India Company when the crown takes it over, and 00:34:48.250 --> 00:34:50.230 he becomes a member of parliament. And his campaign 00:34:50.230 --> 00:34:52.989 strategy was, well, it was bold. If by bold, 00:34:53.030 --> 00:34:55.289 you mean completely non -existent. It's an amazing 00:34:55.289 --> 00:34:57.469 story. He was asked to run for the seat of Westminster. 00:34:57.829 --> 00:35:01.000 He agreed. but only on his own very strict terms. 00:35:01.159 --> 00:35:03.159 He refused to campaign in the traditional sense. 00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:06.400 He refused to canvas for votes. He refused to 00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:09.500 spend a single penny of his own money on the 00:35:09.500 --> 00:35:12.320 election. He even refused to answer questions 00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:14.900 from voters about his religious beliefs, which 00:35:14.900 --> 00:35:16.739 were highly unorthodox. He basically just said, 00:35:16.820 --> 00:35:19.159 look, here are my books. I've written down everything 00:35:19.159 --> 00:35:21.920 I believe. Read them. If you agree with my ideas, 00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:25.309 vote for me. If you don't, then don't. And he 00:35:25.309 --> 00:35:28.250 won. It's wild. You could never do that today. 00:35:28.349 --> 00:35:30.769 Never. And once in parliament, he wasn't a quiet 00:35:30.769 --> 00:35:32.829 backbencher. He immediately started advocating 00:35:32.829 --> 00:35:34.969 for all the unpopular causes we've mentioned. 00:35:35.409 --> 00:35:38.130 Women's suffrage, stronger rights for labor unions, 00:35:38.369 --> 00:35:40.989 radical land reform for the Irish. He was a genuine 00:35:40.989 --> 00:35:43.690 radical. But there's one surprise in his political 00:35:43.690 --> 00:35:45.889 record, too, isn't there? His stance on capital 00:35:45.889 --> 00:35:48.619 punishment. Yes. The great liberal philosopher 00:35:48.619 --> 00:35:51.219 who wants to execute criminals, it seems very 00:35:51.219 --> 00:35:54.079 counterintuitive. It does. In 1868, there was 00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:56.079 a debate in Parliament about abolishing the death 00:35:56.079 --> 00:35:59.079 penalty. And Mills stood up and argued passionately 00:35:59.079 --> 00:36:01.239 for keeping it. So what on earth was his logic? 00:36:01.460 --> 00:36:04.880 In a word, humanitarianism. Wait, how is executing 00:36:04.880 --> 00:36:07.900 someone humanitarian? It was a utilitarian calculation. 00:36:08.340 --> 00:36:10.559 He argued that for the most aggravated cases 00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:13.139 of murder, a quick, painless death was actually 00:36:13.139 --> 00:36:15.039 more humane than the most likely alternative, 00:36:15.380 --> 00:36:18.639 which was locking a man in a cage for the rest 00:36:18.639 --> 00:36:21.059 of his natural life and forcing him to do hard 00:36:21.059 --> 00:36:24.400 labor. He called life imprisonment immuring him 00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:27.539 in a living tomb. So he thought the abolitionists, 00:36:27.559 --> 00:36:29.480 in their attempt to be merciful, were actually 00:36:29.480 --> 00:36:32.800 proposing a crueler punishment. Yes. He called 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:35.619 the abolitionist sentiment an effeminacy in feeling. 00:36:35.739 --> 00:36:37.800 He thought the death penalty was actually less 00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:40.119 suffering in the aggregate and a better deterrent. 00:36:40.199 --> 00:36:43.159 It's a very cold, logical, utilitarian calculation, 00:36:43.380 --> 00:36:46.760 even if it feels very jarring to our modern liberal 00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:49.539 sensibilities. That is certainly a take. Wow. 00:36:49.780 --> 00:36:51.860 Okay. Before we wrap up his life, we have to 00:36:51.860 --> 00:36:53.719 mention his hobby. Because this guy wasn't just 00:36:53.719 --> 00:36:56.199 about books and laws and logic. He was an avid 00:36:56.199 --> 00:36:58.760 botanist. He absolutely loved plants. It was 00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:01.179 his lifelong passion and escape. He collected 00:37:01.179 --> 00:37:03.300 over a thousand unique specimens. You can actually 00:37:03.300 --> 00:37:05.940 see his collections in museums today. He saw 00:37:05.940 --> 00:37:08.519 the logic of botanical classification as a model 00:37:08.519 --> 00:37:11.280 for how to order legal and social systems. But 00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:13.579 it was also his escape. Right. His connection 00:37:13.579 --> 00:37:15.659 to the words were the inside of his brain. It 00:37:15.659 --> 00:37:18.739 was walking in nature, looking for flowers that 00:37:18.739 --> 00:37:20.800 connects all the way back to his recovery from 00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.360 that mental crisis. It was his way of touching 00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:26.300 the real beautiful world. And we have to tell 00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:28.940 the manuscript story, the famous burning manuscript. 00:37:29.340 --> 00:37:32.280 This is just a legendary, painful anecdote. It's 00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:34.019 one of the most horrifying stories in literary 00:37:34.019 --> 00:37:37.440 history. So his friend, Thomas Carlyle. had just 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:40.099 finished writing the only draft of his massive, 00:37:40.139 --> 00:37:42.360 multi -volume history, The French Revolution. 00:37:42.820 --> 00:37:45.960 He gave the manuscript to Mill to read and offer 00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:48.280 comments. The only copy. No backing. The only 00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:52.699 copy. And Mill's maid, while cleaning, mistook 00:37:52.699 --> 00:37:55.719 the huge pile of papers for waste paper, and 00:37:55.719 --> 00:37:57.880 she used it to light the fire. Oh, my God. The 00:37:57.880 --> 00:38:01.690 entire book. Just... Gone. Burnt to ash. Years 00:38:01.690 --> 00:38:05.030 of work. Mill was absolutely mortified. He rushed 00:38:05.030 --> 00:38:06.730 over to Carlisle's house to tell him what had 00:38:06.730 --> 00:38:08.610 happened. He was in such a state of distress 00:38:08.610 --> 00:38:10.530 that Carlisle apparently ended up comforting 00:38:10.530 --> 00:38:12.650 him. Mill offered him money as compensation, 00:38:12.869 --> 00:38:15.380 didn't he? He offered 200 pounds, which was a 00:38:15.380 --> 00:38:18.219 huge sum of money back then. Carlisle, being 00:38:18.219 --> 00:38:21.099 a good friend, only accepted 100 pounds just 00:38:21.099 --> 00:38:23.219 to cover his living expenses while he rewrote 00:38:23.219 --> 00:38:25.099 it. And he did rewrite it. That's the amazing 00:38:25.099 --> 00:38:27.699 part. He did. He sat down and rewrote the entire 00:38:27.699 --> 00:38:29.920 thing from memory, though he always said the 00:38:29.920 --> 00:38:32.320 second version wasn't as spontaneous or as good 00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:34.239 as the first one that went up in smoke. We'll 00:38:34.239 --> 00:38:36.980 never know. What a nightmare. Okay, let's head 00:38:36.980 --> 00:38:39.909 to the outro. We have covered a life that is 00:38:39.909 --> 00:38:42.889 just breathtaking in its scope, from learning 00:38:42.889 --> 00:38:45.969 the Greek alphabet at age three to reshaping 00:38:45.969 --> 00:38:48.789 the debates in the British Parliament. It's a 00:38:48.789 --> 00:38:51.610 sweeping intellectual and personal journey. There 00:38:51.610 --> 00:38:53.469 is that famous quote that's often attributed 00:38:53.469 --> 00:38:56.429 to Mill. Bad men need nothing more to compass 00:38:56.429 --> 00:38:58.889 their ends than that good men should look on 00:38:58.889 --> 00:39:02.170 and do nothing. A classic quote. And for the 00:39:02.170 --> 00:39:04.449 record, he did say it in an inaugural address 00:39:04.449 --> 00:39:08.079 at the University of St. Andrews in 1867. The 00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:10.400 sentiment wasn't wholly unique to him, but it 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:12.739 perfectly encapsulates his view on the importance 00:39:12.739 --> 00:39:15.420 of active citizenship. You can't just passively 00:39:15.420 --> 00:39:17.420 have liberty. You have to use it. You have to 00:39:17.420 --> 00:39:19.780 participate and speak up. And that's really the 00:39:19.780 --> 00:39:22.980 legacy, isn't it? Mill is this incredible bridge. 00:39:23.219 --> 00:39:26.059 He connects the 18th century enlightenment, the 00:39:26.059 --> 00:39:28.980 rigid, cold, almost mechanical logic of his father 00:39:28.980 --> 00:39:31.739 and Bentham with the modern world. He brings 00:39:31.739 --> 00:39:34.159 humanity into the equation. He brings in individual 00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:37.179 rights, emotion, the inner life. He takes their 00:39:37.179 --> 00:39:39.639 formula for happiness and says, wait, it's not 00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:41.739 just a math equation. It's about flourishing. 00:39:41.739 --> 00:39:44.099 It's about becoming the best version of yourself. 00:39:44.360 --> 00:39:46.940 He challenges us even today to do hard things, 00:39:47.139 --> 00:39:49.820 to tolerate the opinions we hate because they 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:52.480 might teach us something, to define our happiness 00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:55.719 by quality, not just by quantity. And to constantly 00:39:55.719 --> 00:39:58.239 question whether the things we assume are natural, 00:39:58.460 --> 00:40:00.760 like gender roles or the inevitability of our 00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:03.380 economic systems, are actually just artificial 00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:05.380 constructs manufactured by our institutions. 00:40:05.739 --> 00:40:07.860 He was a skeptic, probably an agnostic, but he 00:40:07.860 --> 00:40:10.239 was chosen to be the godfather to the great 20th 00:40:10.239 --> 00:40:12.559 century philosopher Bertrand Russell. He was 00:40:12.559 --> 00:40:15.219 this contradictory, fascinating, deeply brilliant 00:40:15.219 --> 00:40:17.760 human being. And his central question, one that 00:40:17.760 --> 00:40:20.199 runs through all his work, remains as urgent 00:40:20.199 --> 00:40:24.639 as ever. Are we organizing our society to maximize 00:40:24.639 --> 00:40:27.480 human freedom and individual development? And 00:40:27.480 --> 00:40:29.400 if not, why not? What can we do to change it? 00:40:29.500 --> 00:40:32.019 That is thought we will leave you with. Go out 00:40:32.019 --> 00:40:33.960 and heal some happiness with the air you breathe 00:40:33.960 --> 00:40:36.760 and maybe tolerate a corn dealer or two. Thanks 00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:38.340 for listening to The Deep Dive.