By Joseph Steelman
Joe is the 20 year old son of Sarah Steelman attending the University of Chicago.

The most any of us can hope for in our individual pursuit of truth is that our quest is founded by wisdom and an open mind. There have been few individuals in history that have the intelligence and insight to cut through preconceived “truths” that warp human progress. But these individuals do exist. Scattered throughout history we see the status quo challenged by these intellectual giants, and we are all better off for it. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and John Stuart Mill have left us with a contemporary foundation on which we can discuss human progress.

Their arguments are similar, suggesting that conflict is inherent in true progress. But the genesis of their progress is derived from contrasting views of freedom. Hegel believes in freedom under authority; where reason is so limited that man must depend on the state to curb his passions and thereby experience a more genuine freedom. Mill believes that true liberty is freedom from authority; the individual is considered rational enough to define and pursue his own freedom. These opposing views of freedom lead the theorists to argue different roles for the state in society, and these roles lead to different ideas about what progress actually is.

For Mill, the individual is the savior of society, a hero who can challenge the tyranny of the majority is progress’s most important tool. This idea is very similar to Hegel’s champion that establishes an antithesis. The difference lies in action, for Mill human reason and continued active discourse is how society progresses, while Hegel claims that society progresses naturally, and individual’s that are responsible for change are just ignorant agents of the unfolding of the spirit.

Both Hegel and Mill would concede that every individual is an integral part of society and that it is a vain attempt to conceive of the individual having a political life outside the bounds of society. There are at least two ways of dealing with this notion. The first, which Mill would argue, is to suggest that man has two different roles: one being that man thinks and acts as a self-sufficient individual; and the other being his interaction in a social environment as a member of society. The differences in people arise where they decide to devote varying amounts of time to each role; some people will emphasize themselves as individuals, and some will think of themselves only being as social creatures. Mill believes that each person has a social self, but not all will employ this role under the same circumstances. This puts stress on the individual when the majority of a given man’s fellow citizens regard themselves as social beings, and the individual man regards himself in the same sphere of interaction as being his individual self. Mill argues that it is a deeper problem than just man versus his fellow citizens, rather it is man versus society.

Tension between a given individual and the society arises when there exists two classes of people in a single community. The first group consists of the majority: they are the people who think of themselves in their social role almost all of the time, and for this reason it is appropriate enough to call them “society” in a collective sense. The second group consists of the smaller minority: they are the group who think of themselves in their individual role almost all of the time, and they may legitimately be called “individuals”. This latter class is not a social group at all, but is more likely to be scattered individuals who constantly find themselves out of step. This is the group the Mill was most interested in protected from the tyranny of society. Mill respects the individual liberty of all people, including women (he was the first to do this publicly). Mill was concerned with this tension between the individuals and society in two ways: he wishes to see the isolated individual protected from the penalties which a smug or fearful society is apt to inflict on dissenters; and he wants to demonstrate that the members of the majority would experience a fuller life if they thought of themselves more frequently as individuals. Mill believes that all men are capable of individuality. It is only if this capacity is exercised with courage and imagination that one may know the best life has to offer. Only be engaging in independent thought, by unleashing one’s creative powers, by pursuing truth as best one is able, can a man achieve his promise as a human being.
   
Mill was a believer in man’s promise as a rational creature. He believed that man has shown they can secure order and progress for themselves; they proved that they can learn by experience. He argued while certain individuals may have greater opportunity to develop and put to use their intellectual abilities, the potentiality for this use was spread throughout the entire population. Mill is less concerned with the condition in which not all men act rationally, but rather that they are able to do so if they are properly encouraged. He takes the position that assumes if politics and society are so organized that the individual potentialities are emancipated from the oppressions of norms instead of frustrated, then men will show their true characters.

The great obstacle to individual expression is the opposition of society. Whenever there appear men who wish to live their lives in unconventional ways, there invariably rise up social forces which attempt to thwart such non-conformism. Mill’s concern is to remove the barriers to free expression whether it is through words or deeds. Mill argues that those who place limitations on their fellow citizens have a burden of proof placed on them; it is their responsibility to provide compelling reasons why their behavior deserves to be interfered with. Mill makes it clear that it is not a simple case of one man objecting to the actions of another: on the contrary, the objecting party is the society at large, which is more likely to use its collective powers to frustrate an individual’s freedom. Mill argues that there can be only one justification for infringing on individual liberty; that justification is the prevention of harm to the man’s fellow citizens.

Mill elaborates on this theory of coercive justification, and he is very clear that harm means danger, not displeasure. The importance that Mill places on the protection of individual liberty is in essence a protection of what Mill considers to be the engine of progression; human imagination. Like Hegel, Mill believes that human progress is synthesized from conflict, but unlike Hegel, Mill’s conflict is that of the individual and society, whereas Hegel derived progress from the conflict of culture and tradition. These simple theories of progression are similar, but each theorist theory is a reflection of their view of the “individual”.
The other notion that needs to be discussed is the stance that Hegel would support; that man is nothing but a social creature and the recognition of this fact is the only thing that stands between man and a consciousness of his freedom in which man can experience a much fuller life.

Hegel says that through the realization of our part in world history and progression, we can understand how things happen, and why. The difficulty of course is that men frequently do not understand the roles they have been chosen to play, and their pursuit of ideal goals can lead to their own destruction. This imperfect perception of history leads to human unhappiness, but it also brings human progress. If an idea can have such power as to make men act in ways not of their own choosing, then freedom takes on a special meaning. The emphasis is on reflection for Hegel, rather than action, on understanding what is possible rather than on pursuing goals of one’s own choosing. The idea, of course, may state that the time is ripe for revolutionary change, and in this case men are free to move in new and expanded directions. But even here men are creatures of historical circumstances and not their makers. Therefore Hegel calls on men to become students of history rather than practical participants in the political process. Freedom is first and foremost a matter of understanding: of knowing the present as an outgrowth of the past and the future as the product of the present. Once it is assumed that the Spirit exists and that destiny of the world lies in its unfolding, then the obligation of men is not to act but to be aware of the abstract forces which drive them.

Idealist political theories clearly lower the status of the individual in a way which is bound to be unsettling to many. The thoughts and deeds of men become pale reflections of an order which they do not make and can but dimly understand. Yet, despite this, the thinking of Hegel has had and continues to have an important influence in political theory. One reason is that some men do not mind subordinate roles so long as they derive in exchange the security which comes of believing that they are part of a higher order of things. Another reason is that the material world and the ideas which men create for their own use do not together produce a satisfactory understanding of the political life. Ideas like the Spirit are necessary because without them there is doubt and contention. With them, there is certainty.

To the cosmic observer man’s pursuit of truth might seem to be a vain one, but it seems that the pursuit always leads to progress. But for Hegel and Mill the pursuit of truth was their life’s work and to disregard these men’s intellectual abilities and not discuss them openly would not only be an insult to them, but mankind as a whole. Active dialogues and the pursuit of truth allow us to express the ideals that seem inherent to human nature, and that expression teaches us something important about ourselves. We may never know if what seems to be true, actually is true, but Hegel and Mill knew the pursuit itself is valuable, and it teaches us that no matter who we are, or what it is that we might due, we all are tied together by an inevitable end on this journey that we call life.

Bibliography

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Introduction to the Philosophy of History With Selections from the Philosophy of Right. Boston: Hackett Company, 1989.

Mill, John Stuart. On liberty. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1978.