![]() Censorship, blasphemy laws and the criminalisation of homosexuality came to be seen as abuses of state power. People were, it was generally agreed, free to go to hell in their own way. The idea of enforcing public morality became repulsive. Free speech meant that you could not be silenced, free movement that you could not be detained, free association that you could not have your political party or trade union banned.Įven more striking was the cultural ascendancy of Millian liberalism. ![]() ![]() Mill’s conception of freedom became politically and juridically ascendant in the Anglosphere for most of the 20th century. ![]() No one more eloquently defended liberty as an essentially negative force, a defence against coercion. John Stuart Mill, the high-minded, tortured, chaste Victorian feminist, died exactly 150 years ago in Avignon. ![]()
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