(I think you’ve got that backwards, he was asking why people wanted to fight for freedom, not why people should be conformists.)
Okay, long post, sorry.
Fighting for freedom is a comedy example of societies convinced they’re onto a good thing without having a clue what it is. Take for example any liberal state - if they do even so much as a vaguely repressive action, there is inevitably far more uproar than if an already repressive state does something similar. The states that HAVE freedoms, (not that I really think there are that many that count at the moment), are the ones that are criticised most for illiberality.
Any good John Stuart Mill fan can tell you that much. The way freedom seems to be touted in adverts for any war-based merchandise is ‘freedom from the threat of attack.’ That’s a shallow sort of freedom, because the threat is created (in a sense) by all the nonesense brewing around it in the media. Regardless of how much of a threat it is, it’s not really imposing on your freedoms in any meaningful sense other than by fear. And the fear is not caused by the threat, directly, but by its mode of presentation. So being ‘free’ from this sort of thing is something only a particularly dull people would value as synonymous with ‘freedom’, because ‘freedom’ people take to be something more related to choices and individuality in day to day life.
The way it’s touted by Mill is to further the ends of man ‘as a progressive being’. As in, not just what we want today, but what future generations will also want. It is also much more internal to society than this contemporary notion of ‘freedom’ from terrorism. America certainly has an eye for the first sort of freedom we mentioned above, but I’m fairly certain people will eventually realise how vacuous it is when that freedom is taken as far as it can be. In other words, if America was all there was, there would be far more disatisfaction than when America has something to victimise itself against. (The same goes for the UK to an extent…)
But the other sort of freedom is severely lacking, and it’s the sort of freedom you’re on about - social norms.
There are certain rights that people have to have towards one another that comes with being part of society. No arbitrary murder, at least some protection of property, possibly some basic economic rights to trade and that sort of thing. Those are what you need for your society to get off the ground. (It’s a bit of an issue what counts for this.) But above and beyond that, it’s not a right of someone you’re violating by not-conforming, but just causing them some form of offense. For example, a gay couple walking down the street holding hands can cause outrage in a religious purist etc. but that’s only because of his sensibilities. He’s got an internal reaction to it based upon what he thinks about that sort of thing. Does his offence outweigh the right of the gay couple to walk around?
It seems that so long as it is merely offence, then really, no, it doesn’t. It’s not up to us what other people are offended by - if people genuinely valued freedom, in the meaningful sense, then they wouldn’t BE offended. The purist might think ‘well, I don’t like that sort of thing, but I know that it’s in society’s best interests to foster freedom so I’m going to bite my tongue and walk on by.’ So, for example, the people complaining about those who voiced opinions against the war are not defenders of freedom in the slightest - they’re the moral majority perpetuating the despotism of social custom. Similary for those like the Klu Klux Klan or religious fundamentalists and televangelists etc. Anything fostering a closed group. Certainly some christian groups are fantastic in accomplishing the opposite, but it seems in the US that many christians are christians by name only, only christians in the dogmatic sense.
But should liberty be valued? Outside the rights I mentioned above, yes, it should - but it probably never will be. A guy called Lord Devlin once said that ‘society could not exist without intolerance’. Devlin was staunchly illiberal. But he was right, I think, about that much. The defence of liberty goes that if people are free (in the freedom-from-societal/governmental-repression sense) then they should be able to achieve ‘the highest and most harmonious development of their faculties into a complete and coherent whole’. That is, individuality. Because through individuality, you can be happy, cultivated, whatever term is best. Free to choose what you want to do without thought for what others want you / expect you to do etc.
But some people just don’t want to BE individuals - they want to be the best of the conformists. Mill’s idea of liberty was generally rather high-brow. I’d say he thought that only 1 in a hundred people would make use of it. But I think the problem he saw was that even if most people were never going to make use of it, it certainly wasn’t fair to shackle the people who could think for themselves into the mundane grey-shaded life that the majority set their store by.
So in that sense of ‘free’, the US and UK and so on certainly are not nearly so free as they purport. They are better than many states, but there is a growing sense in which a large shadow is being dragged around what we have of Mill’s highbrow approach - it’s becoming dangerous to speak out. There shouldn’t be a concept of speaking out - you should just speak! Speaking out implies some sort of adherence to norms.
There’s nothing wrong with aiming for any useful form of freedom, and I reckon those who can understand the value of freedom should aim for it - but you have to remember that freedom is not anarchy and it is not a right to go around being ostentatiously provocative. If you violate the interests of others you deserve to be punished. (But the interests should from their liberty to develop themselves and not from their socially-formed opinions.) And if you can avoid offending people, then perhaps you should do so. (No one wants to be surrounded by people having sex or getting drunk and throwing up everywhere… a time and a place, as a maxim, perhaps?) Whether ‘shooting up’ counts as a freedom or a repression of yourself is a problem for any definition of freedom. I think Mill argues that people should be ‘free’ to do that, providing they know what it’s going to do to them. (And remember, that for Mill, it won’t be a societal compulsion to look cool that will motivate the taking of it - it will have to be a considered decision - because the societal pressure isn’t going to be there.) But whether he’s right that societal pressure on the individual can be removed, I have no idea.
So there are several points: One, distinguish between forms of freedom. Secondly, don’t take that form of freedom to be too loose. Thirdly, establish the point of that freedom and make sure that it’s understood what that point is, or people will start confusing interests with opinions. Fourth, ask yourself whether people should be free to conform if they wish.
But if you’re interested in this sort of thing, do philosophy and become the next Rorty.
-James
