The Perils of Silence

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“The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority” - Jon Stuart Mill

The West no longer faces merely the encroaching dangers of despotism and autocratic tyranny. Undeniably these are very real threats against individual liberty and autonomy. Now we are in the midst of a very real and destructive tyranny of the perceived majority. It’s been wisely said that the world is run by those who show up. The most active portion of society, that is to say, the most vocal portion of society, holds the ruling share in government and the formation of public policy. By in large, people are reasonable and sound-thinking individuals who wish to go about their lives without interference, whatever form that interference might take.

The danger of this tyranny of the perceived majority cannot be overstated. The most active part of modern society has sought to coerce individual thought and communication, two sacred and inseparable faculties. Whatever this active part of society has deemed doctrine is irreproachable. To deviate from the accepted societal dogma is perceived as a heresy. The persecution of this heresy is as real and as dangerous as the Spanish Inquisition. When ideas can no longer be liberally discussed and debated, that society will succumb to an intellectual and philosophical stagnancy. We must not advocate for the dissolution of competing ideas, whatever form those ideas may take.

We must go back to the debate floor of public life and pose our counter positions. The silent majority that is free from the taint of the dogmatic extremes of opinion must stand up and make their positions known. If this silence persists we will invariably succumb to this tyranny of the majority and society will be the worse for it. To stand up to the tyranny of public opinion takes a deep courage, but a necessary courage nonetheless. The reasonable majority that is not engaged, must step forward and make their presence and their platform known. This will serve as the counter to the destructive despotism that these vocal parts of society have given form to. We need more Cato’s to serve as rocks holding back this deluge. We must not seek the dissolution of prevailing opinion, but there must be a releveraging of the philosophical equilibrium in the popular culture. The scales must be balanced, in the same way the scales must be balanced between deflationary and inflationary methods in an economic crisis that leads to a beautiful deleveraging and recovery. All action must be judged against the public good. The public good can be best defined as what allows the greatest number of individuals to flourish regardless of their chosen domain, profession, or political philosophy. That is the first principle that governs social liberty, anything beyond that is a step towards some other form of despotism and tyranny. To live and conduct yourself in a matter that is in your choosing, as long as that conduct does no harm to others is the fundamental precept of social liberty.