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Nicole Noyal Thomas
Dr B.R Ambedkar University
After reading Mill and deliberating over the instances in my life that connect to his articulation of the problem of social tyranny and lack of liberty, I have come up with two related incidents. The first situation happened during a regular school day in high school (St Thomas Central School- the required specific detail). As I was stepping out of my classroom, my teacher called me aside due to my attire. She deemed that the position of the waist of my pants was too low and inappropriate. Instead of asking me to correct it, she proceeded to pull up my pants by their side using her hands. I never considered it problematic until I started thinking about the incident as part of my write-up. On reflection, it seems evident to me that it was unwanted contact. One can argue that she was merely following the school’s uniform policy that considered low-waist pants as a problem. But this was not an isolated school-specific issue. In fact, the school’s policy can be traced to larger societal norms that frowned upon the choice of young adults to wear low-waist pants. The second incident took place during a family gathering to celebrate my second cousin’s first Holy Communion. While having breakfast, my uncle took me to the side and admonished me for wearing my pants low. This incident did put me off, in contrast to the previous school incident, particularly since I was not a fan of my uncle, unlike my teacher. There was a distinct lack of discussion and engagement with me from my teacher and uncle, individuals occupying positions of social authority in contrast to legal authority. Low-waist pants were a harmless feature of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Each generation has its fashion quirks. Fashion can be considered as an expression of opinion and the freedom to choose how one dresses is part of individual liberty and expression. Age became an important factor while taking into account the tendency for different generations to disagree on acceptable norms. The incidents in my life are specific examples of how society looks down upon the assertions of independence and individuality from young people.
Society’s urge for conformity and the specific situations I faced can be identified with Mill’s extract on social tyranny. A portion of the extract stayed with me in particular, “ there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them;”. In my case, my uncle and teacher, as representatives of the larger society, tried to impose societal norms on me. They did this through varying levels of coercion, using speech and action, utilising their social power. The different methods that they used to ensure compliance were outside the definition of traditional penalties and should be read along with the line “by other means than civil penalties” in the above extract. Society’s power to practice a variety of disciplining mechanisms comes from its wider ambit compared to the law. It is an overarching entity that governs all kinds of social activity and encompasses formal law. As Mill observes, “it (society) practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself”.
In this context of societal control, I would like to point to the recent case of vandalism at the Kerala Lalithakala Academy in Kochi. Artist Hanan Benammar’s work, “Go Eat Your Dad”, was vandalised by a sculptor, Hochimin. He objected to Benammar’s installation on swear words across different cultures on the grounds of “verbal obscenity”. Such instances of vandalism not only kill individuality but also avenues for enhanced societal and cultural understandings, particularly across cultures, as in this case. The all-encompassing nature of social control that Mill alluded to can be observed by the fact that social actors, especially a fellow artist, chose to silence Benammar’s work instead of legal authorities. We can also observe his (society’s) use of extra-civil penalties to punish non-conformity, highlighted by Mill.
Similar to the incidents in my case, Benammar rued the lack of dialogue and discussion that could have been a more productive way of dealing with cultural disagreements compared to society’s authoritarian and unilateral approach. Flawed social norms on obscenity and inappropriateness, and the societal urge to punish instances of social non-conformity are the common threads that run through both cases. Thus, concerns on liberty first raised by J.S. Mill still animate our daily life, highlighting the need to continuously safeguard individual liberty.
Notes
1. The free version of Grammarly was used in this write-up to check for spelling and grammatical errors and suggest synonyms.
2. https://archive.is/VKiie (This is an archival link to the article in case the original link is not working)
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