Who Is John Stuart Mill An American Man

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher and one of the most influential ones at his time. When looking at John Stuart Mill we see the economic, political, and moral theorist that he was, but what type of life did he lead to become the man he became? What education and influences did he have to become the “ideal Victorian man?” What characteristics define an ideal Victorian man? First off, let us start by looking at his childhood and life, his influences and what made him the way he was. From there, we can look at what it meant to be an ideal Victorian man. Lastly, now having seen both, we can analyze how John Stuart Mill was the ideal Victorian man. John Stuart Mill had a very peculiar childhood education. The early years are the most important
ones in a person’s life. These are the years where everything we see and learn is new and they are fundamental in building the person. It builds the way they learn, their future health, growth, development, how they socialize, and just life in general. Mill’s father was very aware of this. He was an extremely busy man with a tight schedule yet he took time out of his day to completely immerse himself into the education of his eldest son, John.
The childhood education of John was a very strict and harsh one. Ever since he was born until the age of 14, his father made sure he read and learned the most advanced subjects for someone his age, along with ancient Greek and Latin. He never had a chance to be a child or adolescent, he always lived being forced to be a man. Other children that are taught in similar manner, have the information crammed into their heads with only facts, the knowledge is only drilled into them and made memorized. John, instead, was made to think about it, understand it, and analyze it. He was also not made aware of how academically advanced he was compared to others his age nor of his accomplishments until later in his life. He was not allowed to socialize with kids his age, only with grown persons that were his father’s friends, and was also taught against self-conceit. He never had any religion because his father kept skeptical about, not the facts, but the morality of it. He was influenced at an early age by two of his father’s friends. From David Ricardo he learned political economy and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham helped shape Mill’s philosophical viewpoint. He was built to be the image of his father, an ideal son, and to following his father’s doctrine Utilitarianism. By the age of 14 he completed his education under his father without the slightest idea of how unique his education had been up until now. He moved to France where he learned French among other things. During that year in France, it was the first time he was not under his father severe education that he panicked; he did not know what to do with his free time. At the age of 17 he began to work full-time at India House, in addition to several other works he had at the time. The overworking of his brain and how he pushed his body to work more and more caused his eventual nervous breakdown and depression around the age of 20, wondering if all of his Utilitarian projects would come to be. He became dull with stress and thought he would never feel again. He had the knowledge and knew what to do; he just lacked the emotional will to do so. This experience in Mill’s life led him to a sub-genre in his studies focusing in the crisis he had had. This crisis led Mill to change the Utilitarianism version his father and Bentham showed him. He eventually found his way out of this crisis. Having had such a dominant father that trained him so harsh in his own system of beliefs gave John a hard time in perceiving himself as a separate entity with thoughts of his own. With his father’s death, it was new found freedom. John had an inability to involve himself emotionally in the world and that was due to the education of fear from his father. Thanks to his love for Taylor, whom he married later in life, he was able to overcome his potentially harmful childhood.
Now let’s have a look at what it meant to be a Victorian man. Like any other time in history and culture, there were social expectations that dictated the way you behaved to be able to be socially acceptable. The Victorian era was that period of time under the queen Victoria’s reign. During that era, under the social expectations, each gender had their own and not only the gender but your social status and place in society. We will focus on the most general characteristics. There were main characteristics for males, like having pride in their own work, ability for good social conduct, and protectiveness over their wives and children. There were a lot of social circles and there was an emphasis of being a good head of the family, good father with the duty to raise good children and citizens, to maintain a good morality, and to dutifully participate in the government. This includes participating in society, politics, economy, religious, and social life. The men of the Victoria era were very active in the social matters. Masculinity was very important, status achieved by being good at all of the previously mentioned. The Victorian era was an intellectual culture. A distinctive characteristic of it was how people were able to confidently comment on different subjects. . They were not just specialized in one thing, but they were knowledgeable in arts, languages, politics, economics, philosophy, history, among others. Even though women also shared similar responsibilities during the era as men, the costumes and the laws from the Victorian era still enforced dominance from men and the dependency of women.
Now, how did John Stuart Mill had all the adequate characteristic that were required to classify as the ideal Victorian man and be socially acceptable?
Since the beginning, starting his childhood, he was already how the ideal son of the Victorian era should be. Mill was that ideal son, the son that blindly followed the doctrine his father taught him. Due to his strict education, he had an admiration for his father that left no room for him to be his own person, he did not opposed what taught nor did he went the opposite direction of his teachings. He was always highly respectful of his father and because he was homeschool and not allowed to socialize, he was not tainted by the opinions or influences from the others. He was perfectly made at the image of his father, just like an ideal son. As a grown man, John Stuart Mill was a man that was highly involved in commercial and intellectual quests, that was his life. Just like the ideal Victorian man, he was completely inside the political and social movements of his era. He had his Utilitarianism circle and highly influenced the way of thinking of his time. The hard work and study was admired back then, and he was able to not only work, but work and study more than anyone else. He worked his way through all of the hardships in his life and worked his way out of the crisis he had in his 20’s. He was a respectable man in society. Sometimes, he was criticized by his liberal ideals of the time, his atheism, and strong woman rights
beliefs. Victorian men aimed to loyalty, intelligence, honor, and a moral uprightness. John was all of that. Loyal to his cause, extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, honorable and held his morally advanced uprightness when defending women rights, the individual freedom and happiness. Mills was quite humane and was often described as a formal and humorless Victorian, but this was due to his lack of ability to connect to his emotional side.
The Victorian era was an intellectual culture, the more reason why Mills was praised.
Mill was, like the men from that era, knowledgeable in multiple subjects, but unlike other men from his era, Mill was uniquely advanced. He was all of that and part of that elite, educated, metropolitan, middle/upper class Victorian with a voice and influence. Another thing is that they had an emphasis on restraint and modesty and given that john stuart mill was not very good at expressing his emotions but at the same time he was very humane in his beliefs, he seemed like the perfect combination of both. Even though he had a very harsh childhood that eventually caught up to him in a psychological way that led to his breakdown in his 20’s, all of that, all of those life experiences is exactly what made him think the way he did and take action on the things he did, making him "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth
century".