Freedom and Custom

Extract

There is a certain attitude which makes freedom the main business of political thought and civil liberty the aim of government. I shall use the word ‘liberalism’ to refer to this attitude, in the hope that established usage will condone my description. And I shall explore and criticize two aspects of liberal thought: first, the concept of freedom in which it is based; secondly, the attack upon what Mill (liberalism's most eloquent exponent) called the ‘despotism of custom’. My conclusions will be tentative; but I should like to suggest that, properly understood, freedom and custom may require each other. Moreover to describe them as opposites is to make it impossible to see how either could be valued by a rational being, or why any politician should concern himself with their support or propagation.