Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
Scarily accurate, even more so long after his death. People are afraid to be different more than ever to a degree, something millenials struggle with.
Indeed! Although there are always subcultures not afraid to let their freak flag fly. One could say we’re happy to be different, as long as we can be different with others who are the same 🙂
There’s a scale to eccentricity though. And the kind of eccentricity someone like John Stuart Mill was writing about all those years ago would have been much more towards the conservative side than “letting your freak flag fly” would be today.
This is true. On the other hand, they practically had a religion of respectability back then, so the social costs of being outside the lines might well have been greater.