Googled origin of "Ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country". It is from John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address 1961.
We are talking about deeply divided country back then in the middle of civil rights movement. Which happened when large parts of population were not free to speak their minds without very real threat to their safety. It is not change from people free to speak their minds to here. It is change from one group risks lynching, beating and economic consequences to another group risks economic consequences.
It was not only thing that was going on, obviously and it is not that everything is changing for the better. But the way we idealize the communitarian ideals of the past and their impact is mostly nostalgia - remembering good while ignoring bad. We are talking about good days of free speech of the past and then talk about suppression of sexual or racial minorities as if it would be unrelated.
Or for that matter free speech of whites who pushed for equality - the consequences for them were could be quite high too.
And I think the push back or just not taking these liberty arguments all that much seriously has something to do with those arguments not being really serious about past either.
I would have assumed that anyone would recognise that quote without having to look it up. It's an interesting generational demarkation I think.
"But the way we idealize the communitarian ideals of the past and their impact is mostly nostalgia "
Not true.
Or rather ... of course we always make the past into 'nostalgia' but there's absolutely decrease in civic participation by almost all measures.
- Participation in local community groups is way down.
- Voting participation is way down.
- Direct political participation and Union memberships are way down.
- Millenials are the first generation in modern times to not consider 'hard work' (which is a kind of contribution) as top 5 'important value' (Greatest, Silent, Baby Boomer, Gen X - all had this as a top 5 value).
Now - we can definitely argue the value of 'community groups, classical political causes and definitely 'self described virtues' ... but it's definitely directional.
At very least it's a function of opportunity: people just have so many choices, young people can literally do anything. Three generations ago one's scope of choice was extremely limited.
People can now chose to participate in a 'political meme' on Twitter instead of joining the local cause. There are obviously many advantages to this, but disadvantages as well, as there is generally less materiality to Twitter wars. That said, when 1/2 nation Tweets, things can change.
Here's literally Google's 'ngram' viewer for the word 'duty' [1]
I don't need external evidence for this because in my own family I have very extended generations and I knew my grandparents generation very well: they were very coherent at the local level. My grandmother knew everyone on the street and must have helped or attended with literally over 100 weddings as it was the 'local ladies groups' that usually catered weddings -> for free (!) back in the day. Among other things. And yes, it was 'ladies' who made sanwiches, never the men.
The clubs my parents belong to are having a hard time attracting members's children into memberships which they have done for generations.
I would go so far as to say the level of local, social cohesion and the hyper local social networks were so strong and specific, that we can't read someone like Mill without understanding it.
The comparison between my grandparents youth, and suburbian 'placelessness' today wherein there aren't really any cultural demarcation points or locally established 'social rules' Mill references ... is really shocking, and that's only across several decades.
First half of your comment has zero to do with free speech and even less with freedom in general.
> it was the 'local ladies groups' that usually catered weddings -> for free (!) back in the day
And in between, women ability to earn money and social status by working went way up. We are less economically dependent on knowing everyone on the street, less dependent on hoping people will reciprocate the effort. We also socialize at work more, so we are not so lonely unless we form these organizations. Stay at home women who don't go out of their way to meet others are incredibly isolated and lonely, with all negative consequences, but todays women are dealing with this problem much less.
This has less to do with consumerism and more to do with pragmatical choices. All the socializing and networking that is necessary for all this was looked down at anyway. Despite completely necessary for sanity.
Men were not making sandwitches, because they were the ones who went to work.
> people just have so many choices, young people can literally do anything
Young people do things, they did not ceased to exist. They are even, all in all not that badly behaved - they are less violent, they take less drugs, teenage pregnancies are down.
> The clubs my parents belong to are having a hard time attracting the kids as members which they have done for generations.
Why would club membership was seen as good or bad or had anything to do with freedom or consumerism? It is either leisure activity or business networking activity, both of which moved elsewhere.
We are talking about deeply divided country back then in the middle of civil rights movement. Which happened when large parts of population were not free to speak their minds without very real threat to their safety. It is not change from people free to speak their minds to here. It is change from one group risks lynching, beating and economic consequences to another group risks economic consequences.
It was not only thing that was going on, obviously and it is not that everything is changing for the better. But the way we idealize the communitarian ideals of the past and their impact is mostly nostalgia - remembering good while ignoring bad. We are talking about good days of free speech of the past and then talk about suppression of sexual or racial minorities as if it would be unrelated. Or for that matter free speech of whites who pushed for equality - the consequences for them were could be quite high too.
And I think the push back or just not taking these liberty arguments all that much seriously has something to do with those arguments not being really serious about past either.