You're A Good Man JOHN STUART MILL!
“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”
“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”
written by Fred Van Lente drawn by Ryan Dunlavey colored by Kaylee Rowena
Script for “YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, JOHN STUART MILL!”
Written by Fred Van Lente
ACTION PHILOSOPHERS © 2006 Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey. Bitch.
STRIP #1
NOTE: Done in the style of a Sunday Peanuts strip; you even have to turn the comic book sideways (landscape) in order to read it.
Panel 1: Mill – looking like Charlie Brown as he does on the cover – sits at Lucy’s Psychiatrist’s stand. Lucy wears a Victorian-style bonnet and, since this is the 19th century, the sign on her stand reads “THE ALIENIST IS IN • 5¢” (JSM Quotes: Autobio 101, 102) Leave room for Peanuts Sunday style logo.
LOGO (Peanuts style): “You’re a Good Man, John Stuart Mill”
CREDITS (ditto): by van lente & DUNLAVEY
MILL: the doctrine of what is called philosophical necessity weighs on my existence like an incubus
FOOTNOTE (small, in gutter): Mill was born in London in 1806.
Panel 2: Mill talks.
MILL: sometimes I worry that I am scientifically proven to be the helpless slave of antecedent circumstances
Panel 3: Mill waves his arms expressively.
MILL: that my character and that of all others has been formed for us by agencies beyond our control!
FOOTNOTE (ditto): Home-schooled as an “educational experiment” by his domineering father, he suffered a nervous breakdown at age twenty.
Panel 4: Lucy waves her arms expressly.
LUCY: Though our character is formed by circumstances, John Stuart Mill, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances
Panel 5: Lucy talks.
LUCY: What is really ennobling in the doctrine of freewill is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our character
Panel 6: Lucy concludes.
LUCY: That our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing!
Panel 7: Mill rubs his tummy, smiling. Lucy smiles.
MILL: Wow ... my stomach feels better already
LUCY: Glad I could help
FOOTNOTE (ditto): His discovery of romantic poetry helped him out of his depression and fueled the compassionate humanism of his later philosophy
Panel 8: Lucy sticks at her hand. Mill frowns, hesitates.
LUCY: That will be a dime, please
MILL: But… your sign says…
Panel 9: Lucy shakes her fist threateningly. Mill cringes.
LUCY (BIG): Hey! Nobody MADE you come down here, freewill boy!
STRIP #2
This page, obviously, is done in the treacly style of the Schulz Happiness Is… gift-type books. (Quote: Utilitarianism 257)
I’d split the page in half: the left half is Panel 1, the right half is Panel 2 and Panel 3 stacked on top of each other.
Panel 1: Mill being carried along by his joyful cricket team, as per the flagged baseball glove image in the Peanuts book. They’re all wearing 19th century cricket uniforms, natch. Or come up with some other happy Schulz image on your own. I ain’t picky!
TOP COPY: The Greatest Happiness Principle is…
BOTTOM COPY: …“actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”*
SMALL COPY: *: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)
Panel 2: John Stuart Mill runs merrily through a field with his kite.
TOP COY: Happiness is…
BOTTOM COPY: …intended pleasure, and the absence of pain**
Panel 3: Mill looks at the Kite-Eating Tree, which has devoured the kite.
TOP COPY: Unhappiness is…
BOTTOM COPY: …pain, and the privation of pleasure**
SMALL COPY: **: Ibid
STRIP #3
NOTE: We will dispense with the opening logo in the remaining strips, but they’ll still be in the turn-the-page sideways Sunday style, and have a larger-than-normal first panel. .
Panel 1: Big lead-in panel. Mill and “Bentham”, who looks like Linus, except he has the Ben Franklin-hair of Mill’s primary influence, Jeremy Bentham, at the wall.
MILL: The problem with your system of Utilitarianism, Bentham, was the insistence that morality should be equated with quantities of pleasure
MILL: our critics can accuse us of moral relativism… According to us, they say, each person’s subjective opinion determines the good, not any ethical standard
FOOTNOTE (small): English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the inventor of utilitarianism, was a close friend of mill’s father, and mill’s strongest intellectual influence
Panel 2: Mill and Bentham arrive at baby Sally, who plays with her blocks. (Quotes: Utilitarianism 260-261)
MILL: It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied
Panel 3: Mill gestures at Schroeder, who, while playing, is getting frustrated, because Lucy is hectoring him.
MILL: And a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for is imperfect.
Panel 4: Pig Pen plays in dirt. He’s filthy! Mill shows him to Bentham.
MILL: though men often make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable
MILL: this is from infirmity of character, or because inferior pleasures are the only ones they have access to
Panel 5: Mill drives his point home to Bentham. (Quote: Utilitarianism 259)
MILL: But no person of feeling and conscience is habitually selfish and base, even though he may be persuaded that the dunce and the rascal are better satisfied with their lot
MILL: for there is a qualitative difference in types of pleasure and morality is proportionate to higher happiness
Panel 6: Mill and Linus at Snoopy’s doghouse. Snoopy lies on his back on top.
MILL: It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied
MILL: better to be a human being dissatisfied than A DOG satisfied
Panel 7: As Mill and Bentham walk away, Snoopy’s dog dish gets hurled in from behind them off-panel, hitting them both in the head!
SFX: BONK!
Panel 8: Snoopy lies on his doghouse.
SNOOPY (THOUGHT): there’s no accounting for taste!
STRIP #4
Panel 1: John Stuart Mill comes across Violet and Lucy (Victorian dress) fighting over the same doll.
VIOLET: It’s mine!
LUCY: You’ve had it long enough! Let me hold it now!
Panel 2: Mill gets between the two of them. (Quote: Utilitarianism 268)
MILL: you see how selfishness does not bring happiness?
MILL: In the golden rule of jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility
Panel 2: Mill takes the doll and holds it himself. (Quote: Utilitarianism 308)
MILL: Just as Kant propounds the fundamental principle of morals
MILL: “so act that thy rule of conduct might be adopted as law by all rational beings”
Panel 3: Violet & Lucy listen to Mill talk.
MILL: to give any meaning to Kant’s principle, the sense put upon it must be that we ought to shape our conduct by a rule which all rational beings might adopt with benefit to their collective interest
Panel 4: Mill concludes. (Quote: Utilitarianism 284)
MILL: FOR The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man that he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body
Panel 5: Violet and Lucy look at each other, with Mill in between.
NO COPY
Panel 6: Violet and Lucy punch Mill at the same time!
SFX: POW!
Panel 7: Violet and Lucy look down at the prostrate Mill.
VIOLET: and we conceive you to be the heel
STRIP #5
Panel 1: Big lead-in panel. Snoopy, dressed in a top hat and tuxedo and carrying a scroll, approaches John Stuart Mill at the head of a delegation of Woodstocks, all also wearing tuxedos, and carry miniature Canadian flags.
SNOOPY (THOUGHT): The august Canadian delegation approaches the Parliamentarian
FOOTNOTE IN GUTTER (s): Mill represented Westminster in parliament from 1865 to 1868
Panel 2: Snoopy hands Mill the scroll.
SNOOPY (THOUGHT): The M.P. is handed the British North America Act, which would unite the provinces in self-government as the dominion of Canada
Panel 3: Snoopy waits patiently as Mill reads the scroll.
SNOOPY (THOUGHT): The delegation anxiously awaits the M.P.’s reply…
Panel 4: Mill addresses the Woodstocks. (Quote: Stumpf 378 [from On Liberty]; Footnote: Autobio 129)
MILL: My friends, the sole end for which mankind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection
FOOTNOTE (small): According to Canadian governor Lord Durham, to Mill’s manifesto in support of Canadian independence “might be ascribed the almost TRiUMPHAL RECEPTiON which he (Durham) met with on his arrival in England”
Panel 5: Mill holds out one finger
MILL: No government should interfere with its subjects, firstly, when the action can be done better by private persons
Panel 6: Mill holds out two fingers
MILL: secondly, when it is desirable for private persons to do it for their development and education
Panel 7: Mill holds out three fingers
MILL: And thirdly, when there is danger that too much power will unnecessarily accrue to the government.
Panel 8: Mill finishes his address to the Woodstocks.
MILL: as Canada’s move toward self-GOVERNMENT does not cause harm to others, I fully support it!
FOOTNOTE (small): the BNA Act went into effect July 1, 1867, now celebrated as Canada Day
Panel 9: Snoopy confers with the Woodstocks.
WOODSTOCKS: | | | | | | | | |
Panel 10: Snoopy “speaks” to Mill. Mill rolls his eyes.
SNOOPY (THOUGHT): That’s nice, but where do you stand on the Canadian geese issue?
MILL: Good grief!
STRIP #6
Panel 1: Big lead-in panel. Schroeder approaches Mill on the pitching green – both are dressed as CRICKET PLAYERS. Schroeder is the WICKET-KEEPER, and wears the appropriate gloves, and a funny wide-brimmed hat. Mill, the BOWLER, holds the cricket ball.
SCHROEDER: They’re beating us twenty thousand to one, and it’s only the third over
SCHROEDER: You’re captain, john stuart mill. What should we do?
Panel 2: John Stuart Mill declares a…
MILL: Team meeting!
Panel 3: Big panel as all the kids (in cricket gear) gather around Mill on the bowling green.
MILL: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”*
FOOTNOTE SMALL: *: Jsm, on liberty (1859)
Panel 4: Mill addresses the team.
MILL: On that principle, I would like you to know that all opinions will be considered, for “whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called.”*
FOOTNOTE SMALL: *: Ibid
Panel 5: Mill concludes.
MILL: So … what should we do?
Panel 6: Everyone stares at him.
NO COPY
Panel 7: They all walk away, except Schroeder. [Quote: On Liberty]
MILL: oh, come on, now! “The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it!”
Panel 8: Schroeder walks away.
SCHROEDER: thanks for not oppressing our apathy, cap
STRIP #7
Panel 1: Big lead-in panel: Mill and Bentham (Linus) at the wall—feel free to stat from earlier strip. (Quote: Utilitarianism 288)
BENTHAM: Our critics say that the Greatest Happiness Principle is incapable of proof by reasoning
MILL: quite the contrary! Happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end
Panel 2: Mill notes Marcie (Victorian dress), glasses off, struggling with an eye chart.
MILL: The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people see it: and so of the other sources of our experience
Panel 3: Snoopy listens to (off-panel?) Mill.
MILL (OFF): In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it
Panel 4: From out of nowhere Snoopy comes and grabs onto Bentham’s blanket! (See Peanuts, toward the end)
SFX: CLOMP!
Panel 5: Snoopy and Bentham tug on the blanket while Mill tries to intervene.
MILL: Wait, wait … let us apply the principle
Panel 6: Mill takes the blanket from Snoopy and chastises him, wagging a finger.
MILL: Bad dog! That is Bentham’s blanket. Bad dog!
Panel 7: Mill returns the blanket to a grateful Bentham. (Utilitatarianism 294)
MILL: see? It is by associating the right thing with pleasure, or the doing wrong with pain, that it is possible to call forth that will to be virtuous…
Panel 8: Stat panel 3 (Snoopy listening)
MILL (OFF): …which, when confirmed, acts without any thought to pleasure or pain, for virtue leads to highest happiness, and is therefore the most desirable
Panel 9: Stat panel 4: Snoopy grabs onto Linus’s blanket.
SFX: CLOMP!
STRIP #8
Panel 1: Big lead-in panel of Lucy with a rugby ball (as per right). Mill eyes the ball suspiciously. (JSM quotes: Autobio 139, 142)
MILL: Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality, not because it can never be otherwise
MILL: but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning ‘til night on things which tend only to personal advantage
Panel 2: Mill talks some more.
MILL: The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society is so deeply rooted, only because the course of existing institutions tends to foster it
Panel 3: And guess what?
MILL: I am now convinced that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought
Panel 4: Lucy has a revelation.
LUCY: I couldn’t agree more, John Stuart Mill! And that change has to start somewhere, right?
MILL: Precisely! I’m glad you see my meaning!
Panel 5: Mill runs at the rugby ball…
NO COPY
Panel 6: Lucy yanks it away at the last second! Mill goes flying!
MILL: AAUUGGH!!
Panel 7: Lucy stands over the prostrate Mill.
LUCY: but your problem is you’re ahead of your time
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