Analysis Of John Stuart Mill's 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'

John Stuart Mill states that humans have a tendency to conform to the group’s actions. He also claims that there are nonconformists who ultimately inspire regular people to express themselves. While Mill argues that nonconformity leads to innovation, John Didion argues that nonconformity leads to personal worthlessness. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion constantly demonstrates how clueless everyone she interacts with is. At one point, she cites a conversation between an woman and a city girl. The woman said “‘you get one that says ‘1111’ in one corner and ‘1111’ in another, you take it down to Dallas, Texas, they’ll give you $15 for it.’ ‘Who will?’ the city girl asks. ‘I don’t know.’” No one in their right mind brings up a topic that they don’t know about; however, the girl who brought up the conversation had no idea what she was talking about, demonstrating that the conversation between the two was both pointless and a waste of time. Essentially, this is how Didion perceives most interactions between the hippy nonconformists. This is also shown when Didion is with Barbra. Didion states that “whenever I hear about the woman’s trip, which is often, I think a lot about... how it is possible for people to be the unconscious instruments of

As shown by Didion, when people attempt to express themselves, their actions have no purpose, which wastes not only their own time, but other’s time as well. Didion also shows that in some cases, people aren’t able to express themselves at all because their true thoughts never come out. The only things that are expressed are thoughts that the person never believed in in the first place. This goes to show that Didion disagrees completely with Mill; nonconformity doesn’t lead to innovation, but leads to personal