The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

acquire that freedom of spirit in which true
happiness consists, for it is essential to happiness
that our way of living should spring from our own
deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes
and desires of those who happen to be our
neighbours, or even our relations. Fear of
immediate neighbours is no doubt less than it was,
but there is a new kind of fear, namely the fear of
what newspapers may say. This is quite as
terrifying as anything connected with mediaeval
witch-hunts. When the newspaper chooses to make
a scapegoat of some perhaps quite harmless
person, the results may be very terrible.
Fortunately, as yet this is a fate which most people
escape through their obscurity, but as publicity gets
more and more perfect in its methods, there will be
an increasing danger in this novel form of social
persecution. This is too grave a matter to be
treated with disdain by the individual who is its
victim, and whatever may be thought of the great
principle of the freedom of the Press, I think the
line will have to be drawn more sharply than it is
by the existing libel laws, and anything will have