Discuss J S Mill's notion that to deprive society of an opinion is to assume infallibility

Mill’s ideas about fallibility expound his notion that we can never be sure of what the truth is, because in order to be so we would have to accept the proposition that we are infallible, which is a false conclusion and therefore logically leads to immediate fallibility. Mill uses this to argue that we can never therefore be warranted in silencing the views of others because we might be wrong. To dismiss the opinion of another and silence them is to assume infallibility and to make a choice for everyone in society. However Mill himself is inconsistent in his application of this, saying that we must “forbid bad men to pervert society by he propagation of opinions which we regard as false and pernicious”. He qualifies this by saying there is no such thing as absolute certainty but still the meaning is clear. I must surely be assuming infallibility when I act on my beliefs that the men are “bad” and their beliefs “false and pernicious”. And in this lies the flaw in Mill’s proposition, that is, to properly exercise his principle that we are fallible in everything we become utterly paralysed. As Yeats said “The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are filled with passionate intensity”, it is the very inaction and indecision of good people in their tolerance that can often lead to the corrupting influence of evil in society by virtue of no one being certain enough in their convictions to stop it. In addition, I take issue with his notion that to accept certainty on a subject is to “assume infallibility”. To the contrary, I do not assume infallibility when I agree with the Cartesian Cogito or that 2+2=4, I simply have something I am certain about, I have not ascribed to myself the quality of always being correct. It is unquestionably true that there is little in the world that could be called indubitable, but to shrink from the idea that we should act in accordance with our most basic convictions is simply needless indecision, the fear of being wrong.