Delighted to see introduction of Persuasion Classics, at a dangerous moment in our history when such texts may disappear from university curricula. None better to begin with than Milton. David Bromwich does well to link the Areopagitica with Paradise
Lost. No “fugitive and cloistered virtue” for Milton! Felix culpa, indeed. Milton prefers freedom to Eden, and so should we all. Ignorance is not bliss even in the most PC utopia
I'm trying to imagine a world in which scholars who write about literature write about it like this. I know there are some more of you out there, but I fear the post-structuralist moral meddlers have won.
What a great idea to start "Persuasion Classics"! Sometimes we forget that there is nothing new under the Sun (or not much new, anyway) and being reminded of the ways thinkers of the past thought about issues of their day deepens our understanding of our issues. And, at least for me, it strengthens my spirit when I am reminded that we are not, after all, living in uniquely troublesome times. Just troublesome.
I was reminded by Stanley Fish's writing on the Areopagitica that there's a very difficult part for modern audiences, including modern civil libertarians: Milton specifically gives Catholicism (!) as an example of an exception to his argument (a doctrine that should *not* be tolerated and whose proponents should *not* be allowed to publish). "I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled."
This is shocking to civil libertarians today, for one thing because many are themselves Catholic, for another because they see Milton's desire to suppress Catholicism as an example of the very problem he was criticizing (assuming that you are right to an extent that you don't even have to debate the other side or become familiar with its views), and for another because one of the things that made pluralistic free speech so appealing to moderns is the way that it formed part of a conspicuously successful resolution to wars of religion (we can all try to convince each other, in countries where nobody's religion is enforced by the state, instead of trying to conquer states in order to get our own religions made official). So Milton's view not only raises the "how do you know the Catholics are wrong if they're not even allowed to explain their views?" question, but also leaves Catholics with an ongoing incentive to try to overthrow regimes that take his advice, in a way that they wouldn't have if they were fully tolerated.
I love the soaring free speech language of the Areopagitica but I think everyone who loves it has to deal with this issue. Maybe some of today's censors feel that tolerated X-ism "extirpates all" things they care about and cherish, and has nothing to contribute and nothing even really to understand or think about. Milton may not be able to shake that certainty.
First, I love this concept and greatly look forward to to this series!
If we accept that the root cause of much of our problems is using speech codes, canceling, etc. to preserve an unattainable innocence instead of cultivating an ability to seek truth and knowledge, then how do we steer educators towards that latter view? Every university president (not to mention newspaper editor) would say that they’re supportive of truth-seeking, but few actually are. They are actually quite obsessed with preserving innocence and isolating their charges from even mildly unpleasant intellectual exchanges.
What happened at universities to create this environment? In _Coddling of the American Mind_ the authors finger, mostly, upper-middle-class parents. They argue, though, that these are the students university administrators have been expectantly waiting for.
It seems to me that reconquering institutions purportedly devoted to truth-seeking is the best path forward—but I have no idea how even to begin.
Catholics, at least as represented by pope, remained hostile to popular sovereignty and liberty of
conscience explicitly as expressed in encyclical Syllabus of Errors , Pius IX mid 19th century, and maintained
Index of Forbidden Books until Vatican II,
Framers of US Constitution who had
welcomed John Carroll of Carrollton,
Maryland Catholic, educated by
Jesuits in France, as signer of Declaration of Independence, were born free and did not fear Counter Reformation and thus forbade “religious tests” for office in US. Article VI Constitution
It is well to remember also that Milton served as secretary to Cromwell who welcomed return of Jews to England
This essay makes one point, which I greatly appreciate, “These people are innocent, and they have the merciless confidence known only to the innocent. They comprise a civilian army for the purification of society.” I do wish “innocent” had been in quotes.
However, as Seth Shoan has brilliantly pointed out, it does not deal with Milton’s exception to free speech. Similarly, Bromwich fails utterly to deal with modern exceptions that are nearly universally approved — slander, child pornography, threats of violence, speech that incites riots, violence, or insurrection, and revealing military secrets such as how to make an atomic bomb.
All of these categories have fuzzy boundaries, and Bromwich seems to think he can solve that problem by eliminating all restrictions on speech. Such a project will be correctly seen as weak-minded. You cannot draw a sharp line between the valley and the mountain, but if you conclude from this that there are no mountains you lose all credibility.
This is not the path to winning against this cultural revolution, something I feel is of utmost importance.
I call this new snobby class of self righteous postmodernists the Jellyby Gentry. Like all gentry the Jellyby Gentry pretend to own the intellectual landscape and punish severely all who attempt to poach their "ferae naturae" (wild animals). The punishment for poaching the coney and venison of the English gentry was severe in Shakespeare's time, worse when William conquered: The poacher would be blinded and castrated for hunting the King's game. Now we are only cancelled and lose our careers for hunting down the wild ideas of the self-righteous Jellyby Gentry. Only they know what real racism means! "Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, Go along, you naughty Peepy! [her hungry crying child with filthy diaper who had just fallen down the stairs] and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again."
Delighted to see introduction of Persuasion Classics, at a dangerous moment in our history when such texts may disappear from university curricula. None better to begin with than Milton. David Bromwich does well to link the Areopagitica with Paradise
Lost. No “fugitive and cloistered virtue” for Milton! Felix culpa, indeed. Milton prefers freedom to Eden, and so should we all. Ignorance is not bliss even in the most PC utopia
I'm trying to imagine a world in which scholars who write about literature write about it like this. I know there are some more of you out there, but I fear the post-structuralist moral meddlers have won.
This is why I subscribe. This deserves the widest possible reading.
What a great idea to start "Persuasion Classics"! Sometimes we forget that there is nothing new under the Sun (or not much new, anyway) and being reminded of the ways thinkers of the past thought about issues of their day deepens our understanding of our issues. And, at least for me, it strengthens my spirit when I am reminded that we are not, after all, living in uniquely troublesome times. Just troublesome.
I was reminded by Stanley Fish's writing on the Areopagitica that there's a very difficult part for modern audiences, including modern civil libertarians: Milton specifically gives Catholicism (!) as an example of an exception to his argument (a doctrine that should *not* be tolerated and whose proponents should *not* be allowed to publish). "I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled."
This is shocking to civil libertarians today, for one thing because many are themselves Catholic, for another because they see Milton's desire to suppress Catholicism as an example of the very problem he was criticizing (assuming that you are right to an extent that you don't even have to debate the other side or become familiar with its views), and for another because one of the things that made pluralistic free speech so appealing to moderns is the way that it formed part of a conspicuously successful resolution to wars of religion (we can all try to convince each other, in countries where nobody's religion is enforced by the state, instead of trying to conquer states in order to get our own religions made official). So Milton's view not only raises the "how do you know the Catholics are wrong if they're not even allowed to explain their views?" question, but also leaves Catholics with an ongoing incentive to try to overthrow regimes that take his advice, in a way that they wouldn't have if they were fully tolerated.
I love the soaring free speech language of the Areopagitica but I think everyone who loves it has to deal with this issue. Maybe some of today's censors feel that tolerated X-ism "extirpates all" things they care about and cherish, and has nothing to contribute and nothing even really to understand or think about. Milton may not be able to shake that certainty.
Excellent argument. Thank you.
First, I love this concept and greatly look forward to to this series!
If we accept that the root cause of much of our problems is using speech codes, canceling, etc. to preserve an unattainable innocence instead of cultivating an ability to seek truth and knowledge, then how do we steer educators towards that latter view? Every university president (not to mention newspaper editor) would say that they’re supportive of truth-seeking, but few actually are. They are actually quite obsessed with preserving innocence and isolating their charges from even mildly unpleasant intellectual exchanges.
What happened at universities to create this environment? In _Coddling of the American Mind_ the authors finger, mostly, upper-middle-class parents. They argue, though, that these are the students university administrators have been expectantly waiting for.
It seems to me that reconquering institutions purportedly devoted to truth-seeking is the best path forward—but I have no idea how even to begin.
Catholics, at least as represented by pope, remained hostile to popular sovereignty and liberty of
conscience explicitly as expressed in encyclical Syllabus of Errors , Pius IX mid 19th century, and maintained
Index of Forbidden Books until Vatican II,
Framers of US Constitution who had
welcomed John Carroll of Carrollton,
Maryland Catholic, educated by
Jesuits in France, as signer of Declaration of Independence, were born free and did not fear Counter Reformation and thus forbade “religious tests” for office in US. Article VI Constitution
It is well to remember also that Milton served as secretary to Cromwell who welcomed return of Jews to England
M
This essay makes one point, which I greatly appreciate, “These people are innocent, and they have the merciless confidence known only to the innocent. They comprise a civilian army for the purification of society.” I do wish “innocent” had been in quotes.
However, as Seth Shoan has brilliantly pointed out, it does not deal with Milton’s exception to free speech. Similarly, Bromwich fails utterly to deal with modern exceptions that are nearly universally approved — slander, child pornography, threats of violence, speech that incites riots, violence, or insurrection, and revealing military secrets such as how to make an atomic bomb.
https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/inciting-to-riot-violence-or-insurrection.html
All of these categories have fuzzy boundaries, and Bromwich seems to think he can solve that problem by eliminating all restrictions on speech. Such a project will be correctly seen as weak-minded. You cannot draw a sharp line between the valley and the mountain, but if you conclude from this that there are no mountains you lose all credibility.
This is not the path to winning against this cultural revolution, something I feel is of utmost importance.
I call this new snobby class of self righteous postmodernists the Jellyby Gentry. Like all gentry the Jellyby Gentry pretend to own the intellectual landscape and punish severely all who attempt to poach their "ferae naturae" (wild animals). The punishment for poaching the coney and venison of the English gentry was severe in Shakespeare's time, worse when William conquered: The poacher would be blinded and castrated for hunting the King's game. Now we are only cancelled and lose our careers for hunting down the wild ideas of the self-righteous Jellyby Gentry. Only they know what real racism means! "Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, Go along, you naughty Peepy! [her hungry crying child with filthy diaper who had just fallen down the stairs] and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again."