A Funny Thing Happened on the Way...

The world is a very non-linear place. I'm not sure when I first realized this fact, but here are the top three BYU experiences (listed in no particular order) that most impressed that fact on me:

• Watching Kurosawa's Rashomon at BYU's International Cinema as an undergrad
• Discovering the art of the personal essay as Pat Madden read Asymptosy in the Harold B. Lee Library
• Reading, researching, and writing about Paradise Lost

 Very little went as I imagined it would. I took the class because I wanted to read Milton's grand epic, but found myself most excited when we picked up Areopagitica. I suppose the libertarian literature/media I've been ingesting over the past few years got me primed for Milton's views on gatekeeping, intellectual freedom, etc. Initially, I figured I'd pursue what Chelsea later delved deep into (Snowden and all). But after some conversations with Greg, Google, Gideon, and (of all people) one of the masterminds at More Good Foundation, I thought very seriously about applying Areopagitica to the present shifts in LDS public relations and CES policies (see: Mormopagitica).

In retrospect, I think I would have enjoyed following the Mormon rabbit further down the rabbit hole, and almost wish I could have a do-over. But when I sat down to write the shorter writing assignment (which, like Greg, I found invaluable), I felt a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of wrapping my head around such a multifaceted issue without the benefit of three-hundred years worth of historians winnowing away at the facts. And I was becoming enamored by both the harmony and dissonance I saw between Areopagitica and Paradise Lost. Specifically, I was fascinated by the fact that Milton decries forcible gatekeeping in Areopagitica as contrary to "the manner of God and nature," but saw a God who Paradise Lost who proscribed the spread of knowledge in a variety of ways. I couldn't help but ask why Milton would have reversed this claim after being so unjustly censored and imprisoned by the restored monarchy.

Ironically, as I started to research in earnest, I found myself connecting much more frequently in person than online. I think what I appreciated about face-to-face social research was how quickly I was able to get social proof each time. Whether it was a chat with Greg as we crossed campus after class, an intrusion on Gideon or Jason Kerr in their respective offices, or conversation with fellow graduate instructors in the carrels of the JFSB, conversing real-time gave me the chance to instantly pick up some new insight and gauge (sometimes through non-verbal feedback) whether I was on track.

On the Creation of Modern Comparison

Except this is really my last one of my undergraduate career.
Still, it feels never-ending. Probably will be.

I'll be honest: there's very little of Milton that I felt any connection to. Scott wrote a post about T.S. Eliot and his thoughts on Milton, and I responded to it with the following: "Verbose inefficiency seems a good description for what I've been annoyed with."

There were only a few times that I found myself interested in Milton's work. Those times were his Divorce Tracts and Areopagitica. That's not to say that I didn't find class discussions and the primary texts interesting. I just mean to say that Milton didn't astound me with his poetry the way that Eliot does. I don't like very much poetry, so I will always be more fond of prose.

Social Interaction

First off, I don't know how my paper would have turned out if I hadn't done this process, but I know for sure that it wouldn't be as well-focused and well-informed. The sources I was able to attain from this process are more useful than the one's I had found on Milton. Now, the correspondence.

I got around to emailing two people, Dr. Vincent Blasi, a professor of Law at Columbia who wrote an article on Milton and the First Amendment. He hasn't emailed me back yet (and I'm really not sure he will), but this is the email I sent:

More Annotated Sources

John Milton, Monalisa 2013

In previous posts, I have outlined a couple people to look into and annotated a few sources I have checked into. Here, I would like to go on with that list by adding some blogs and new media, since my project will work with that. But also, I would like to focus a little more on Milton. I realize that it will be really easy to fall into the trap of making Milton fall to the wayside in favor of the modern application. So I need to find some sources that deal strictly with Milton and so I am not forgetting him. I already did this some, but I could do it more. So here it goes.


ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.2

First, let's cover some social media.

Gabriel Jbreel Hess

• An aspiring military chaplain, he posts numerous links to Edward Snowden's leaks and articles about the NSA.
• I've already talked to him, and he's been willing to help me find more things as they pop up.

Google+ Media

• Communities are few and far between that deal strictly with the NSA and Edward Snowden, but all you have to do is type in #NSA or #Snowden on the search bar and you come up with this.
• This is an invaluable source for breaking news information I could use to further my argument.
• Typing in #Milton or #JohnMilton lends very few results.

A Mix of Sources

The more I look at what I'm doing, the more I'm realizing that there hasn't been much scholarship regarding the Patriot Act and Milton in an official sense, but there are a few people who have picked up the narrative.

As I will largely be constructing this narrative in the form of modern happenings, I will be utilizing a lot of newspaper articles and press releases and news clips. It will also take awhile to sort through everything I have found to utilize what I want. However, this is my start. If any of you have or come across something juicy, would you please let me know? Thanks!

Areopagitica and the People’s Rights to Information and Government Transparency

Thesis/Opening Paragraph:

Milton’s political tracts boldly declare his belief that in order for the people to be a functioning, self-governing body, they had to have the right to uncensored information. This belief, completely rejected by Parliament, would come up later in American government with the creation of the First Amendment. Yet in America today, we’re struggling with the same problems Milton faced in his time. How do we, as a people, make informed decisions about our government if we don’t have the freedom of information? Is it possible to strike a balance between a transparent government and free flow of information and government secrets and operatives’ safety? Like Milton, we have several figures in the world that are willing to risk their lives for their belief that the uncensored exchange of ideas and information is tantamount for the people to avoid corrupt government, oppression, and social injustice. While many names come to mind, I would like to focus on two main figures in this regard: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Both Assange and Snowden believe that the only way to truly make change for the better is to let people see what’s really going on in all sectors of government and economics. Milton’s premise of freedom of information in Areopagitica completely supports this view. 

A Well Documented Modern Parallel

I've been seriously considering what I'm interested in writing for the final paper, and based off of my previous blog posts, I've decided to deal with Areopagitica and how it applies to what is currently going on with the NSA spying and the Patriot Act. Back in August, I bookmarked an article from the Guardian that I found interesting and important. Of course this is just the beginning of my research. I fully intend to use my information from my other blog posts about censorship to supplement my current research.

The Guardian also posted a video about how the NSA spying affects you:

Essentially, what I'm exploring is how censorship, even in the form of information gathering, hurts progress because people are afraid to speak freely and the government can attack you if you say things they don't like. Censorship in Milton's day was about preventing those types of things from being published in the first place, and the point of the NSA surveillance and the Patriot Act is to make sure you aren't even thinking about saying things that may undermine the government's ideal state, and it's completely legal under the secret "official interpretation" of the Patriot Act.

After the jump break I'll have a couple of the sections I find critical in this article as well as the quotes from Areopagitica that I find particularly illuminating about the issues we're facing with the problems of the Patriot Act and how the NSA interprets it.

"For inferior who is free?"

Paper! (It was hard to fit all I wanted to in the 3-4 pages...potential research paper topic?) The argument seemed to develop in different directions as I wrote and fleshed out what evidence I had gathered. I actually am really excited about maybe using this as a research paper topic, simply because I feel I wasn't able to do justice to what I was trying to say in these pages (probably a good indicator that I need to be less wordy and more to the point) and because there were some really interesting ideas that hit me that I would like to explore! And rather discomfiting at times to be jumping all across an event that I hold so sacred in order to argue someone else's view of it. (That really doesn't represent mine.) But thats the joy of English and literary analysis, isn't it?

Why is censorship integral to Milton's depiction of the Fall of Adam and Eve? Click here to find out!

Towards Mormopagitica

I've had a running internal/external debate in my head for the past ten... no make that fifteen years on the worth of wickedness observed. On the one hand, I think of the often graphic horrors opened in visions by the Lord to His prophets; if God saw fit to put wickedness on display for Isaiah, John the Revelator, there must be some value derived from it, right? And ancient american prophets seemed to view the records of the Gadianton robbers to be important to their education, right? But on the other hand, I argue that God and his anointed were the gate-keepers in both instances; maybe only He and the prophets who share His secrets are physicians fit to prescribe such useful drugs. Then again, don't we believe in an egalitarian God who upbraids not when any man seeks knowledge in faith?

"To both these objections one answer will serve, out of the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are not temptations, nor vanities; but useful drugs."

And so I've gone round and round. I suppose I should sit down to read and write and pray about it. But I have little confidence, at present, in settling the question by an appeal to King James, Mormon, or Milton. Rather, when stirred by Areopagitica and Paradise Lost, I find myself thinking about the official narrative of LDS history. Happily, it seems we are moving towards the free market of thought advocated so well by Milton in Areopagitica. I suppose this change in policy--where we find the Joseph Smith papers published unedited, and where CES teachers are being instructed to address uncomfortable facts rather than merely avoiding them, and where Pres. Uchtdorff and others frankly acknowledge the reality that LDS leaders have sometimes acted and spoken out of harmony with eternal truth--has been a necessary fruit of the internet: a digital tree whose broad boughs put the knowledge of good and evil at the fingertips of millions.

So where does this all essay? Toward confidence, calmed by faith. The bittersweet fruits of good and evil knowledge have been tasted in other worlds, including Milton's. It's natural to wish for cultural-narrative control, but can we become saints, individually or collectively, without confessing our fathers' transgressions?

Pre-write! Censorship and the Fall of Adam and Eve

Working Thesis:
Milton utilizes his points established in Areopagitica to orchestrate the action in Paradise Lost in order to suggest that censorship is the cause of the Fall of Adam and Eve. (in order to further his point that censorship really stinks).

[I've been reworking and narrowing my thesis a bit. What do you think? Too broad? Too narrow? Too vague? Not worded well? Just right?] I'll obviously dress the last parenthetical part up a bit but is adding that giving me too much to chew in just a 3-4 page paper?

[Interesting Intro]
[Common Ground] (Milton is depicting the story of the Creation and Fall of Mankind because he wants to write the "English Epic" for the sake of glory, honor, tradition, etc.)
[Disrupting the Common Ground] While this is true, Milton also uses Paradise Lost as a narrative platform to demonstrate the points he has attempted to refute within society. I claim that Milton is making the claim that censorship is the root of the cause of the Fall. (in order to further his point that censorship really stinks).
[Support/Explain]
 - Areopagitica - major points, especially the pieces that have the most significance to what happens in the Garden
 - Raphael, Adam, and Eve - where does censorship occur? (pick one or two instances, the most significant ones that you think are what lead to the Fall! You don't have enough room for them all.)
 - Why do these instances necessarily lead to the Fall/how are they related to what Milton was arguing for in Areopagitica?
[Conclusion]

Problems and False Starts

I was so excited about the concepts concerning the implications of communicated knowledge in Areopagitica that I had all but decided on restricting my study of Milton to an exploration of that text. At first, I was mainly interested in how Milton's rhetoric might inform libertarians in our current age, as demonstrated by this false-start I never posted:




But I'm also fascinated by the concepts that intersect with Book IX of Paradise Lost, especially as they pertain to Mormon studies in a digital age (a preoccupation of mine evidenced by Ships of Hagoth).

If time were not an issue, I would explore the following subjects:

1. Milton's thoughts on the ethics and implications of personal and communicated knowledge, as expressed in Paradise Lost and Areopagitica
2. Doctrines, attitudes and histories of the LDS Church and it's members on the ethics and implications of personal and communicated knowledge
3. Challenges and implications of the above in a digital world

As it stands, that list looks like an elephant so large, it would take years to digest, even at the rational rate of one bite at a time.

[Blogger sighs with exaspiration.]

What You See is What You Get

GET: verb \ˈget, ÷ˈgit\  to find out by calculation <get the answer to a problem>

When looking at these pictures is it more important to know what you're seeing or how you see it?

This distinction is a key theme in Milton's "Areopagitica" as well as his beloved Paradise Lost. Milton argues the point that it is the mind or soul that is good or bad, not the environment or knowledge in and of itself. We hear things in Paradise Lost like

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” 

We see examples like Satan disobeying and being thrust to hell juxtaposed with Adam and Eve disobeying and, though fallen, are given a way to have "Paradise Regained."

Milton's own perspective was heavily influenced by the Bible. In his "Areopagitica," he often quotes biblical passages like Titus 1:15,"To the pure, all things are pure." His religious belief in purity of self over purity of environment led him to speak out for liberty in press and in government.William Haller, speaking of Milton said, "When other men argued for liberty, it was always a liberty with some kind of limitation . . . When Milton spoke, it was to clarion forth a liberty pure, absolute, entire."

With this perspective on liberty pure, however, comes a kind of frightening application. It means that perhaps no information is inherently bad. It means that, in terms of media at the very least, anything goes.

The Evolution of Liberty and Mormonism

A sign like this would have driven Milton crazy. One of Milton's crowning arguments of Areopagitica is that God gave man reason and temptation to use. He says

"Many there be that complain of divine providence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, He gave him freedom to choose; for reason is but choosing; . . . God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes."

The idea that reason allows us to choose good from evil necessitates unrestrained options. If you have no options you cannot choose. If this is true and Milton himself doesn't have the rights he desires, is it any wonder then that Milton lobbied for freedom of press, freedom of religion, and a free government? One scholarly review by William Haller argues

"the more each protesting body suffered from intolerance the more tolerant it became, that the more it was forced to contend for liberty for itself the more nearly it approached the conception of liberty for all, with the result that implied principle was finally by the ultimate dissenters extricated from all the pain of cumulative persecution and kindled, as it were, 'on the top of a light-house, on its own account.'"

Text-2-text connections! And a chart.

          So I'm ready to get back to Paradise Lost.

          Okay, I've been trying to figure out a way to bring Brave New World into this blog post because I feel like it's saying something similar. Yes, it's a dystopian novel like many others that include the idea of an all-powerful government, but there was something else there that I knew I could mention. Then I read this:

"Henceforth let no man care to learn or care to be more than worldly wise, for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common, steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life, and only in request."

         Humans in Brave New World are manufactured to develop different amounts of intelligence. Alphas are the smartest, Betas are next, and so on until you reach Gammas. It looks like Gammas lead a pretty rough and/or dull life--some of their jobs include simply standing by an elevator to watch people walk in--but they are happy with their lot because they are created to think that this is as much as life can offer them. They aren't jealous of the Alphas or Betas and they're technically happy. But that is sad to me. :(

          Is there much more to talk about in reference to Areopagitica? Maybe not. But... there you go!

Milton and Orwell

In Milton’s Aeropagitica, we see Milton come down hard and forcefully on censorship of any kind while he champions the importance of books and a free press.  Much has already been written (including on this blog) about censorship in our modern day.  I hope to add just a little bit by looking at one connection that I saw as I was reading.

Milton quotes Sir Francis Bacon saying, “The punishing of wits enhances their authority… and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seek to tread it out” (32516-32518).  I realize that he was speaking specifically about “sects and schisms,” but when I read this it reminded me of something George Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics and the English Language.”  One point of Orwell’s essay was showing how the way in which we use language changes the way that we think, or are able to think (Orwell can explain it better).  He said, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.  A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better” (2391).  Orwell tells of people becoming machines because they have essentially stopped thinking for themselves and have instead learned to parrot the same stock phrases and words that they have always heard (essentially, this is why politicians all sound exactly the same).

Orwell would later expand on this idea in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.  When people talk about Nineteen Eighty-Four or “Big Brother” they mostly think of invasion of privacy and government surveillance.  This is what people most think of when they talk about living in an Orwellian dystopia.  Something that is often overlooked is the role of propaganda in controlling the minds of the citizens—propaganda that comes from the so-called “Ministry of Truth.”  In the story, the government is able to control peoples’ minds and thoughts in part by controlling what they read.  It’s important to remember that censorship not only blocks books, articles, works of art, etc. from being published, it also promotes other works, generally books, articles, works of art, etc. that work as propaganda for whoever is in power. 

Orwell wrote about how bad writing and the promotion of such writing makes people stupid and makes them unable to think for themselves.  I think Milton would agree whole-heartedly with that idea.  Anytime only one point of view is allowed, original thought is stifled.  Milton wrote that the licensing “hinders and retards the importation of our richest merchandize, truth” (32574).
  More than just preventing good works from coming to light, censorship stimulates bad works, works that suppress originality of thought in favor of mindless conformity.  As Milton said, “Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition” (32521-32522).

Milton, John (2009-10-28). The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Orwell, George.  “Politics and the English Language.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature:  The Twentieth Century and After (2006).  Stephen Greenblatt, ed.

Photo from http://dcbarroco.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/george-orwell-on-truth/

Three Wise Monkeys

The Three Wise Monkeys, by Tumi-1983
Creative Commons

I've been thinking about censorship of late, and it's Milton's fault. I guess the idea that interests me most, though, is that of self-censorship--what we read, listen to, and watch and how that affects us as individuals. In Areopagitica, Milton proposes as one of his contentions against formal censorship that in order to comprehend and, ultimately, choose goodness and righteousness, a man must be exposed to both good and evil. "[B]ad books," Milton asserts, "to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn and to illustrate."

Now this idea perhaps seems a little bit ridiculous at first, and it's easy to cast Milton aside as a dirty old man seeking to justify his ways. After all, the Doctrine and Covenants tells us to seek learning from the best books, and the prophets have encouraged us to use discretion in choosing which films to watch. But what if I were to tell you that this doctrine was preached in the early days of the LDS church? Brigham Young, for example, wrote in Journal of Discourses 2:93 (cue obligatory JoD eyeroll and sigh):

The Heralds: Those That Go Before

Milton was extremely self-motivated. Or he just thought very highly of himself and had the brains to support it. When something bothers him - he addresses it. Me, I might be bothered but I usually think "ahh, it will work itself out. Or someone else will address it." or "It doesn't really bother me that much, right?" Milton is like a…non-profit activist for the public good…and about issues and rights you didn't know you wanted or were entitled to have/you'd never even contemplated before! I'm not saying Milton wasn't influential - but I do think his works, words, and efforts probably have a more lasting/significant impact for change and at the forming of America as well as the revolutions of America and France (as stated in the introduction.)

This quote exemplifies and deepens this point…


"But the importance of Milton's pamphlet is not to be measured by its effect on the political situation which was its immediate occasion. In his enthusiasm for liberty, the master passion of his life, he rose far above the politics of the hour; and the "Areopagitica" holds its supremacy among his prose writings by virtue of its appeal to fundamental principles, and its triumphant assertion of the faith that all that truth needs to assure its victory over error is a fair field and no favor."

When I started contemplating this post…I had one mindset. Of Milton oftentimes being a hyperactive lobbyist for human rights. Which may still in part be true. But another thought and subsequent example came to my mind that altered my thinking. Milton believed he had a calling in life to create some great work. [We discussed this one time in class and someone mentioned it, if you can recall]. His religiosity and belief in man's capabilities (humanism, etc.) just added to this idea. Milton believed he had some commission to complete, per God's command, and his continual writings are just him trying to figure that out. The release of Areopagitica was not a glorious reception, as we've discussed. Who knew that his writings would one day influence our founding fathers and shape key ideas within the Constitution of the United State of America.

Censorship in the Name of Security?

Why yes, this is very true. And a woman went to prison
 over letting her assistant know about a self-written search
warrant which was handed to her (see link to speech).

After the terrorist attacks of 9-11, America reassessed what it meant to be free, and that included the freedom to exchange ideas. One of the biggest things the terrorist attacks brought about was the Patriot Act. If you are interested in knowing more specifically how many of your rights (off of the Bill of Rights) you have lost because Congress passed this law, then go here. It is part one of three of a speech that Judge Napolitano gives describing the Patriot Act and the rights it infringes on. The law itself, he says, if brought to a court, would be deemed unconstitutional (specifically regarding government officials being able to write self-written search warrants). What our government is trying to do here is exactly what Milton, in his Areopagitica, deems impossible to do: manage to keep everyone safe from every idea that might point to possible terrorist acts.

the downward spiral

As we read Areopagitica we were prompted to look beyond the obvious notion that Milton is refuting the censoring and licensing of written text. So that is how I've been reading it. And what I've found so far (in the first half) is quite intriguing...and a little bit scary.

Milton is making the case, that is to say, he is more concerned with what will happen to the government and state as a result of censoring books than he is at the fact that his books will need to be censored and licensed (although he has a major beef with that.) He is afraid of what it will lead to. It's apparent through his other writings that Milton is good at extrapolating and coming up with potential projections of his ideas. And his projection, coupled with past examples, is not a great one. 

He brings up examples to illustrate his point citing the latter reign of Rome ("From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire, that we may not marvel, if not so often bad as good books were silenced"), the Roman Catholic Inquisition, as well as an offshoot, the Spanish Inquisition, ("but from the most anti-christian council and the most tyranneous inquisition that ever inquired.")

In a way, it's similar to how some people are looking at the government in the U.S. now. Milton saw tendencies and recursions to past institutions that either ended badly or were from the start, corrupt. Some today claim/fear that the current government is okay with ideas that were held in regimes past that are very un-American and exactly what our forefathers fought so dearly to protect. And we can see the outcries from those that are watching and paying attention (I don't claim to be one - though I am trying to find my niche in it all.) 

Milton knows history - there is no denying that - and while at the first, most accessible level, it might be a treatise demanding freedom of speech (or the freedom to let speech be "tried" by the public) it is really a warning and command to stop before the path is too far tread they lose what they have been fighting so hard to attain. 

"How great a virtue is temperance!"

          When I was in high school and still under the jurisdiction of my parents, I heard my them discussing a book called "Under the Dome" by Stephen King. By the way my mother talked about it, I decided that this should be the next book I endeavor. When I asked her if she could give it to me to read...SHE REFUSED. I was like, "Um, excuse me? How can you not expect me to feel the need to partake of this goodness?" The grounds on which she refused to give me the book were that of inappropriate language, violence, and explicit sexual references.
          I don't know why, but I just felt stupid. And I felt untrustworthy--like I couldn't be expected to be able to handle such a book with tact and maturity.
          I believe the most important part of Areopagitica is that Milton argues the fact that we can't fully know what is good in this world if we are not give the chance to experience evil. No reason or agency is involved when we "choose" good over evil, simply because evil is not available to us by our mothers.