Final Milton Paper

First! Good luck with finals everyone!

The Dangers of Extreme Individualism in the Pursuit of Freedom

Waving The Banner of Freedom For Personal Gain

Whew. Finally back into the swing of things. I've been really sick this week and am finally recovering so this is my attempt to begin catching up on my research work for my final paper.

In considering what to write my final paper on, I am drawn to a few ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while. I want to explore deeper the concepts from my last paper about freedom and submission (personified incorrectly by Satan and discovered by Eve). 

We live in a country founded on ideas drawn from Milton's of freedom and liberty from tyranny and many of the early founding fathers drew on these principles for their own writing and ideals. I feel that many have continued to hold on to the words of liberty but have lost the real meaning behind them or only used them as a face to help them find personal gain. Kind of like what Stanley Fish explains in his essay, "There Is No Such Thing As Free Speech"  In thinking about current situations and ideas, the words freedom and equality get thrown around recklessly and many seem to have a "down with the government I should get to do what I want cause I'm free" mentality. What are the consequences of seeking freedom through such means? I want to argue that this idea is what ruined Satan, and his actions and fate outline how this attitude actually destroys freedom. I don't want to focus so much on government, but the roles of citizens within the frame of government.

Is Freedom something achieved through government or is true freedom, freedom from government?

Basically there are two kinds of "freedom" one is negative and destructive and one provides progress and actual freedom for the individual. I found an awesome dissertation by following one of Professor Burton's ideas on his post that helped me discover the terms I was looked for to articulate the distinction.

Working thesis: Milton's On Tenure of Kings and Magistrates alongside his representation of Satan and Eve show the bounds in which freedom must be exercised to produce desired liberty. True freedom cannot be found without submission.

Still working to discover specifically what my conclusion is, but this is the frame work for my argument.

Two Falls, One Redemption: The Fates of Satan and Eve

Here is it! The paper! So much to explore, so few pages to explore it all in. I finish it late last night and decided to sleep on it and read it again in the morning to make sure it make some kind of sense. Here's hoping! It was extremely interested to consider the similarities and differences in the characterizations of Satan and Eve in Paradise Lost. I feel like I only had the opportunity to scratch the surface of the discussion and hope to delve further into some aspect of it for my final paper. Enjoy!

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?

Hand in Hand, Yet Free

This is likely going to be a quick post (though for some reason that never really works out). I just wanted to highlight a single line from Book IX of Paradise Lost, because I think it is one of the truest I've read about relationships and people to date. Adam and Eve are talking about whether they should split up so that they can get more done, and Adam is pretty opposed to it as a whole, but he says something that I think every husband and wife probably needs to learn to say and teaches us an important lesson about marriage:

Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more (372)

Adam pretty much called what was going to happen, and maybe we think he was a little bit unwise for not being more insistent with Eve, but I think he stumbled on a profound truth in realizing that were he to compel Eve or exercise any unrighteous dominion over her, it would compromise their relationship and make her more distant than if she were to simply go to a different part of the garden. Though a relationship has as its end goal the complete union of two beings, Adam recognizes that though a big part of that union is physical in nature, more important is their mutual respect and their willing heart--their unsolicited love.

One of my dear friends, who is now close to seventy years old, said the most important thing that he learned in marriage was the phrase, "You're probably right." The reality is that throughout this earthly life, marriages are going to be full of conflicting opinions and differing ways of doing things, but in the end, it's not going to matter so much who was wrong or right about one matter or another. Rather, God will look upon us and see how we have chosen to grow together through kindness and longsuffering and patience and actively being peacemakers. And I think that in the end, despite the falls that we will have made (together), we'll be better off for it all...

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.'"

Separation of Church and State

It is obvious that during the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts and others throughout this time period separation of Church and State was not in effect. Not really a hint of an idea really. It hit me sitting in class, how strange that would be. To have the person who advised me on my spiritual matters and personal beliefs also in charge of the raising and lowering of my taxes…what a strange world that would be. Granted, that would work if said ruler was perfect, equally just and merciful but taking a look at old Eddie, Lizzy, and Queen Mary herself…they are far from it. 
How would it feel to be under the rule of a religious leader that used their political power to sentence to death hundreds of people based on their religious views ("Mary Bloody Mary")? And then the next day show up to church and tell you that God in Heaven commands us to be good and keep the commandments. It's not difficult to see that someone as determinedly advocating freedom as Milton did would have some serious issues. Sometimes in the past people have been okay with this, for instance, the notion during the beginnings of the Roman Empire that nothing was so important as the perpetuation of the state of Rome.

The Pantheon in Rome, Italy

If obstacles arose any action was fair game as long as Rome came out on top. And everyone was just fine with it. One difference, I should mention, is that these people refused to be subjected to kings (instead they eventually vested this power to emperors that they all pretended didn't hold supreme power over them. Interesting tidbit: according to my Classical Traditions professor you could walk up to a Roman citizen when Caesar Augustus conducted the Roman Empire and he would declare that he was a free citizen in the republic of Rome. So crazy!) 
Anyway, I think it is more important to contemplate that while Milton is pushing more radical ideas (Eikonoklastes, accrediting regicide, reformation in general) his ultimate goal is to create a platform for freedom. Freedom from the arbitrary decisions of a corrupt and/or very hard-of-hearing monarch. 

Has not freedom been the cry of people for thousands and thousands of years? Milton is laying more bricks in effort to continue building the "pantheon" of freedom. 

Questions: Is it fair or plausible to boil Milton's arguments down to simply a cry for freedom? Do you think that Milton is at all suggesting a separation between church and state?