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.'"

Choices

As I read the works for today's class, I felt like I could see Milton gearing up for something greater through these works.  His prolusions show a mastery of rhetoric and argument, and Comus shows his skill as a poet, especially in weaving in a moral lesson without it feeling overbearing.  An important theme that I saw in Prolusion 7 is the importance of choices in our lives.

The happy life seems barred to the man who has no part in learning.

***So, I blogged about the reading questions instead of looking at the actual prompts for the blog post. More coming. Hang on.

The first similarity I found between the two articles:

          In Milton's "Of Education" he talks about the end aims of learning: to help them to contemplate on moral good and evil and to "repair the ruins of our first parents."
          "Prolusions 7" talks about how learning cannot lead to happiness if we don't take into account our eternal life. "The more deeply we delve into the wondrous wisdom, the marvelous skill, and the astounding variety of it's creation (we we cannot do without the aid of learning), the greater grows the wonder and awe we feel for it's Creator and the louder the praises we offer him." He considered learning without virtue to be far more harmful than virtue without learning.

The second similarity:

Digital Academy and Hungry Students

One of my secret dreams is to found a private academy--you know, one with thick, leather-bound volumes and big, comfy chairs in the reading rooms... a garden... Shakespeare in the orchard... poetry by candlelight. And students! Students and scholars that want to be there and are there for no other reason than the sake of learning itself--well, and to change the world, of course. That goes without saying... I think it all might be the Eden that I escape to whenever the current educational system gets me bogged down and wondering what will be of the future. The more I think about it, though, the more I think that modern academies are going to take a different form than that idyllic, rustic academy that's been floating around in my head all these years. Maybe the days of the pastoral haven of learning aren't passed entirely, but modern educational paradigms are going to have to incorporate both the old and the new, reviving those studies which, in the cultural poverty of capitalism, have been neglected or forgotten and embracing those novel ideas that make learning learning.

In "Of Education," John Milton describes the educational exploits of his day as "that asinine feast of sow-thistles and brambles which is commonly set before [students] as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age." I think that despite his somewhat loaded language, Milton's evaluation is valid, that if we are to keep young people both interested in and benefiting from educational systems, we must engage the students in meaningful ways. Recent years have seen a variety of new means to engage students in learning that is both pertinent and powerful, from interactive learning environment to instructional videos and online educational repositories, but our current educational paradigms haven't really kept up with technology or with the students' needs. It's not that the rising generations are insensible to the ideas and emotions of our distant (or not-so-distant) past--rather, they haven't been shown why it's important to study Horace or Plato or how it relates to the complex issues and the unintelligible world that they are experiencing right now.

Formal educational institutions are going to have to adapt, and we are going to have to be the ones to make the changes... because whether we believe it or not--whether we like it or not--students are hungry, and sow thistles just aren't cutting it anymore...

Eduation and Motivation

  "The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith , makes up the highest perfection."
-John Milton, Of Education

I'm attempting this semester to change, to some degree, my perspective on my education. It's become more of a chore than an opportunity, and my focus has shifted to simply surviving and just getting to the end rather than taking everything I can from the experience.