The Living Book
One of the most radical ideas Milton expresses in “Areopagitica” is that books are “not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them.” He argues that because books preserve the intellect of their authors, they also retain some of the author’s personhood. Furthermore, books, like people, take part in social relationships and influence the social world. This means books can be dangerous, but it also raises the stakes of censoring a book, an act Milton presents as equivalent to murder. Elsewhere, he uses the idea of the personhood of books to compare censorship to executing someone when they are born. For Milton, a book only lives its life once it actually enters the world and gets read by people. Whether or not it is good or evil cannot be judged by its content alone, because evil ideas can have positive effects, if they allow people to better formulate virtuous arguments, or to better understand their enemy. Conversely, as he explores in the final section of the essay, people who only have access to good ideas can become complacent, treating religion as a garment to put on and off, rather than a fundamental part of life. In this sense, good books can have negative moral effects. By treating books as persons whose lives are lived in the social world, Milton challenges our ability to judge books as fixed and stable objects. To ban a book is not only a brutal act of violence against a living thing, but also irrational, as it’s impossible to know the impact a given book will have once it exists in relationship to a reader.
Value of Pluralism
Pluralism is a political philosophy that encourages the diversity of interests, beliefs, and lifestyles within a population. A truly pluralistic society might support the survival of multiple cultures, or have policies that make varying lifestyles feasible. In "Areopagitica," Milton’s focus is primarily on religious pluralism, or the existence of different faiths within one society. That pluralism doesn’t go very far, at least by contemporary standards: he’s assuming a Christian state, populated by different Protestant sects. In a sense, that was already the reality of Milton’s England. After England left the Catholic Church, each monarch had had a different set of religious policies, with varying degrees of tolerance for alternative points of view. The frequent changes virtually guaranteed that people would have differing religious convictions, as did the vitality of religious debate in the period. Milton, however, differs from his contemporaries in perceiving this as a positive thing. Many people bemoaned the divisions within the population, seeing them as creating chaos and conflict. Milton argues that disagreement is valuable not only because it allows us to get closer to the truth, but, importantly, because multiple groups can both be right, even when their ideas seem to contradict one another. Rather than seeing pluralism as a necessary evil before society arrives at a religious consensus, Milton presents it as desirable in itself.
Censorship as Catholic Policy
Milton, like the government he supported, was a Protestant: a Christian who rejects many of the religious teachings of Catholics. In “Areopagitica,” he encourages his audience to also reject a set of political policies which he sees as fundamentally Catholic, including the restriction of free speech, the imposition of tyranny, and a lack of respect for the common people. In the first section of the essay, Milton details the history of censorship, claiming it only became the law of the land in England when Catholics took over. It might seem surprising to us that Milton mentions censorship’s long history in England: after all, usually acknowledging that something has precedent makes it harder to get rid of. Milton, however, is addressing a revolutionary new government, interested in breaking away from the Catholic past, not preserving it. By attempting to identify censorship as Catholic, Milton encourages Parliament to construct a new politics that embraces free speech, in contrast to the Catholic Church.
Englishness
It seems natural to have a sense of national identity. However, our associations with our place of birth are cultural constructions that evolve over time. During the seventeenth century, England was already a very old country, but the meaning of “Englishness” was still evolving. The end of Catholicism, the beginnings of an empire in the Americas, and the shift towards a mercantile economy all changed people’s sense of what it meant to be English. In “Areopagitica,” Milton imagines England as forward-thinking, a haven for bold new ideas. The essay acknowledges that this is more of a productive fantasy than an accurate description of the island. Milton recounts a visit to Europe, where intellectuals envied him for living in England and being able to exercise free speech. He says that even though they were mistaken (censorship laws did exist in England at the time), their sense of England as a truly pluralist society gives him hope that his country could one day live up to their imagination. As the essay goes on, he increasingly emphasizes how uniquely strong England is, describing it as a nation “not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit.” Here, Milton personifies the nation, imagining it as possessing the qualities he sees in its people. Rather than merely a piece of land or a government, Milton wants his readers to see England as an idea, an idea in which they participate.
Strength of Truth
Milton’s defense of free speech hinges on the idea that truth will prevail. Today, many people are “relativists,” to at least some extent: they believe that the truth depends on context, and that multiple, contradictory viewpoints can be valid. Though Milton acknowledges that truth can take different forms, he ultimately believes there is one Truth, grounded in a single Christian God. One of the main reasons he defends people’s right to access material he sees as evil is because he believes that in the course of free and open conversation, good and true ideas will inevitably and eventually rise to the top. This is similar to the more familiar, contemporary phrase the “marketplace of ideas,” which suggests that ideas compete for acceptance like goods in the “free market.” Just as, theoretically, overpriced or poorly made products will lose out to better-designed competitors, so too will more truthful ideas beat out falsehoods. Today, the continued reach of misinformation, despite the unprecedented freedom of speech facilitated by the internet, would seem hard to reconcile with Milton’s assumption that Truth will naturally prevail.
Dignity of the Author
In the second section of "Areopagitica," in which Milton discusses the impracticality of censorship legislation, he especially emphasizes the humiliating impact censorship will have on authors. He describes the censor as akin to a teacher or other authority figure, standing over the author and determining what they say and how they say it. For Milton, that’s a violation of the dignity an author has earned by writing a book. He stresses that in order to write a book, an author must become the foremost expert on their topic in the world. The licensor would inevitably be more ignorant than the author when it came to their book, and yet he would have the right to tell the author what he could and could not say. Milton presents this as a problem in its own right, but he also implies that authors have an important role in furthering society. In his description of London, he compares the work of those making weapons for war to the work of scholars devising arguments in favor of a new kind of government. For him, physical and intellectual warfare are equally vital components of the fight against the monarchy, and authors need to be able to retain the power and dignity they deserve if they are to play their vital part in leading the Parliamentarians to victory.
Role of the Common People
Another important idea in “Areopagitica” is the role of the common people. Milton’s thought on this topic is complicated, and it’s difficult to group him into any particular box. On one hand, he’s decidedly not anti-elitist. The essay repeatedly distinguishes between educated and uneducated people. He also distinguishes between wise men and fools, and suggests that foolish men are beyond changing: for them, all books, whether good or bad, will only be taken the wrong way. Both of these dichotomies cast doubt on ordinary people’s ability to work their way towards learning, by instead implying that there is a fundamental, immutable difference between intellectuals and others. However, at the same time, one of Milton’s primary arguments against censorship is that it strips autonomy from ordinary people, and gives it to a small panel of licensors. He compares the structure of censorship to the hierarchy within the Catholic Church, which similarly entrusts only a few priests with knowledge. Although Milton seems to doubt whether everyone has the capacity to learn, he emphasizes that the government should confer respect on the common people, and that if they do so, the state will be the stronger for it.
Decline of the World
People in early modern England were obsessed with the idea that the world was in a period of decline. Many people believed in a mythical “golden age” when everything was better, and thought that things had been gradually declining since then. The famous poet John Donne, for example, writes in his poem “The First Anniversary” that the world is slowly wearing out. Milton invokes these same ideas in “Of True Religion,” when he writes, “it is a general complaint that this Nation of late years, is grown more numerously and excessively vicious then heretofore; Pride, Luxury, Drunkenness, Whoredom, Cursing, Swearing, bold and open Atheism every where abounding.” In reality, things probably weren’t much worse in Milton’s time than they ever had been, but he uses the widespread sense that things were falling apart to defend his own assessment of moral decline. However, unlike Donne, Milton does not portray the decline of the world as inevitable. Instead, with characteristic optimism, he suggests that people retain the power to change their behavior and pull society back from the moral brink.
Value of History
In both “Areopagitica” and “On the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” Milton uses examples from history to defend his position. He uses ancient Greece, democratic Rome, early Christianity, and modern Protestant governments as positive examples. Conversely, he enlists Catholic governments as negative examples. In “Areopagitica,” Milton’s attitude towards history is pretty straightforward. By looking at the history of censorship, the government can see that democratic and just governments have allowed free speech, while tyrannical and corrupt governments have not. The situation in “On the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates” is more complicated. Milton wants his reader to see the right to kill the king as something they were born with. He stresses that naturally, all men should know that they have the power to choose who rules them. Having to cite history goes against that conviction, by suggesting that we need precedent to justify an action Milton thinks justifies itself. Indeed, it’s hard for Milton to use history to justify the execution of the king, because nothing quite like the English Civil War had ever happened in Europe. Ultimately, although history suggests what is possible, the present is unique, and demands unique action.
Human Nature
One of Milton’s primary points in “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce” is the idea that there are unchangeable aspects to who we are. In that essay, he uses the point to defend the practice of divorce based on incompatibility. Some people just can’t get along, and if they only realize that after they get married, they should have the right to end that marriage. The idea also shows up in “Areopagitica,” where Milton asserts that there are wise men for whom all books are potentially a source of knowledge, and foolish ones for whom all books are merely idle entertainments. However, despite distinguishing so sharply between different people, Milton also believes in a shared human nature that derives from God. In “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,” Milton writes that people are still akin to Adam and Eve, who God created to desire companionship and hate loneliness. Even though we have long since lost paradise, we retain those original needs.
Body/Soul Dichotomy
In “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,” Milton argues that marriage is a union of souls, rather than bodies. He’s appealing to a popular early modern distinction between the body and the soul, or sometimes the body and the mind. The body was understood as animalistic and sinful. It was the origin of urges like lust and gluttony, and led people to sin. Conversely, the mind and soul were understood as the aspects of someone which distinguished them from the animals. They were what gave us the capacity for reason and faith in God. In many conversations at the time, the mind/body dichotomy had gendered connotations. Women were seen as the body, defined by material desires. Conversely, men were governed by the mind, and its more abstract concerns. The dichotomy was also used to justify colonialism and racism, as colonizers categorized indigenous peoples as governed by the body rather than the mind because they weren’t Christian, and were unfamiliar with the history of European philosophy.
