The "Areopagitica" was Milton's response to government's
plans to enact censorship laws on writers. He did not want the government to be given
control of publishing because he felt, and rightly so, that this could lead to the
suppression of thoughts and ideas. He preferred that accountability for writing should
be controlled by other means, at the editorial level within the publishing cycle, for
instance, instead of at the governmental level.
Milton felt
that freedom of expression was an integral aspect of education and learning, of the
development of humankind. He writes:
Where there is much desire to learn, there of
necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is
but knowledge in the
making.
He also believed that
taking control of thought away from thinkers, researchers, teachers and the like would
render that thought useless to the world, stating:
And how can a man teach with authority, which is
the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had
better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition,
under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely
accords not with the hidebound humour which he calls his
judgment?
Lastly, he thought
that the censoring of writing was just the first step on a slippery slope that would
lead to the censoring of all artisitc expression:
If we think to regulate printing, thereby to
rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful
to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric.
There must be licensing of dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our
youth, but what by their allowance shall be thought
honest
Knowing what we now
know of the long legal history of battles against artistic censorship, one cannot help
but see that Milton's fears were quite accurate!
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