The Galileo Chronicles - Stargazer

Areopogitica was the name of one of history's most famous political essays written by John Milton arguing for freedom of the press. First appearing in 1644 six years after his purported meeting with Galileo in 1638 while Galileo was under house arrest and two years. Milton refers his meeting with Galileo in the essay. The essay was inspired by Isocrates (no, not Socrates) entitled Areopagiticus which seesm to be in masculine form as opposed to what seems to be the feminine form ending with an "a" instead of a "us". For many years I have tried to figure out the significance of the "a" versus the "us" so far without success-- i refuse to seek out the answer more aggressively say by calling a Galileo and/or Milton scholar. That would take the challenge away as the search for answers to the riddles and pieces of the puzzle as they are falling slowly into place that is all part of the fun.

Verse 1:

Sitting on a hilltop
In Paradise
Minds of man shed
Rays of Light

Chorus:

Areopagitica
Areopagitica

Verse 2:

Sitting in a garden
In Paradise
Talking to a Serpent
Got sin in his eyes

Chorus:

Areopagitica
Areopagitica

Background:

Bridge:

Free to come, Free to go
Free to learn, Free to know
You know you can say anything you like
You can free your mind in Paradise

Verse 3:

When I consider
How I spent my light
Only the blind can see
In Paradise

Chorus:

Areopagitica

Areopagitica.... (out)

For those of you scholarly types who really like to do a deep dive here is a really, really excellent (and really long-- 45 minutes or so) on-line lecture with great insight from Professor John Rogers in an on-line lecture from Yale http://academicearth.org/lectures/areopagitica talking about Areopagitica:

the insights come fast and furiously about half-way through:

"A man may be a heretic in the truth [Milton writes]; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy." (from Areopagitica)

Think of that, "though his belief be true." Expand in your minds the implications, the possible consequences of this. Any belief is heresy if you haven't managed to determine that belief for yourself, if you haven't managed to determine that belief on the basis of your own conscience or through the powers of your own faculty of reason. You can be a heretic in the truth if you accept a belief, however true that belief turns out to be at the end of time, when we enter the pearly gates and we finally get the last word. You're a heretic because you've accepted that belief only because it's been handed to you by an external authority, an external authority like a pastor or a bishop or a member of the state assembly or a lecturer in the English department for that matter. It is your obligation, Milton argues in this remarkable treatise, to determine for yourself what will constitute truth. All truths have to be acquired directly by the individual.

It's perfectly impossible, I think, to imagine a stronger statement than this of the authority that Milton gives, the intellectual self-possession that he ascribes, to the individual. I think you can see why Areopagitica has been memorialized for centuries now as one of the central precursors, well, to a number of things. One of them would be the eighteenth-century enlightenment. It's subsequently seen as one of the precursors of the First Amendment to the American Constitution. It's here in Areopagitica that we find one of the first expressions of the idea that an individual's freedom to read and the individual's freedom to write is more important, it outweighs in value, the state's right to limit the individual's freedom to read and the individual's freedom to write. Whatever danger a particular text may pose to the state is outweighed by the greater harm of the official elimination of that text or by the greater harm of the punishment of the author...

Only for totally obsessed and committed Galileistas: If you can make it all the way through you will find some really juicy stuff.

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Tuesday

Jul072009