Gar Lipow wrote:
>
> On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 10:05:08 -0400 Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> spat
>
> <snip>
> > - How come that the nation of fat and lazy morons, plagued with
> > monumental inefficiencies and waste, and producing very little tangible
> > goods still wields power and enjoys one of the highest standards of
> > living on earth? The greenbacks for goodies exchange hypothesis
> > explains that fairly well - the world makes it, the Yank takes it -- and
> > feeds it to his fat, stupid, flag waving pigs.
>
> <snip>
> >
>
> You have long been a prejudiced ranter. I think you just passed over
> into troll territory.
To whom thus Michael. Justly thou abhorr'st
That Son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational Libertie; yet know withall,
Since thy original lapse, true Libertie
Is lost, which alwayes with right Reason dwells
Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscur'd, or not obeyd,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart Passions catch the Government
> From Reason, and to servitude reduce
Man till then free. Therefore since hee permits
Within himself unworthie Powers to reign
Over free Reason, God in judgement just
Subjects him from without to violent Lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom: Tyrannie must be,
Though to the Tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet somtimes Nations will decline so low
> From vertue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But Justice, and some fatal curse annext
Deprives them of thir outward libertie,
Thir inward lost: Witness th' irreverent Son
Of him who built the Ark, who for the shame
Don to his Father, heard this heavie curse,
Servant of Servants, on his vitious Race.
(Paradise Lost, XII, 79-104)
Milton operates from a radically individualist perspective, reducing all social results to the virtue and/or vice of the individuals who make up that society. Wojtek pretends, at times, to be a Marxist, and whatever marxism is, it does not include this Miltonic perspective. Besides, Milton says it much better.
The wonderful line and a half --
Tyrannie must be, Though to the Tyrant thereby no excuse.
could, I think, be abstracted from their theistic context and made to bear a more materialist thrust. E.D. Hirsch (a dull conservative but sometimes interesting) introduced (or recovered from the history of biblcial hermeneutics) the distinction between the meaning and the significance of the text. He identified meaning with authorial intention, significance with whatever use could be or was made of the text. For example, part of the significance of the above text is the information it offers on 17th century spelling. And I have added for the nonce the significance of illuminating and circumscribing the perspective Wojtek brings to politics.
Carrol