In his book 'Two Cheers For Democracy' E.M. Forster says:
"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves."
I suggest Forster's book may well be one for these times. If only to get the wonderful context for his quotation of John Milton's description of societies in the mould of Ashcroft "a vast congealement of wood and hay and stubble".
Milton also said that he
"..cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."
I think Milton might have liked DailyKos. Have a look at Forsters essays and see why. And perhaps take some courage to stay and fight on.
Edis
The two essays in the book with particular relevance to our times are the title essay and the 'Tercentenary of the Areopagitica'. This latter was Milton's protest against the imposition of censorship by the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War. Milton said:
" We do not see that, while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood and hay and stubble, forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms."
And he calls up this vision, which we migh see ouselves in the Blogs around the world. Is this not what you want for the USA, Kos community, and I want for Europe and indeed everywhere?
"Behold now this vast city: a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement."
Milton recounst how he had travelled to other countries where he had been
"counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian".
I suspect that the phrase "flattery and fustian" sounds familiar to some who are dependent on current US mainstream media.
So what now? Well Forster offers some insight to his times, the period just before the Second World War. Two Cheers For Democracy he says,and gives his reasons. Including his evocation of how individuals of independent and civilised mind can find and nurture each other. It reads now like a manifesto for a progressive blogging community. In the end:
"One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life."
Last word though to Milton. Is it worth struggling on? The forces of reason and progress are troubled, says Milton they
"... fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour: when they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: nor will beware until he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade. "
So perhaps we can take courage. In troubled and threatening times, we have been here before, and we have not always failed. And we can support each other in our efforts not to fail.
Edis