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Comment by 68c12c16 | Hacker News Reader

Milton's depiction of Satan is really against the established western tradition in many ways...

For instance, in Homer's The Odyssey, someone as great as Achilles would say,

  By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man
  some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive
  than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

But in a similar situation in Paradise Lost, Satan says,

  we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
  Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
  to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
  Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

If resolution, perseverance and a heart for liberty are some of the most herioc characters desired in our human world, then in that, Milton's Satan is even more heroic than Achilles...

[update: edited the line form for Milton's poem]

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The problem with Milton's Paradise Lost is that it's misinterpreted the way you're currently misinterpreting it. Milton didn't seek to characterize a Satan that is worthy of our admiration.

Indeed, there's an innate Libertarian core that resides within us all but Milton sought to, like GRRM in the Games of Throne books, expose how morally bankrupt some of us are for admiring an individual such as Satan merely because of his desire to be 'free'.

We thus conveniently forget all of the evil that Satan commits because we see something in him that resides within us: an innate desire to, as Rousseau refers to extensively, to be freed of the shackles of tyranny from above.

Thanks for helping me to better get that message.

I agree and that's what I have always been feeling a bit puzzled about, as in 17th century England, religious correctness is still not a trivial thing.

But in a certain sense, Satan is not absolutely evil and not having no good characters at all. For instance, as the example mentioned in the article, Satan is quite empathetic towards his fellow fallen angels -- and this empathy, would often invoke reader's empathy to a certain extent.

So perhaps Milton hopes to create a Satan that has some subtle and mixed characters, with depth, with a spectrum of shades. I feel this method is similarly employed in many Shakespeare's plays (such as Angelo in Measure for Measure), which were written even earlier than Paradise Lost.

Interesting comparison.

Angelo's defining characteristic is his hypocrisy, which at times is really vile, but his fall does at least humanize him to the audience by contrast to his earlier presentation as an ice-blooded robot "begot between two stock-fishes".

And there's a lot of that in Milton's Satan too. He's undeniably colourful, but seriously, complaining to his companions how crappy it is to reigned over while at the same time declaring his own ambition to reign over them? That doesn't strike me as a libertarian sentiment, more of a narcissistic rational-egoist one.

I feel another place in Measure for Measure that also indicates the depth and the subtlety of Angelo's character is that his monologue in Act II Scene IV,

  When I would pray and think, I think and pray
  To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
  Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
  Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
  As if I did but only chew his name;
  And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
  Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied
  Is like a good thing, being often read,
  Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
  Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,
  Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
  Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
  How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
  Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls
  To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
  Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:
  'Tis not the devil's crest.

Clearly, Angelo feels a certain conflict in his heart, and he struggles hard with this cognitive dissonance, which shows that he is not utterly evil.

  And there's a lot of that in Milton's Satan too. He's   
  undeniably colourful, but seriously, complaining to his
  companions how crappy it is to reigned over while at the 
  same time declaring his own ambition to reign over them.

I am not that sure to what extent this reign is over them; and who those "them" are? It might not necessarily mean his fellow fallen angels but those dead souls in hell...

And also, he is having a conference with his comrades in Pandæmonium, right? In this sense, his power over his comrades -- if he is superior -- is not absolute, as at least he consults them, unlike that in heaven...

> which shows that he is not utterly evil

Oh, no, I certainly wasn't suggesting that. If you squint a bit you can almost see Angelo as a tragic hero undone by his own virtues; piety and self-restraint have always come so naturally to him that he's never had to build up the moral muscle required to resist temptation. So when he does fall, he falls hard.

> I am not that sure to what extent this reign is over them; and who those "them" are?

A good point.

> But in a certain sense, Satan is not absolutely evil and not having no good characters at all. For instance, as the example mentioned in the article, Satan is quite empathetic towards his fellow fallen angels -- and this empathy, would often invoke reader's empathy to a certain extent.

Or he has the charisma of a sociopath.

From the OP:

>>> The point of all this mirroring is to show how closely evil resembles good. Poole writes in Milton and the Making of Paradise Lost that Milton “regards evil as disarmingly close in appearance to the good,” and it is only by careful moral reasoning that the two can be separated. Shortly after Milton returned from Italy in 1639, where he met Galileo and spent several months participating in various Florentine literary salons, he wrote in his commonplace book, “In moral evil much good may be mixed, and that with singular craft.”

>>> ....

>>> In short, Satan says all the rightly compassionate things only to the “right” people, who are, of course, his people, and only when his own interests are at stake. He is unflappable only in front of a crowd, courageous only when it is personally advantageous. He acts like a good leader, father, and husband—and even argues with nearly perfect reasoning that he is more morally upright than God himself—all while serving only himself. He is a god of unchecked liberty, and, therefore, in Milton’s view, a god of chaos and destruction.

I'm not super familiar with Christian canon but what specific evil did Satan commit? (Both in Paradise Lost and in the original source material, I mean.) I remember reading a bunch stuff where he's called bad things (deceiver, defiler, whatever) but I'd be curious to know what he actually did that was bad (aside from the initial "refusing to bow to God" incident.)

If I recall he waged war against God with part of the hosts of heaven? Who were then corrupted and cast down to Hell with Satan.

It’s been a couple months since I read Paradise Lost though.

But so what? Where is the evil?

I believe in this context, "evil" means "against God" or "not according to God's will" (though how that's possible when God is defined as omnipotent, I don't understand) and so doesn't align with our own usual moral compass which defines evil as some variant of "hurting people".

The war against God is not the primary source of his 'Evil'. His choice to get revenge on God by corrupting man and getting man cast out of paradise is probably his canonical 'evil' act.

As pointed out above, the serpent isn't necessarily named "Satan". However, it isn't really objective to call the act you describe, "evil". It might have been harmful to humanity to have been kicked out of the garden. (Although, if that hadn't happened, would we have iPhones now? One can see both sides of this question!) The fact we are sinful enough to disobey instructions about eating fruit is more about who we are than about anything the serpent did. If a child destroys a poorly-built house by kicking it, do we blame the child? Why would God want such fragile creatures in his garden in the first place?

As pointed out above, the serpent isn't necessarily named "Satan"

Are we talking about the bible or Milton? I agree it's not clear in the bible, but feel Milton makes it quite clear.

It might have been harmful to humanity to have been kicked out of the garden

I'm not even really sure that's the point. 'Humanity' is a third party in that fight. God had built this new, fragile creature, the 'best' thing he'd ever made. He realized they where fragile and put them in the garden to protect them. Satan is pissed off at God for casting him out and decided to fuck with God by breaking his new toy that he knows God is very proud of. None of them seem to care too much about the long term fate of humanity.

If a child destroys a poorly-built house by kicking it, do we blame the child?

If a child destroys an extremely fragile work of art, do we blame the artist for not making his art more robust.

You (and Milton, perhaps?) are assuming more about God and God's motivations than is present in the source material. We're told that He "loves" us, but that didn't prevent the many other episodes described in Scripture in which we have sinned and been punished for it. Original Sin isn't somehow different from all those we've committed since. The artist who places her fragile art in the same room with a destructive child, even if she isn't omniscient, probably knows what's coming next. She probably considers the child's actions to be art, as well.

> I'm not super familiar with Christian canon but what specific evil did Satan commit?

In the canon and even much conventional theology, it's not clear, and not even clear that Satan is a moral agent capable of doing good or evil. Plus, he doesn't show up much in the canon; there's the bet with God over Job, the test/temptation of Christ, some stuff in Revelation, and the fact that the snake in the Garden of Eden is popularly (though not canonically) identified with Satan.

Milton's work is an artistic take on a popular old non-canonical story that both is influential on shaping images of Satan in Christianity and hard to reconcile some mainstream theology (Christian theology and Christian popular mythology often have a problematic relationship.)

Thanks for this.

> not even clear that Satan is a moral agent capable of doing good or evil

This was what got me - as I understand it, the special thing about humans was free will, which kind of emancipates any of the Heavenly Host from wrongdoing (at least in the sense of personal moral responsibility).

In the Tanakh, Satan is "The Adversary". And to me, it always seems that he almost necessarily existed by gods will and permission in order to provide god with an agent. The Adversary almost seemed a force of nature, not moral, but bound to provide humanity with something to choose instead of god.

If on a spectrum of God <--> !God, humans were supposed to turn their interest toward god. But, rather than having God and Void apposed, there is a personified force there that is "the adversary".

I recall reading somewhere that the old testament "Adversary" view could be interpreted as Satan being less of an antagonist who is directly opposed to God, and more of a celestial prosecutor, whose role is to ensure that those who are deemed faithful (by God) truly are. Prosecutors aren't evil people who are opposed to the Judge, but rather are important instruments in ensuring, perhaps imperfectly, that justice is applied.

Almost like a divine unit testing framework: if there are critical weaknesses, please help me uncover them ASAP. Hence God's willingness to let Satan make Job's life miserable.

> Almost like a divine unit testing framework

Acceptance testing, surely.

Mostly. Satan comes via the Hebrew ‘Shaitan’ meaning as you say “Adversary,” but also “Accuser” as well. In the Torah, that word is used to describe human enemies, and IIRC it doesn’t exist as a supernatural force. If you think about it, the notion of any sort of counterpart to God is too close to polytheism for Judaism.

"Pride, and worse ambition."

Essentially, his hubris in seeking to overcome the nature of things. While Satan's sin, in the personified tale of the story, boils down to not doing what god says, "going against the will of god" essentially means being foolish enough to think you can live out of harmony with the natural order of the universe just because you're intelligent and have the desire.

The entire god/adam/eve/satan/christ narrative is essentially a parable to illustrate how the wise, to live calm, harmonious, fulfilling lives, live acording to the Dao, as some in the East would say.

"to overcome the nature of things" Is that... is that not what we do? What sets humans apart from everything else, other than that we recreate the world around us to change the (to us, awful) natural order of things? Living within the "natural order of the universe" usually means dying young, in terrible pain, from things that are relatively easily prevented.

Actively manipulating the environment to our benefit isn't necessarily going against the natural order of things.

Killing a buffalo to feed and clothe yourself isn't evil, but slaughtering an entire herd to sell the horn powder to Eastern mystics might be. And you'll be punished by suddenly having no buffalo to eat.

Not the greatest example though. :P

One interesting perspective:

"Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;" (Moses 4:3) [emphasis mine]

"And thus he goeth up and down, to and fro in the earth, seeking to destroy the souls of men." (D&C 10:27)

The sin of pride. In catholic theology, Satan is a fallen angel who fancies himself a god-like creature, without acknowledging, knowing or loving god.

Lucifer means "light bringer". Prometheus-like he conveyed forbidden knowledge to humanity, seeking to aggrandize himself. He's an alternate power base whose key feature is defiance of God.

At least, that's one take.

> Milton's depiction of Satan is really against the established western tradition in many ways...

Not really, no. Satan was often a staple of medieval plays, and often stole the show, as he usually had the best speeches and the most alluring personality next to the stoic paradigm-of-morality main characters.

Look no further than Othello, which predates Paradise Lost by a century. It is steeped in much the same tradition. Iago is by far the most interesting character, and the audience ends up rooting for him, up to a point, usually until his villainy outweighs the limits of your empathy.

The purpose there was to demonstrate the lure of evil, how it can seduce you with simultaneous appeals to reason, emotion, and pride.

  > The purpose there was to demonstrate the lure of evil, 
  > how it can seduce you with simultaneous appeals to 
  > reason, emotion, and pride.

Yes, you raised a very good point; and I agree. This internal struggle reminds me of the balancing role of ego over the conflict between id and super-ego in Freud's theory.

But the reason why I feel Satan is a little against western tradition is that -- I might understand it in a wrong way -- Satan is supposed to be everything that is opposite to God, who is the perfection and absolute virtue. In other words, Satan is utterly and absolutely bad...In this sense, Satan is different than Iago, as Iago is human after all...For instance, this absolute evilness of demon could somewhat be observed in this poem by Pushkin,

  By gates of Eden, Angel, gentle, 
  Shone with his softly drooped head,
  And Demon, gloomy and resentful
  Over the hellish crevasse flapped.

  The spirit of qualm and negation 
  Looked at another one – of good,
  And fire of the forced elation
  First time he vaguely understood.

  “I’ve seen you,” he enunciated, –
  “And not in vain you’ve sent me light:
  Not all in heaven I have hated,
  Not all in world I have despised.”

Notice the "first time" and "negation" stated above...

But Milton's characterization of Satan with a certain heroic and empathetic element shows that there is still some benign side for him, which if that is opposite to a corresponding aspect of God, then what God would be?

> Satan is different than Iago, as Iago is human after all...

While technically correct, I would invite you to consider this exchange from the ending of Othello.

    OTHELLO
    I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.
    If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee.
    (Wounds IAGO)

    [...]

    IAGO
    I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.

Seemed to me like Iago was pretty clearly saying that he is the devil. Now that might be a little egotistical on his behalf, but the greater point, that an inherent evil lurks in man that can rival any devil, is understood. Or, in tying back to what I imagine was Milton's message as well, that Satan (and, by extension, Evil) is not necessarily going to be the cartoonish, trident-wielding, goat-footed demon we expect.

The great Isaac Asimov said we ought to regard Satan as the protagonist in that story, although I don't recall if he suggested that is what Milton intended. I haven't read Asimov's annotated Paradise Lost, which is out of print and very hard to find.

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