Chapter 8 Summary

Orwell begins this essay in a meeting of the P.E.N. club which is being held on the three hundredth anniversary of a little pamphlet by John Milton called "Areopagitica," a pamphlet created to defend freedom of the press. In summarizing the meeting, Orwell relates the substance of four speakers- one said that freedom of the Press was a good thing- in India; the second that liberty was "a good thing," but spoke in a very general way. The third attacked laws that challenged obscenity in literary products. The fourth defended the Russian purges.

There were other speeches, which defended freedom, but not in terms of political liberty. Orwell affirms his belief that liberty of the press means "the freedom to criticize and oppose." The meeting, in general, ignored the "Aeropagitica" and its intentions as well as the suppression of certain books...