Essays. Michel de Montaigne
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which in its abstractions relegates the senses and the body to “noise”.
MONTAIGNE THE PHILOSOPHER
For Montaigne, reason and imagination are both equal in terms of producing new knowledge. Like the oscillations of the world and the universe, “the body and soul are in perpetual moving and action” (II, 37). This perpetual motion defines life itself. Montaigne's philosophy is movement since there can be no knowledge outside the human body. We could argue that Montaigne is a wanderer of writing: “my style and my wit wander at the same rate” (III, 9). The wandering body never allows itself to be imprisoned in common places; it constantly flees forward. Montaigne is always elsewhere; we rarely find him where he tells us he is going. From this understanding, all knowledge becomes relative insofar as it depends on bodily experiences that will sometimes adapt to the mind, and at other times dominate the mind.
Montaigne acknowledges that the mind and the body often assert their monstrosity in remarkable ways (the religious wars of his time, for example), but this is an evil that he deems worthy of consideration and reflection. Theory and action are for him inseparable. As he puts it, “my fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it” (III, 3). All ideas require action. The mind may explore the world in all its shapes and forms, but personal experiences validate the ideas that we form. This journey through the meanders of thought – a thought which can only be understood in its relation to different thoughts – leads Montaigne into an analysis of himself, a process we call introspection. While he lays himself open to the many contradictions of his experience, he chooses not to suppress them from his book.
Introspection and reflections about the self only work because Montaigne establishes “commerces” with others, principally his friend who passed away (Étienne de la Boétie), notable women in his circle such as Diane de Foix, and books (ancient philosophers, whom he copiously references and quotes). And yet, Montaigne would not really become the Montaigne we know and appreciate today, i.e. the observer of cultural differences and the founder of anthropology (a discipline that is not prescriptive, but simply tries to describe human variation), until he finally accepted (after 1585) to content himself with “reporting” human behaviors in all their contradictions – rather than looking for a common denominator in them.
“Others form man; I only report him: and represent a particular one, ill fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to model him anew, I should certainly make something else than what he is but that's past recalling” (III, 2).
Montaigne would soon abandon any attempt to find the “human condition” (his term), and therefore a possible unity or an essence of the human race, in order to concentrate on a descriptive anthropology. Descartes is often presented as the architect of modern philosophy (creating a blueprint of human essence). Montaigne remains an endless surveyor, observer and describer of human customs and mores.
MONTAIGNE THE SOCIAL THINKER
No grand theory, no system is present in the Essays. Over the centuries, critics have generally refused to consider Montaigne a social thinker; he's been pictured as a literary man and “accidental” philosopher, withdrawn in his tower, playing with his cat. And yet, although there is no project of a better society in the Essays, it is possible to identify several constitutive elements of a sociology and an anthropology that we could group under the heading of “social discourse” (one that is often critical of the social organization of his time) in Montaigne's often contradictory statements. This social discourse is manifested in his own political actions as a mayor of Bordeaux and governor of Guyenne. Indeed, Montaigne's two terms as mayor of Bordeaux from 1581 to 1585 allow us to form a more precise idea of his social commitments and his participation in the political debate of his time.
Let us give two examples. Re-elected with difficulty as mayor in 1583, Montaigne turned against the Parlement (his former employer) and denounced abuses such as tax evasion by those who enriched themselves on the backs of the poor. Too many judicial officers were exempt from taxes, and too many relatives of presidents and councilors were declared “noble” and therefore not subject to taxation. In a book of grievances (cahier de doléances) addressed to the king, Montaigne and six members of the Jurade (city council) complained about the fact that “the richest and opulent families of the said city would have been exempt” from these taxes “for the privilege claimed by all the officers of justice and their widowers”. Thus, in the year 1583, Montaigne spoke firmly regarding social justice and openly criticized the ennoblement of members of Parlement and their families. He spoke as a noble himself and seems to have forgotten his own' family's rise in society. The author of the Essays reminded Henry III that the king's justice must be administered free of charge (court actions were expensive) and “to the smallest crowd of the people as possible”. He also endorsed the following statement: “all levies might be imposed equally on everyone, the strong carrying the poor, and suggest that it is very reasonable that those who have greater resources feel the burden more than those who survive only by chance and the sweat of their brows”.
MONTAIGNE THE POLITICAL ACTOR
Despite Montaigne's social declarations in favor of justice and equality, many of his contemporaries were quick to point out his failure as mayor of Bordeaux. He did not contradict his critics:
“They say also that my administration passed over without leaving any mark or trace. Good! They moreover accuse my cessation in a time when everybody almost was convicted of doing too much” (III, 10).
Indeed, Montaigne was perceived as a “centrist” at a time when extremes assumed power on both sides (Catholics and Protestants). He preferred negotiation and moderation in a time of coups de force and violence. But the result of a position perceived as indecisive and feeble-minded was isolation. Montaigne could have done more, but the political price would have been higher still.
His service in public life led him to make some negative judgments upon it in the Essays. If the Essays had first been conceived as a means to enter public life, it slowly became a means to remove himself from it. Politics is about winners and losers, and Montaigne never felt comfortable with decisions that would please one camp to the detriment of another. He was even accused of nonchalance and indolence by his detractors:
“All public actions are subject to uncertain and various interpretations; for too many heads judge of them. Some say of this civic employment of mine (and I am willing to say a word or two about it, not that it is worth so much, but to give an account of my manners in such things), that I have behaved myself in it as a man who is too supine and of a languid temperament; and they have some color for what they say. I endeavored to keep my mind and my thoughts in repose” (III, 10).
If Montaigne failed in politics, it was perhaps because he was “too human”. At least that is the way he liked to represent his political career after his two terms as mayor of Bordeaux. His unconditional confidence in men would have led him to be deceived. After all, he valued nobiliary values (honor and keeping his word, for example) and deplored bourgeois values (efficiency and utility). Likewise, his difficulty in thinking of people as aggregates or groups sharing the same ideology (corporatism, or the “orders” – clergy, nobility, others – of the Ancien Régime) turned out to be a disadvantage for someone who only felt comfortable in individual relationships. Montaigne was never a party man, and his personal judgment did not accommodate political platforms or positions supported by what he perceived as unnatural alliances.
Montaigne was ultimately a lone wolf in his political behavior. The Essays enabled him to reflect upon his experiences in public life, and he ultimately chose to highlight the positive side. But he wanted to move on. After 1588 (i.e. in the manuscript additions of a copy of the 1588 edition of his Essays), Montaigne started to emphasize the private aspect of his book and distanced himself from his former public life.
ON TIME AND HISTORY
Montaigne