“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s...

54
“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay, ‘On the Cannibals’” A Masters Project Presented to Dr. David Tracy University of Chicago In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree Master of Liberal Arts In the Graham School of General Studies University of Chicago By Clinton E. Stockwell Spring, 2002

Transcript of “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s...

Page 1: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay, ‘On the Cannibals’”

A Masters Project Presented to

Dr. David Tracy University of Chicago

In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree

Master of Liberal Arts In the Graham School of General Studies

University of Chicago

By

Clinton E. Stockwell Spring, 2002

Page 2: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

1

Abstract Cannibals all? This essay explores Michel de Montaigne’s (1533-1592) sixteenth

century essay, “On the Cannibals.” The first view of the “other” was that all non-

Europeans were savages, cannibals, less than human, and therefore were to be feared, not

respected or trusted. This was the view that permeated much of Western civilization at

the time. The second view was that “the others,” the primitive tribal peoples of the new

world, were really “noble savages,” whose life abounded in an ideal “state of nature.”

Montaigne’s view might be called a critical realist view. In this perspective, all

humans, Europeans and others, have both savage and noble characteristics. Montaigne

influenced the development of the Noble Savage view, which was later adopted by other

writers, including Jean Jacques Rousseau. Montaigne noted the many ways that tribal

cultures were superior to the culture of Western Europe. Yet, Montaigne neither

sanctioned cannibalism nor did he approve of killing of prisoners of war. Rather, he

argued that Europeans were guilty of practicing cruelty and murder so that the

assumption that European civilization was superior to tribal cultures was dubious. For

Montaigne, all humans were subject to the same foibles, savagery and miscalculation.

Montaigne was enamored with the emerging scientific view of the world-- that

knowledge is to be found in observation via experience, rather than through reason alone.

His critical realism was tinged with a skeptical humanism, and it was his skepticism that

provided his interpretive framework.

While the first purpose in this paper is to spell out Montaigne’s critical realism

with regard to human nature, a second is to explore themes in Montaigne’s essay that

Page 3: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

2

might help humans of all ages appreciate the diversity and the multicultural reality of the

human species, in Montaigne’s world and in ours.

Page 4: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

3

“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay, ‘On the Cannibals’”

Chapter One

Introduction: Cannibals all? This essay is an exploration of Michel de Montaigne’s (1533-

1592) “On the Cannibals.” It will assess Montaigne’s reaction to several views of “the

other” in the sixteenth century. The first view is that all non-Europeans were savages,

cannibals, less than human and not to be respected or trusted. This was the view that

permeated much of Western civilization at the time. Following the era of exploration

and conquest of the new world, European royal officials and explorers were forced to

reckon with the place of new world cultures in an expanding globe. For some, the new

world cultures seemed more primitive than the culture of Europeans. The result was a

fear or rejection of what seemed to “civilized” Europeans as a savage society. For many,

a negative characterization was an excuse to exploit the resources of the new world to

enrich old world nations. Such exploration and colonization was the outgrowth of the

European economic system called mercantilism.

The second view is that “the others,” the primitive tribal peoples that were

“discovered,” were really “noble savages,” whose life was found in an idyllic state of

nature, reflecting the original ideal of human community. In the sixteenth century,

nature was often contrasted with art, as a symbol of human invention and artifice, a

contrived and even distortion of humanity. For Montaigne, the appeal to nature was a

Page 5: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

4

way to critique the corruption and pretension of European, specifically French

civilization.

Montaigne’s view is actually a third, a synthesis of the two views mentioned

above. We might call Montaigne’s view of human nature a critical realist view. In this

perspective, all humans, Europeans and others, have both savage and noble

characteristics. Montaigne influenced the development of the noble savage theory,

which was later adopted by other writers including Jean Jacques Rousseau. While

Montaigne notes the many ways that tribal cultures were superior to the culture of

Western Europe at the time of his writing, his idealization is a bit chastened. Montaigne

neither sanctions cannibalism, nor the killing of prisoners of war. Yet, he notes that

Europeans were also guilty of practicing cruelty and murder, so that the notion that

European civilization was superior was a dubious claim. For Montaigne, all humans are

subject to the same foibles, savagery and miscalculation.

Montaigne was enamored with the emerging scientific view of the world, that

knowledge is to be found in observation and through experience, rather than through

reason alone. Montaigne’s realism was tinged with a skeptical humanism, and it was

this skepticism that provided an interpretive framework. Yet, Montaigne’s actual

experience or first hand encounter with tribal peoples was minimal. He was forced to

rely upon and accept the opinions of other writers and travelers of his era as a substitute

for first hand knowledge.

While the first purpose in this paper is to describe Montaigne’s critical realism

with regard to human nature, a second is to explore themes in Montaigne’s essay that

might help humans better appreciate the diversity and the multicultural reality of the

Page 6: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

5

human species, in Montaigne’s world and in ours. We can find in Montaigne not only a

critique of sixteenth century globalization, but we may also find guidelines that will help

us to better appreciate the significant differences between cultures.

This essay seeks, therefore, to understand Montaigne’s view of the other, and why

he held such a view. It will explore the possibilities of Montaigne’s critical realist

perspective as a resource for those of us who are exploring how to navigate a

multicultural reality in the early 21st century. Montaigne argued that there was enough

barbarism and injustice to be found in all cultures. On the other hand, his perspective

was influenced by prevailing uncritical romantic views. Montaigne’s view is therefore

not original with him. Hence, this essay will explore the extent that Montaigne’s view

of the other reflects prevailing views, and the extent that his view reflects an objective

factual analysis, or at least someone’s objective factual analysis.

Also, this paper seeks to apply Montaigne’s perspective “on the other” more

generally to the difference we see around us. In this respect, Montaigne’s “On the

Cannibals” begs the question of universal applicability. Are the people of the new world

really cannibals, savages, pagans, infidels, or primitives; or are they noble savages,

victims of malign European powers (imperialism)? In Montaigne, can we find a more

balanced and thoughtful approach? Can we document that “the other” shares

characteristics of nobility and cruelty, and that this confliction of characteristics is to be

found in all human cultures? In Montaigne’s, “On the Cannibals,” the “savages” are

“like us” in many ways, even as they are also quite different. For Montaigne, the

distinction between the barbarism of Brazilian cannibals and the cruelty of European

conquerors is really very small. Perhaps, for us in the modern age, it is also less clear

Page 7: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

6

which culture can claim exclusivity to the possession of either the blessing of “god” or to

a particular claim to a universal moral force that respects difference as it really exists in

the world.

Page 8: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

7

Chapter Two

Biography Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born February 28, 1533 in the Chateau de

Montaigne in the Perigord region East of Bordeaux. The Chateau was purchased by

Michel’s great-grandfather, Raymond Eyquem, in 1477, and was later enlarged by

Michel’s father, Pierre de Eyquem.1 Montaigne was Pierre’s third son. Pierre was a

wealthy merchant, having become successful selling fish and wine. His mother,

Antoinette of the Loupes (Lopez) family, was from a wealthy Spanish-Portuguese Jewish

family that fled to Toulouse from Spain.

Montaigne was raised a Roman Catholic, and some scholars believe him to be

emblematic of the counter Reformation that challenged the use of reason in religion,

arguing for a fideism as a resolution to skepticism. Montaigne’s family was divided, as

he, a sister and three brothers remained Catholic, while another brother and two sisters

became Protestant. In such an atmosphere, it was natural that Montaigne’s family would

be tolerant in matters of religion. Before Montaigne was thirty years of age, the wars of

religion in France broke out between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, and Montaigne

assumed the role of mediator and peacemaker. In his oldest surviving letter, Montaigne

railed to the Provost of Paris that many in the Protestant town of Nerac, seventy miles

southeast of Bordeaux, had been brutally murdered by the Catholic armies of Blaise de

Monluc (1500-1577). Motaigne protested the “cruelty and violence” that claimed

1 Donald M. Frame, Montaigne: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), 29.

Page 9: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

8

several individuals of high character who were known to both Montaigne and to the

Provost.2

Montaigne’s father immersed his son in Latin. His tutor refused to speak with

him in any other language until Montaigne was about six years of age, thus assuring the

son’s lifelong attachment to classical literature. While he maintained his devotion to

literature, Montaigne would publish several editions of his Essays in the French

vernacular. At seven years of age, Montaigne was sent to the College du Guyenne at

Bordeaux. Afterwards, Montaigne studied law at the University of Toulouse, a center of

renaissance humanism. At 21 years of age, Montaigne’s father became Mayor of

Bordeaux, and appointed his son to continue his work as counselor in the town

Parlement.3 For 13 years, Montaigne was a member of the Parlement of Bordeaux, even

as he traveled on occasion to Paris to seek a more lucrative employment.

In Paris, Montaigne befriended Etienne de la Boetie, a stoic humanist and poet in

the late 1550s. However, after the latter’s passing, Montaigne’s first essay was published

as an obituary to the life of his friend after he died of a fever and dysentery from a plague

in Bordeaux on August 9, 1563.4

In 1565, he married Francoise de la Chassaigne, the daughter of another member

of the Bordeaux Parlement. He had six daughters by this marriage, but only one of them

survived infancy. There appears to be not much romantic in the marriage. Montaigne

scarcely mentions her at all in over 1500 pages of writings. Still, he claims to have been

2 Michel de Montainge, “To Antoine Duprat, August 24, 1562,” in The Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters, edited and translated by Donald M. Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 1045. 3 Ibid., viii. 4 Frame, Montaigne: A Biography, 77.

Page 10: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

9

totally faithful to her. While traveling or writing, Francoise handled the household

accounts, the lands and the general business of the estate.5

In 1568, Montaigne endured another tragedy, the death of his father. He

embarked on one of the last requests of his father by translating and publishing in French

a work of the Spanish theologian, Raymond Sebond. Sebond was a fifteenth century

Spanish theologian who taught at Toulouse. In 1568, Montaigne published a French

translation of Theologia Naturalis sive Liber Creaturarum, translated as “Natural

Theology” or “Book of the Creatures” by Raymond Sebond.

In 1571, Montaigne published the works of La Boetie, and then retired from

public life. He had inherited the family estate from his father, including the Chateau de

Montaigne. Although he spent much of the remainder of his life living as a country

gentleman, he was involved in numerous activities as a governor, diplomat, traveler and

essayist.

In 1572, Montaigne began writing the Essais, a new literary genre. Montaigne’s

essays were “a series of rambling, erudite, witty discussions on a variety of topics serving

as a self-portrait.”6 For Montaigne, the essay was a new kind of autobiography, written

to overcome the writer’s own melancholia. Montaigne stated early in the first book of

essays that the main subject of study was the self. As such, the essay is a relatively short

literary composition designed to discuss a particular topic, and persuade readers of the

writer’s point of view. For Montaigne, the main subject of his Essays was the subjective

study of the individual human person, of which he was representative.

5 Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol VII: The Age of Reason Begins (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 402. 6 Richard H. Popkin, “Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy V (New York: MacMillan, 1972): 366.

Page 11: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

10

Montaigne presumed that the study of the self was in essence a study of the

human condition in microcosm. Upon his early retirement at 38 years of age, Montaigne

did not believe that he would live very long. Like his father, he was given to kidney

stones, and the various plagues of the time claimed many a victim, including his beloved

friend Le Boetie, as well as members of his own family. His preoccupation with the self

led him to wonder how long his physical body would hold out. Yet, scholars have

detected an emerging worldview in the essays. Montaigne was fascinated by the classics,

and his essays appear to have developed in stages.

For Holyoke, Montaigne’s essays represent an evolution in three stages: from

stoicism to skepticism and finally to a form of hedonism or Epicureanism. In the first

stage, Montaigne was preoccupied with his mortality, as he believed that one could only

greet death as inevitable. To his apparent surprise, a few years later he was still alive,

and his preoccupation with death seemed to move to a preoccupation with the extent that

knowledge was possible. His essay, “In defense of Raymond Sebond,” was an attack on

the certainty of knowledge. By the time he was compiling book three of his essays,

Montaigne appears to be more at home with the self, and more prone to write essays that

celebrate life’s pleasures. In his final essay, “Of Experience,” Montaigne considers the

importance of the pursuit of pleasure, “and readily resign[s] to the body the concern and

enjoyment of sensual and temporal fodder.” 7

Yet, perhaps what was most important about Montaigne’s essays was his style.

Donald M. Frame describes it as “free, oral, informal, personal, concrete, luxuriant in

images, organic and spontaneous in order….”8 The essay was first developed in this

7 John Holyoke, Montaigne Essays (London: Grand and Cutler, Ltd., 1983), 53. 8 Donald M. Frame, The Complete Works of Montaigne, vi.

Page 12: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

11

format by Montaigne in the 1570s and later by Francis Bacon in 1597. The word, Essay,

is a derivative of the Latin word, exagium, which means “a weighing.” The essays

reflect a “balancing… of opposites along the whole gamut of philosophical and

existential problems from life to death.”9 Montaigne believed his essays were in fact a

commentary on the human condition, and he was the great example of such an inquiry.

Montaigne’s essays reflect his critical consciousness. Yet, it is impossible to detect a

growth or an evolution, except as stages from a preoccupation with death, the ultimate

philosophical question, to a celebration of life. Yet, the essays really have no beginning

or end, but reflect rather a synthesis of his thought: a “multidimensional kaleidescope,”

an unfinished critical inquiry about the problem of being human.10

Montaigne’s informality was a striking contrast to other forms of essay writing.

For example, Francis Bacon’s essay style was more formal. The informal essay was not

only more personal an intimate, but was also more conversational and often humorous.

Other writers who wrote in this manner included Jonathan Swift, Charles Lamb, William

Hazlitt, Mark Twain and James Thurber. Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John

Stuart Mill and Henry David Thoreau represent the more formal tradition of essay

writing.

The longest of the essays was his “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” written in

1576: “the most destructive of Montaigne’s compositions, perhaps the most

thoroughgoing exposition of skepticism in modern literature.”11 Montaigne’s skepticism

9 Marcel Tetel, Montaigne. Updated Edition. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990), 1. 10 Ibid., 99. See also the following works: Donald M. Frame, Montaigne’s Discovery of Man: The Humanization of a Humanist (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955); Philip P. Hallie, The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay in Personal Philosophy (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966); and, Frederick Rider, The Dialectic of Selfhood in Montaigne, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973). 11 Durant and Durant, The Age of Reason Now Begins, 407.

Page 13: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

12

is based on his acknowledgement of the relativity of customs and laws throughout

history, the problem of cultural relativism.

The Apology was included in the publication of the first two volumes of his

Essays in 1580. Montaigne went to Paris to present a copy of his book to King Henri III

(a Catholic). Montaigne’s passion for tolerance influenced the diplomatic efforts to curb

the violence between Protestants and Catholics in a France preoccupied with civil strife

and wars of religion.

In 1581, Montaigne traveled to Germany, Switzerland and finally to Italy. These

travels are recorded in his Journal de Voyage.12 Montaigne recommended travel as a

moral education. He counseled that the traveler keep one’s eyes open, for the world can

function as a great textbook.13 While traveling, Montaigne encountered “so many

humours, sects, judgements, opinions, laws and customs [which] teach us to judge

sensibly of our own.”14 Montaigne’s travels were attempts to learn of other customs. He

encountered Martinists (Lutherans), Calvinists, and Zwinglians in Switzerland and

Germany, and Jews in Verona. “The Travel Journal reveals Montaigne as a dutiful

Catholic with great curiosity about religious theory and practice and fondness for

theological discussion, especially with Protestants.”15

Montaigne eschewed a dogmatic theology. In fact, he was rather skeptical of any

religious practice that deemed itself superior or absolute. His religious beliefs were

closer to a deistic faith than an instrumental one. As a “tolerant but firm Catholic

12 Michel de Montaigne, Montaigne’s Travel Journal, translated and with an introduction by Donald M. Frame (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983). 13 Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins, 400. 14 Cited in Peter Burke, “Montaigne,” Renaissance Thinkers (New York: Oxford, 1993), 353. 15 Donald M. Frame, Montaigne’s Essais: A Study (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969), 67.

Page 14: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

13

loyalist,”16 he was deeply suspicious of the Protestant claim that God could be known in a

personal way. Rather, God seemed to be “unapproachable and incomprehensible” to

Montaigne. God, for Montaigne, seemed to be best found and was most identifiable with

nature. Writes Holyoake: “Montaigne’s mistrust of the supernatural, his abhorrence of

cruelty or fanaticism and his tolerance in a period in which this was seen as a weakness,

mark him out from any of his religious contemporaries.”17

Montaigne quoted extensively from classical authors, but hardly ever appealed to

the Bible. His fideism was much broader than the faith of Protestant reformers or

orthodox Catholic clerics who thought Christianity to be the exclusive way to truth.

Some authors question whether Montaigne can be called Christian, as he seems to have

as much reverence for pagan religions as he does for Christianity.18 Yet, religiously and

politically, he was troubled by any threat to the established order. He was more pious

than doctrinaire, and his theology seemed to blend with a romanticism and naturalism

more characteristic of poets and writers of literature than of theologians. His fideism and

confidence in God’s grace was more important to him than any of the orthodox

confessions. Montaigne was much too aware of his own scars and limitations, and he

was thus unable to trump others with a universal theology. As Frame puts it: “his

skepticism is intended to set faith, and the authority of the church, beyond the reach of

man’s presumptuous and fallible reason.”19

16 Ibid., 68. 17 Holyoke, Montaigne Essays, 77. 18 Patel, Montaigne, 30 ff. See also discussion of Christian sources in Hugo Friederich, Montaigne (Berkeley: University of California, 1991), 81-82. Friederich believes that Montaigne was pious, but essentially non-Christian. 19 Frame, Montaigne’s Essais, 69.

Page 15: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

14

Yet, Montaigne was neither heretic nor anarchist. Despite his unbridled criticism

of the monarchy, he was worried that civil strife would destroy France. He may have

preferred a republican form of government over the monarchy, but he was no supporter

of revolution or violent conflict.20

As a practical skeptic, Montaigne found it beneficial to walk the streets and to

investigate everything for himself. His purpose was “to experience to the full the

diversity of matters and customs.”21 Montaigne believed that customs changed from era

to era, so it was impossible to presume that ones laws were universal, when they were but

“municipal.”22

While away in Italy, he received a message on September 7, 1581 that he had

been unanimously elected Mayor of Bordeaux, a position that he held for two terms,

often in absentia. He initially refused, but King Henry III begged him to accept.

Montaigne managed to maintain the favor of rival monarchs in the struggle for a more

tolerant France. In 1584, Montaigne was visited by Henry III’s rival, Henri of Navarre

and his entourage. The latter Henry became King Henri IV (1553-1610). Navarre was

Protestant, his mother was an ardent Calvinist, but he later converted to Catholicism in

1593, mostly for pragmatic political reasons. In matters of religion, Navarre was

indifferent, and in 1593 he passed the Treaty of Nantes, which protected the rights of

French Huguenots. Henry IV thus put an end to 40 years of religious wars in France.

In 1587, Montaigne adopted a twenty-year old young woman as his daughter.

Her name was Marie de Gournay, who later became a reader and compiler of

20 David L. Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 176. 21 Burke, “Montaigne,” 354.

Page 16: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

15

Montaigne’s final drafts of his writings. By 1588, Montaigne had completed the third

volume of his Essays, and a final completed volume with additions and revisions was

published after his death in 1595, edited by Marie de Gournay. The first English edition

of his Essayes, translated by John Florio, was published in London in 1603.

Central to Montaigne’s thought in the Essays was his philosophical skepticism.

He held that all reasoning was unsound, and that our understanding of truth was only

possible by the grace of God. Religious knowledge was therefore available by faith

alone. Perceptions of truth vary from age to age, as what one regards as scientific truth in

one age is quickly superseded in the next. One can only judge what is true by one’s

experience, and what seems to be true in fact may only be the appearance of the truth.

For Montaigne, nothing could be known conclusively.

Montaigne held that men are vain, stupid, and immoral, and he pointed out that they and their achievements do not appear very impressive when compared with animals and their abilities. The “noble savage” of the New World seemed to possess an admirable simplicity and ignorance that did not involve him in the intellectual, legal, political and religious problems of the civilized European.23

Montaigne’s skepticism thus allowed him to consider the merits of other cultures,

including the culture of the so-called savages of the New World.

22 Michel de Montaigne, “Of custom, and not easily changing an accepted law,” in The Complete Works of Montaigne, 77 ff. 23 Popkin, op cit, 367.

Page 17: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

16

Chapter Three

Perceptions of the Other

Throughout human history, European writers, among others, have written with

great curiosity about “the other”. This fascination with cultural difference among so-

called primitive tribal groups was fueled by contacts with other cultures in the era known

as the Renaissance, or the “Age of Discovery.” Many writers in ancient times, such as

Herodotus or Virgil, were concerned with self-definition as they sought to compare their

cultures with rival civilizations. However, with the age of exploration and the conquest

of the new world following Columbus’s travels in 1492, a renewed curiosity emerged.

Writers sought to understand, not only the other, but also their place among the others in

an expanding world.

There are many examples of this exploration that were read in the Sixteenth

Century. These writers included Sir John of Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John

Mandeville (1499); Bartoleme De Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the

Indies (1552); and several plays of William Shakespeare, including The Tempest, Hamlet

and Othello, were influenced by Montaigne.24

Montaigne is not explicit about his sources, and does a better job at citing ancient

sources such as Aristotle, Plato or Seneca, but not so his contemporary sources.

Montaigne’s obliteration of his sources means that he adopts the “manner” of certain narratives he rejects (like Lery), which claim to speak only in the name of

24 George Coffin Taylor, Shakespere’s Debt to Montaigne (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925), 32.

Page 18: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

17

experience, while other narratives explicitly combine data received from the tradition with direct observation.25 However, Montaigne does appear to use several works in French and Spanish that

explored the relationship between European conquerors and subject peoples in the new

world. These included Frencesco Lopez de Gomara, General History of the Indies

(1552); Girolamo Benzoni, Historia del Mondo Novo (A History of the New World,

Venice, 1565); and N.B. (anonymous), Lettres sur la navigation de chevalier de

Villegaignon es terres de l’Americque (Paris 1557). Montagne’s “On the Cannibals”

was similar to the thrust of these texts, and to travel memoirs that inspired much curiosity

and speculation.

Gomara believed that the Indians were “idolatrous, cannibals and sodomites.”

He dedicated his book to Emperor Charles V of Spain. Benzoni spent 14 years in the

new world, and condemned the cruelty of the Spaniards, while giving detailed and

sympathetic descriptions of the Indian way of life. Montaigne’s more tolerant views

were closer to Benzoni than to Gomara.26 There were numerous other travelogs written

at about the time of “Of Cannibals.” Hans Staden, a German, wrote details of his

captivity by the Brazilians in 1557. He escaped, but insisted nonetheless that he was

treated humanely by his captors.

On the other hand, there were interpretations of New World cultures that derided

the savagery and paganism of the “cannibals.” Andre Thevet wrote, for example,

Singularities of Antarctic France, in 1558. Thevet thought that Brazilians lived like

25Michel de Certeau, “”Montaigne’s ‘Of Cannibals’: The Savage I.’” In: Harold Bloom, editor, Michel de Montaigne’s Essays (New York: Chelsea House, 1987), 127. 26 Burke, “Montaigne,” 351.

Page 19: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

18

beasts. Yet, he compared Brazilians to Western Europeans and found that the primitive

idolators were no better than the “damnable atheists” of Europe.

Jean de Lery, a French Protestant, published his Histoire d’un voyage fait en la

terre du Brezil, the Story of a Voyage to Brazil (1578).27 Lery called the Brazilians

“barbarians” who illustrated corruption and the problem of ‘original sin’ “after the fall.”

Yet, he praised the Brazilians for their practice of “peace, harmony and charity” which

put Christians to shame, especially following the massacre of innocent people during

France’s religious wars. Lery, like Montaigne, condemned the St. Bartholomew’s

massacre. Like Lery and the French writer Ronsard, Montaigne thought the Brazilians to

be “savages,” although they acknowleged the superiority of new world tribes who

seemed to live harmoniously and happily with nature.28 In his essay, “On Coaches,”

Montaigne denounced the cruelty of Spanish Conquistadores.

So many cities razed to the ground; so many nations exterminated, so many millions of people put to the sword, and the richest and the fairest part of the world turned upside down for the sake of trade in pearls and pepper. Base and mechanical victories.29 While perceptions of the other are found most pointedly in the essay, “On the

Cannibals,” there were other essays that point to his curiosity with respect to difference,

including the essay “Of a Monstrous Child.” In this essay, Montaigne gives a

description of a deformed child, but then adds:

What we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of the work of the infinity of forms that he has comprised in it; and it is for us to believe that this figure that astonishes us is related and linked to some other figure of the same kind unknown to man…. We call to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to nature, whatever it may be. Let this

27 Michel de Certeau, “”Montaigne’s ‘Of Cannibals,’” 121. 28 Burke, 352. 29 Michel de Montaigne, “Of Coaches,” in: Complete Works of Montaigne, 695.

Page 20: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

19

universal and natural reason drive out the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.30

In “Of Cannibals,” there appear to be two conflicting interpretations that

Montaigne debates in his essay. The first is that “the others” found among tribal peoples

of the New World and Old, were all subhuman savages, who lacked not only proper

religious sentiment (Christianity), but also lacked the basics of human culture and

cultivation. The second view is a romantic, uncritical view of native peoples. This view

holds that native peoples were really closer to nature than the inhabitants of the so-called

civilized world. In essence, civilization cuts us off from our roots and connections with

the natural world, while native peoples live in a “state of nature”.

Montaigne seems to move back and forth between these two views, but then he

argues for a third view; that all humans, civilized or not, have both barbaric and noble

characteristics. This may be called a critical realist view. Europeans can be “cannibals”

in the way they treat the other, including the treatment of the poor. Europeans, for

Montaigne, were worse than the cannibals that they worried about, especially in the ways

they preyed upon their fellows.

On the other hand, native peoples showed their nobility in the ways they treated

their neighbors and tribal members, as well as in the crafts, buildings, and tools they

created. Yet, Montaigne knew that even noble savages had their cruel side, as evidenced

by the manner that they treated their enemies. Yet, Montaigne reserved his venom for

Europeans who tortured people while they were still alive. With a touch of satire,

Montaigne noted that the “cannibals” at least waited until their enemies were dead before

30Michel de Montaigne, “Of a Monstrous Child,” in Philip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present (New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1994): 58.

Page 21: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

20

they ate them. The “third view” that Montaigne argues for in this essay, a critical

realism, has a great deal to say about how we may be able to approach the challenges of

diversity in our own world. Terrorism and violence against humans and nature is not

solely found among those deemed “the other” by our culture.

There are several key points that Montaigne makes that have emerged in Western

culture, particularly during the period of the Renaissance, an era noted for its humanism

and commitment to reason and scientific methodology, however primitive by our

standards. For Montaigne, Europeans could be very provincial. Like native peoples,

Europeans could also assume that “their” world was the only superior world, and

therefore the most normative. Yet, writers like Montaigne opted for another perspective,

one that included romantic or idealistic sentiments, similar to what one would find in

later writers such as Rousseau, especially the belief that native peoples were “noble

savages”: those who lived in an ideal world called “the state of nature.” The newly

discovered cultures of the globe were evaluated on how well they compared with existing

European cultural traditions.

Montaigne’s understanding of nature is important. He believed that being in a

state of nature was preferable to living in a “civilized” society, for he rejected the

pretension, superficiality and vanity that went with civilized society’s adornments. John

Holyoake believes that Montaigne’s understanding of nature is key to understanding the

essays. Yet, he argues, that nature in Montaigne has a number of possible meanings.

Montaigne uses the word ‘nature’ to mean the creator and controller of the universe, sometimes it means the universe itself. He also uses it to denote the essence of people, things, actions and events. Sometimes it seems to refer merely

Page 22: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

21

to what is normal and is hardly to be differentiated from ‘general’, ‘commun’ (sic) or ‘universel’ (sic).31

For Donald M. Frame, Montaigne provides us with a vivid contrast of nature to art,

culture, custom, civilization and anything else manmade, including institutions,

governments, and churches. “We belong to nature, but we will not admit it…. We have

been fools to abandon a guide who led us so happily and so surely.”32

For Peter Burke, Montaigne was “not unlike a functionalist sociologist or

anthropologist.”33 Montaigne was more enamored with the function of culture, than to

its pretended universality. Yet, he was not a thorough-going cultural relativist, because

he upheld the authority and apparent universality of classical civilizations. Still, he

believed that cultures and civilizations were in a constant state of flux, and that it was

folly to lift up any culture or civilization at any time as normative.

Rather, he believed that the diversity of laws and customs arose for different

purposes and were influenced by a diversity of regions and historical time periods. In

the essay, “Of Custom,” Montaigne argues that one’s custom biases and prejudices a

person’s ability to judge the customs of others. Rather, it permits one culture to assume

that its parochial vision is both universal, applying to all cultures elsewhere; and natural,

implicitly right and even ordained of God.34

Today, scholarly opinions of Montaigne vary. Pierre Villey thought Montaigne

to be an empiricist, a precursor of Auguste Comte’s positivism.35 Montaigne was

31 John Holyoake, Contextual and Thematic Interference in Montaigne’s Essais (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1986), 24. 32 Donald M. Frame, “The Whole Man, 1586-1592,” in Michel de Montaigne: Modern Critical Views, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 38. 33 Burke, “Montaigne” in Renaissance Thinkers, 354. 34 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 77 ff; Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 178. 35 Cited in Burke, Ibid, 379.

Page 23: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

22

perhaps the first writer of the Renaissance period to move away from the dictates of

reason or religious authority, and to move in the very different direction of a critical

realism based on the goal of personal observation based on empirical data, including the

testimony of travel documents. Unfortunately, Montaigne failed to live up to his own

standards, even while he articulates it clearly as a scientific goal.

According to David L. Schaeffer, Montaigne’s use of empirical data may not have

been his main purpose. As a general principle, Montaigne writes that one should only

comment about what one really knows, what one has experienced personally. However,

Montaigne ignored his own advice in his own modus operandi. “On the Cannibals” is

not based on what Montaigne knows. Nor is based on his personal knowledge, except

from an apparent serendipitous conversation with one of three tribal visitors to France as

depicted in the last part of the essay. As Schaeffer notes, what Montaigne does is the

exact opposite of his ideal. In fact, he speculates by describing “a people he has never

seen, inhabiting a territory he has never visited, merely on the basis of his employee’s

testimony.”36

However, for Schaeffer, getting it right historically is not really the point. In fact,

it may be that his description of the culture of the cannibals is largely fabricated, and is

not an empirically accurate account. Montaigne’s point is really less about the culture

of the cannibals, and is more about the presumed superiority of western culture--

especially that which one finds in France. Montaigne is more concerned about French

ethnocentrism, and the arrogant presumptions about things foreign. In short,

Montaigne’s purpose is not really about being historically or empirically accurate, but

36 Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 179.

Page 24: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

23

rather to critique the very culture and civilization that he was a part. As Schaeffer

concludes:

Montaigne is not, by his own testimony, a “simple” historian: rather than reporting facts at random, he selects those facts, or alleged facts, that he thinks will be most instructive to his readers.37

37 Ibid., 180.

Page 25: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

24

Chapter IV

On The Cannibals: An Exposition:

The “cannibals” of Montaigne’s essay lived on the coasts of Brazil. They were

cruel, but so was the civilized world. Montaigne’s respect for so-called barbarous

people and their conduct reflects a “primitivism,” an idealization of primitive, indigenous

cultures. This was especially graphic when the writer compared the virtues of a

primitive culture with the cruelty, corruption and barbarism of Europe.

Like the Greeks, Europeans of Montaigne’s day were quick to label anything or

any person not from their civilization as barbarous. For the Greeks, all foreigners were

by definition “barbarian,” and the same view seemed to be popular in mid-sixteenth

century France. For Montaigne, it was important to be aware of “common opinions,” as

one should judge others “by the ways of reason, not by popular vote.” In this respect,

Montaigne’s view fits more consistently with aspects of the Renaissance-Enlightenment

tradition that emphasized the priority of reason, than with the more irrational tenets of

popular culture.

As an example of how a public rumor can bear weight and influence on “civilized

peoples,” Montaigne pointed to the legend of Atlantis. Atlantis as a myth is mentioned

initially by Plato in the Timaeus. To Plato, Atlantis was “a great and wonderful empire”

larger than Libya and Asia put together.38 However, there is little evidence that there was

an Atlantis, or that it was once located just off the coast of Gibraltar. This was just a

legend, although Montaigne admitted that a “large fertile island” was found. Yet, he

Page 26: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

25

doubted whether this island was the Atlantis of Greek mythology, and certainly an

Atlantis probably had little connection to Brazil or to the New World. Yet, in

Montaigne’s day, such theorizing was commonplace.

Montaigne gives us guidance as to how to proceed. The writer should write

“only about what he knows.”39 As an illustration, Montaigne thinks that one can write

about the knowledge and experience of the nature of one particular river, but he may not

know about all others. Yet, to assume that one’s knowledge of all rivers can be based on

the experience of one river is a great fallacy. “From this vice many great inconveniences

arise,” he wrote.40

Montaigne observed that an individual could call barbarous “anything that he is

not accustomed to.” Montaigne believed that here was nothing implicitly savage or

barbarous about indigenous Brazilian tribes. But, since their culture is different from

European culture, and since it appears that that culture was slightly more primitive, it was

presumed to be barbaric. Montaigne argued that our criteria for truth must be reason

based on experience. It should not be based on the example and form of the opinions and

customs of one’s own country.

Rather, it is a mistake to base our view of the other precisely on the standard of our own opinions and customs. In our own country, we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything.41

This is an important self-understanding as to how those of us in an advanced

culture judge others. But, Montaigne calls such solipsism into question. In this respect,

38 Plato, The Timaeus, 24-25, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 1159. 39 Michel de Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” The Essays: A Selection, translated and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 79-92. 40 Ibid., 82.

Page 27: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

26

we can say that Montaigne is a multiculturalist, or at least a cultural pluralist. He does

not believe that any one culture is absolute. Nor did he believe that any one faith could

claim the absolute possession of the truth.

The “savages,” he wrote, were “only wild in the sense that we call fruits wild

when they are produced by Nature in her ordinary course; whereas it is fruit which we

have artificially perverted and misled from the common order which we ought to call

savage.”42 Here, Montaigne is turning the European view upside down. He insists that

the culture of “savages” may really be more in tune with nature, and therefore indigenous

cultures maybe more natural. On the contrary, European culture may not be natural at

all, but may be an assault or an artificial misrepresentation of the natural order. As a

specific example, Montaigne noted that many of the fruits and foods from new world

countries were superior to those in France.

Montaigne cited Plato, who categorized all things as produced by either nature,

fortune or art. The first two are the greatest, but the last two are the worst.43 Good

fortune may be either natural or the result of caprice. However, in Plato’s case, the issue

was a student’s respect or disrespect for the gods. For Montaigne, the issue is whether or

not the so-called civilized world respects nature and the diversity of the cultural

manifestations that nature produces. In the case of the “barbarians,” their culture was

perceived by Montaigne to be clearly the result of a positive and harmonious communion

with nature, unlike the artificial distortion of nature as found in Western Europe. The

barbarians were “still remaining close neighbors to their original state of nature.” The

41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Plato, Laws, X, 888, A-B, In: Plato: The Collected Dialogues, 1443.

Page 28: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

27

barbarians were governed “by the laws of Nature and are only slightly bastardized by

ours.”44

Montaigne proceeded to describe the superiority of the Brazilian tribal society as

compared with classical and modern European civilization. His critique anticipates

subsequent discussions of the state of nature in writers like Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-

1794). In 1750, Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (ET 1752).

There, he argued that civilization had corrupted humanity’s natural goodness and

decreased its experience of freedom. In 1754, Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the

Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, which attacked inequality, arguing

that humanity’s perfect nature was distorted by society and the economic practice of

private property. To Rousseau, the vain strivings for objects outside the self “neglect

the true lessons of nature in order to pursue the illusions of opinion.”45 While

Montaigne’s thought was not as developed as Rousseau, there is a similar appreciation

for the purity of nature, and each shared a deep suspicion regarding the corrupting

potential of civilization.

To Montaigne, the “noble savage” was a more natural way of living than the

civilized world of his native France. In “the state of nature,” there would be a relative

absence of institutions as would be found in the so-called civilized world. There was

“no trade, no writing or arithmetic, no juridical or political offices, no servitude or class

division between rich and poor, no business or testamentary settlements, no kinship

44 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 83. 45 Ronald Grimsley, “Rousseau, Jean Jacques, (1712-1778),” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol VII (New York: MacMillan, 1967), 219.

Page 29: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

28

relations, no agriculture or metallurgy.”46 Compared to the Europeans, the cannibals

seemed to lack the self-concept, and did not have the notion of the autonomous and free

individual that has been so prevalent in Western society. Instead, the cannibals were part

and parcel of a group identity, as their sense of self was interconnected with the tribal

super-identity.

For Montaigne, the “state of nature” was so simple and so pure,” with “so little

artifice, so little in the way of human solder.”47 Montaigne’s assessment of the virtues of

the “barbarian” reflects a strong Romantic idealism.

I would tell Plato that those people have no trade of any kind, no acquaintance with writing, no knowledge of numbers, no terms of governor or political superior, no practice of subordination or of riches or poverty, no contracts, no inheritances, no divided estates, no occupation but leisure, no concern for kinship—except such as is common to them all—no clothing, no agriculture, no metals, no use of wine or corn. Among them you hear of no words for treachery, lying, cheating avarice, envy, backbiting or forgiveness. How remote from such perfection would Plato find that Republic which he thought up….48

This is a remarkable passage. Not only does Montaigne spell out via negationis a

romantic utopia based in the ideal state of nature, but he refuted the greatest utopian tract

of classical times in the process. Yet, surely one wonders if Montaigne contradicted his

own version of critical realism. He wrote that the barbarians “inhabit a land with a most

delightful countryside and temperate climate…. It is rare to find anyone ill there.”49

To Montaigne, the “cannibals” possessed a pleasant climate, an abundance of

food, the relative absence of illness, a preoccupation with dancing and festivity, and the

mutual affection and devotion between the husband and wives. This was even better

46 David Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon: ‘Des Cannibales’ in the larger Essais,” in: Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 75. 47 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 83-84. 48 Ibid., 84. 49 Ibid.

Page 30: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

29

than Plato’s Republic! Yet, if one compares Montaigne’s cannibals with the residents of

Plato’s Republic, there are some striking similarities. Nudity was tolerated in Plato.

Wealth was shared. However, in Plato’s Republic the diet is mostly vegetarian. There

was little reference to war as a pastime, and there remains an apparent social and political

hierarchy that sanctioned the practice of slavery.

Montaigne had less regard for the supremacy of philosophy or the utility of the

rule of reason as in Plato. Montaigne’s utopia was not a rational one, but represented an

affectual and sensual harmony with nature. Still, there were some “reasonable” qualities

in Montaigne’s utopia, even in an ideal society known for its pleasures. Montaigne

regarded the cannibal’s egalitarian social order as “inherently more reasonable than that

of his own country.”50 He concluded that the way of life for the cannibals was superior

to that of Plato’s Republic.

Montaigne went on to convey that one “never saw a single man bent with age,

toothless, blear-eyed or tottering.”51 These barbarians “dwell along the seashore, shut up

in landwards by great lofty mountains, or a stretch of land some hundred leagues in

length.”52 This culture was unspoiled, until Europeans brought with them not only their

military superiority, but their devastating diseases. Still, one wonders what “evidence”

Montaigne had to make such a broad and sweeping characterization of an indigenous

culture. Montaigne recognized that he had sources, and some scholars think that he had

in mind especially Simone’s Goulart’s History of Portugal (1587) which was “based on

reports by Bishop Jeronimo Osorio (de Fonseca) and others.”53 Yet, since Montaigne

50 Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 183. 51 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 84. 52 Ibid. 53 Cited in M.A. Screech, Michel De Montaigne: The Essays: A Selection, 84, n. 14.

Page 31: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

30

himself would travel only to Germany, Switzerland and Italy, it appears that he ascribes a

rather uncritical weight to these reports.

The reports that influenced Montaigne gave detail about the indigenous people’s

housing conditions, food, military tactics, beliefs, family relationships, and role of the

religious leadership in the society. Montaigne describes the dwellings that the people

lived in as “immensely long,” capable of housing 2-3000 souls. This detail reminds one

of the housing conditions in Thomas More’s Utopia. It does seem to this writer that

Montaigne’s estimate of the living situation of the Brazilian tribes to be a similar ideal

state. He describes their housing “covered with the bark of tall trees.”54 The wood used

to make the dwellings was so strong as they were able to “use it to cut with, making their

swords from it as well as grills to cook their meat.”55

Montaigne points out that the beds that the “cannibals” used was “made from

cotton,” and hung from the roofs “like hammocks on our ships.” Each person had his or

her own hammock, “as wives sleep apart from their husbands.” At sunrise, they have

their only meal for the day. Montaigne stated that the tribal people did not drink

anything with their meals, but they drank throughout the day a “sharp,” “sweet” and

“somewhat insipid” beverage that Montaigne argued was good for the stomach, although

for strangers, it was experienced more as a laxative.56

Montaigne describes a somewhat traditional family pattern with respect to gender

roles. While most of the tribal people “spend the whole day dancing,” the young men

went off to hunt with a bow and arrow. Meanwhile, the main function of the women was

54 Ibid., 84. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 84-5.

Page 32: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

31

to “warm up the drink.”57 Each morning, an elder walked from one end of the long

house to another, preaching the same thing, exhorting all to show “bravery before their

enemies,” and “love to their wives.”58 Montaigne goes on to describe the crafts of their

handiwork: including the rope work in their beds, wooden swords, bracelets and open-

ended canes that were used to keep rhythm in the dances. He noticed that the people

also shaved off “all of their hair” with sharp wooden or stone razors.59

The tribal culture was not without a belief system. They believed in the

immortality of the soul, and held that good souls would eventually dwell in the sky with

the gods. Accursed souls would dwell in the land where the sun sets. The priests or

prophets live in the mountains, and as a result, rarely appeared among the people. When

they did appear, each barn, which is also a separate village, held a great festival. The

prophet addressed villages in public, and exhorted them to be “virtuous and dutiful,”

while their whole system of ethics was based on the two exhortations that the elders gave:

to be courageous in battle, and to show love to their wives. The prophet’s role was to

foretell what would happen, especially the outcome of a war. Unfortunately, if he got it

wrong, he would be “hacked to pieces,” or, if he attempted escape, was “seen no more.”60

Like the prophets of the Jewish/Christian Old Testament, there was a way to distinguish

between true or false prophets by the outcome of their prophecies; that is, whether or not

what was predicted came to past.

Like the office in the Old and New Testaments, prophecy was held in high esteem

as a gift of God. The abuse of this gift was treated with great seriousness, as the abuser

57 Ibid., 85. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid..

Page 33: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

32

would be killed. Thus, he would experience a similar fate as those endured by false

prophets among the Scythians of the ancient world, who were “shackled and laid on ox

carts,” according to Herodotus. Deception by those who were considered to be the

leaders of the people was not tolerated. Montaigne depicted the warriors in a way that

reminds one of former descriptions of Spartans in Ancient Greece. They “go forth

naked” with only their weapons. Their steadfastness in battle was “astonishing,” as the

tribal warriors were considered “fearless.”61

Steadfastness in battle is astonishing and always ends up in killing and bloodshed. They don’t know the meaning of fear or flight…. Each man brings back the head of the enemy he has slain and sets it as a trophy over the door of the dwelling.62

Yet, on the whole the “cannibals”…“treat their captives well.” After captivity,

glorious thought, they execute them by hacking them to pieces before the whole

assembly. “This done, they roast him and make a common meal of him, sending chunks

of his flesh to absent friends.”63 The average reader today might very well question if

such execution and dismemberment reflects good treatment of one’s enemy. It certainly

would fail under the modern-day Geneva Accords, although many nations, civilized or

not, ignore such agreements, even today. Yet, for Montaigne, it represented an

improvement, for it distinquished between execution, or capital punishment, legitimately

conceived, and the practice of cruelty or torture as a testament of “man’s inhumanity to

man.”

For Montaigne, any torture that goes beyond the simple act of killing was

unnecessary and unwarranted cruelty. Without dismissing problems connected to

cannibalism, Montaigne was clearly against what we might call terrorism today.

61 Ibid., 86. 62 Ibid.

Page 34: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

33

Terrorism is the act of torture whereby one takes pleasure in dismembering victims while

they are still alive. It was somehow less shocking to Montaigne if one ate the victims,

after they had been killed. In essence, terrorism is worse than cannibalism because, for

Montaigne, the killing and raping of innocent people is infinitely more cruel than mere

execution. He abhorred the common practice of terrorism by those embroiled in the

wars of religion that Montaigne despised in his own country.64

Montaigne noted that cannibalism was not limited to the New World. In Eastern

Europe, the Scythians adopted a similar practice, killing their enemies for food. Yet,

what seemed to be happening in Montaigne’s Europe was much more cruel than acts of

cannibalism. For example, wrote Montaigne, the Portuguese “bury (their enemies) to the

waist, [only] to shoot arrows at their exposed parts and then to hang them.”65

Montaigne’s point is that, while the Brazilian tribal culture may kill their enemies, they

didn’t torture them or kill them for sport as in several of Europe’s more “civilized”

societies.

Montaigne noted that even the Portuguese later modified their practices, learning

from the new world culture, adopting the “more humane” execution methods of the tribal

society. Yet, he was sure to contrast the two cultures in vivid fashion.

It does not sadden me that we should note the horrible barbarity in a practice such as theirs: what does sadden me is that, while judging correctly of their wrong-doings we should be so blind to our own. I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead; more barbarity in lacerating by rack and torture a body still fully able to feel things, in roasting him little by little and having him bruised and bitten by pigs and dogs… than in roasting him and eating him after his death.66

63 ibid. 64 Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon,” 80-81. 65 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 86. 66 Ibid., 86-87.

Page 35: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

34

Montaigne, of course, was mostly attacking the barbarity as practiced by European

culture, and more personally, the barbaric actions of individuals that Montaigne knew,

and upon families to whom he was acquainted. “This is done by our ‘friends and

neighbors’… in the name of duty and religion.”67

Montaigne’s purpose was to challenge the cruelty and barbarity as practiced in

European civilization. His motivation and purpose likely transcended his commitment to

historical accuracy. He was critical of the practice of torture and barbarism, including

war, in any human society, and seems to use what he knows, or what he portended to

know of the New World culture for this purpose. He assumed that human nature and the

practice of inhumanity, was in a sense, universal.

Montaigne agreed with ancient authors, Chrisippus and Zeno, that there was

“nothing wrong in using our carcasses for whatever purpose we needed, even for

food….”68 As a modern illustration, the book Alive, by Piers Paul Read, written in 1974,

chronicles the survival tactics of survivors of a plane crash. They were forced to eat the

dead carcasses of those who perished in order to survive. In an apropos quote from the

book, one survivor said to another: “think of it as communion.”

Similarly, Montaigne argued that medical doctors used corpses in many ways for

scientific experiments, just as today we use body parts and organs for transplant purposes

purportedly to save human lives. Our problem today is the terrible black market for

human organs that is practiced worldwide. In Montaigne’s day, mummies from Egypt

were imported for use in medicines. Several “humane” usages of the human corpse for

the betterment of humankind is in the spirit of what Montaigne understood. Cannibalism

67 Ibid., 87. 68 Ibid.

Page 36: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

35

in some circumstances is not only justifiable, but is in a sense “humane.” Even so, such

a practice could never justify cruelty or the torture of another human being, especially

when still alive.

Yet no opinion has ever been so unruly as to justify treachery, disloyalty, tyranny and cruelty, which are everyday vices in us. So we can indeed call those folk barbarians by the rules of reason but not in comparison with ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarism.69

Montaigne contrasts the practices of warfare by the “cannibals” with those of

“civilized” nations. Bent with ironic twists, Montaigne argues that the warfare practices

of the “cannibals” were “entirely noble and magnanimous.” Impinged with hyperbole,

Montaigne argued that primitive warfare was an expression of “a zealous concern for

courage.” Unlike European conquerors and imperialists, the “barbarians” were not

“striving to conquer new lands, since without toil or travail they still enjoy bounteous

Nature who furnishes them abundantly with all they need.”70

Hence, warfare for “the barbarians” was not about conquering other lands, as

there was little concern to expand beyond one’s borders.71 Rather, warfare was for the

natural necessity of self-protection against invasion and injustice. To Montaigne,

“nature” endowed humans with all the necessities that a culture needed, so there was little

need or motive to conquer other lands for goods as was the practice of European nations.

Montaigne’s ”Of Cannibals” was therefore, in a sense, a critique of European

Imperialism and conquest. In a word, Montaigne thought that the political economy of

the new world was more sustainable than that of the Europeans.

69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid.

Page 37: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

36

Furthermore, in the barbarian society, there seemed to be more equity and respect

for one another than in many European societies. Still a patriarchal society, Montaigne

noticed that the primitives called each other brother, and each one younger was called a

son, while the elders were all called fathers. In a model commonwealth, the tribe

bequeathed “all their goods, indivisibly, to all their heirs in common, there being no other

entitlement” expected beyond what “Nature purely and simply endows [to] all her

creatures by bringing them into the world.”72 Like Rousseau, Montaigne believed that

Nature and natural law were superior in virtue to humanly contrived civilizations that

render nature a commodity.

Still, military conflict seemed somewhat inevitable, even for a utopia.

“Neighboring peoples” could still invade from the other side of the mountains and attack

and possibly defeat the local tribe. Even so, argued Montaigne, “the victor’s beauty” did

not consist of goods or the seizure of additional lands. Rather, what seemed to matter

was “mastery in virtue and in valor.” Montaigne thought that the tribal factions had “no

interest in the goods of the vanquished,” and because of their natural endowments, could

be “content with [one’s] own abundance.”73

Montaigne believed also that the cannibals were not ill-equipped for philosophical

speculation. Rather, even though the cannibals had not read Aristotle’s Physics, they

practiced what Aristotle taught, living not only in harmony with nature, but enjoying the

“happiness of a long, tranquil and peaceable life without the precepts of Aristotle and

without acquaintance with the name of physics.”74 While the Greeks and the French

philosophers speculated about the ideal world, the “cannibals” put those beliefs into

72 Ibid., 87-88. 73 Ibid., 88.

Page 38: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

37

practice. Utopia, for Montaigne, did not exist in the abstract, but existed in the historical

reality in the tribal cultures of Brazil.

For the cannibals, the useful was the natural, and only those actions were thought useful that preserved life or preserved honor.75

Montaigne believed that if a culture lived in harmony with Nature, there would be

abundant goods so that there would be no scarcity. This assumption is not unlike those

made in the modern world by environmentalists or other “green” utopians. Montaigne

believed that “the barbarians” knew how to live in contentment and satisfaction, knowing

that Nature supplied all that was needed for a bountiful existence. While we may

question the accuracy of Montaigne’s description of primitive tribes in the Americas,

there is little doubt about his prescription. Prisoners, even if on “death row,” were to be

treated with honor and respect as human beings. For Montaigne, the treatment of

prisoners was different than that which was found among European conquistadors.

Wholesale massacres of indigenous populations were already being reported by

Bartoleme De Las Casas. Yet, it seemed to the savages that reparations would not be

required of the tribal peoples upon the defeat of a rival tribe. Rather, it seemed enough

that the conquered ones simply admit defeat. Not so in civilized Europe.

The courage of the defeated was also noted. It seemed to Montaigne that “there

was not one prisoner” who desired to be spared. Demonstrating their courage, they

were ready rather to be killed, and were willing to be prepared to be eaten afterwards,

without fear or trepidation.76

74 Montaigne, “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” in Complete Works of Montaigne, 404. 75 Philip Paul Hallie, The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay on Personal Philosophy (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 18. 76 Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” in The Essays: A Selection, 88.

Page 39: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

38

One suspects that Montaigne is utilizing hyperbole to “shock” his readers.

Perhaps he was also using irony, sarcasm and even comedy to depict the cannibals in a

way that 1) demonstrated the common humanity of all people, including “the cannibals,”

and; 2) he was searching for a way to elicit self-criticism among those who deemed

themselves “civilized.” Despite questions of historical or scientific accuracy with regard

to the Brazilian tribal people, Montaigne was effective politically and culturally in

arguing for a greater degree of tolerance, and a more open society in France.

Montaigne’s apparent influence on Henri IV is testimony to his effectiveness.

Montaigne challenged the notion that self-worth was connected to anything

external like weapons technology or to an exaggerated opinion of one’s own civilization

or culture. “Bravery” was not the result of physical assets, nor was it, by implication, the

product of one’s technology. For Montaigne, “it is not a matter of what our horse or our

weapons are worth, but of what we are.” Montaigne admired those individuals who’s

“mind remains steadfast … slain but not vanquished.”77 Montaigne thought that “the

cannibals” could teach Europeans much about courage, loyalty and valor. He believed

that the valor of the cannibals was not unlike the courage shown by the Spartans at

Thermopylae. For Montaigne, defeat sometimes rivaled the impact of so-called victories.

He wrote: “true victory lies in your role in the conflict, not in coming through safely: it

consists in the honor of battling bravely not battling through.”78

Nor was Montaigne bothered by the problem of polygamy, for the cannibals had

many wives. He argued, perhaps for the fun of it, that the possession of many wives was

a testament to the husband’s reputation. “Being more concerned for their husband’s

77 Ibid., 89. 78 Ibid., 90.

Page 40: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

39

reputation than for anything else, they take care and trouble to have as many fellow-

wives as possible, since that is a testimony to their husband’s valor.”79 Montaigne

observed that, in the Bible, women sometimes allowed their handmaidens to be available

to their husbands, including Sarah, Leah, and Rachel. For moderns, this line of

argumentation is unconvincing, even patriarchal and sexist, yet there are other passages

where Montaigne argues for what amounts to women’s equality.

Montaigne describes in detail the visit of three natives to Rouen, France in 1562,

and their estimate of what they found. Montaigne reversed the order of judgment and

altered the process whereby cultural differences might be evaluated. In short, the

civilized world had much to learn from tribal cultures, so Montaigne presented a reversed

pedagogy noting what the civilized world could learn from primitive tribal peoples.

Montaigne could not help but notice the effect of such contact on the visitors:

Three such natives, unaware of what price peace and happiness they would have to pay to buy a knowledge of our corruptions, and unaware that such commerce would lead to their downfall… pitifully allowing themselves to be cheated by their desire for novelty, and leaving the gentleness of their regions to come and see ours were at Rouen at the same time as King Charles IX.80

Significantly, King Charles IX (1550-1574) was but a child of 12, and succeeded

his brother, a sickly child who died at the age of 16. Charles IX’s reputation was that he

was ruled by his mother and unfortunately heeded her advice to massacre French

Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572.81 Montaigne, writing later, no doubt had

this event clearly in mind. Montaigne reported that the three natives had a meeting with

the king, were introduced to French customs, and then given a tour of the city.

79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 91. 81 “Charles IX, King of France,” in Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary, edited by Melanie Parry (New York: Larousse, 1997), 376.

Page 41: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

40

Afterwards, Montaigne’s servant asked them what their opinion was of France,

and what it was in their visit to France that made the greatest impression. Montaigne

noted that they made three points, although Montaigne, irritated with himself, was only

able to remember two of the three. He wrote:

…[T]hey found it very odd that all those full-grown bearded men, strong and bearing arms in the king’s entourage, should consent to obey a boy rather than choosing one of themselves as Commander; secondly—since they have an idiom in their language which calls all men ‘halves’ of one another—that they had noticed that there were among us men full bloated with all sorts of comforts while their halves were begging at their doors, emaciated with poverty and hunger: they found it odd that those destitute halves should put up with such injustice and did not take the others by the throat or set fire to their houses.82

Clearly, Montaigne is using the situation to question the implicit inequality in French

society, one that allowed children to become kings because of the accident of noble birth

relations, and one that tolerated economic inequality among the classes. Montaigne

argued implicitly that the system of elder-rule and the practice of economic distribution

among tribal peoples was a more superior and just system.

With sarcastic wit, Montaigne stated that he had a conversation with one of the

three “savages” that visited France. Despite little help from a poor translator, his

employee, Montaigne noted that the “king” of the tribal culture played a similar role to

the king of France, and yet with greater efficiency, and much less hierarchy. Similar to a

European king, the tribal leader could mobilize 5,000 troops for battle, and after the war

was over, “he retained the privilege of having paths cut for him through the thickets to

their forests, so that he could easily walk through them when he visited villages under his

sway. Not at all bad, that,” Montaigne wrote. “Ah! But they wear not breeches….”83

82 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 91-92. 83 Ibid.

Page 42: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

41

Montaigne noted the general similarity of function, but without the pomp and ceremony

of customary divisions of class and privilege.

Montaigne was acutely aware of the economic disparity between rich and poor

that seemed to characterize his native France. As Montaigne describes it, there was clear

injustice in who carried the burden of taxation. The taxes that were paid by nobles, and

the taxes that were paid by the poor were not only different, but Montaigne noticed that

the poor were taxed beyond their means, whereby the rich got off easily. He used every

source of influence at his disposal to counter this injustice, both in his essays such as “Of

Cannibals,” and from his position as Mayor of the city of Bordeaux. In his August 31,

1583 letter to King Henry III, Montaigne raised the question of unjust taxation, and the

plight of the poor in the duchy of Guienne.84 Montaigne appealed to the King with

utmost respect, but also tactfully suggested an alternative operational motif based on a

sense of fairness.

He suggested that “all impositions must be made equally upon all persons, the

strong supporting the weak, and although it is most reasonable that those who have the

greater means should feel the burden more than those who live only precariously and by

the sweat of their body; yet it has happened, for some years back and especially this year,

that as regards to the taxes imposed” (by the King), this was not the case.85

Montaigne noted that “the richest and most opulent families of the said city have

been exempt from all these because of the privilege claimed by all the officers of justices

and their widows.” Further, he observed that the very people who possessed the means

84 Michel du Montaigne, “To King Henry III: Letter of Remonstrance From the Mayor and Jurats of Bordeaux, August 31, 1583,” The Complete Works of Montaigne, 1068 ff. 85 Ibid., 1088-9.

Page 43: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

42

to pay taxes were also the ones declared exempt, whereas the burden of taxation was born

by those least able to pay.

[A]ll he children of presidents and counselors of the Parlement have been declared noble and not subject to any tax; so that henceforth when it is appropriate to impose some sort of tax, it will have to be borne by the least and poorest group of inhabitants of the cities, which is quite impossible, unless suitable remedies are provided against this by Your Majesty, as the said mayor and jurats very humbly request you to do so.86 Montaigne’s essay, “On the Cannibals,” was thus primarily a critique of French

Society. He argued that the culture of the cannibals was superior and more sustainable

than European culture, despite the despised practice of eating one’s enemies after capture.

In France, there were many practices, especially during the time of war, that was even

more despicable, especially the rape and pillage of protestant villages by Catholic armies,

and vice versa. Montaigne was also aware that the culture of France was characterized

by a rigid class system. The rich and powerful not only had more means, but the system

they created them punished the poorer among them. Montaigne’ essay was a clear

assault on French privilege and social injustice. The presumed utopia of the new world

was a greater societal ideal.

86 Ibid., 1089.

Page 44: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

43

Conclusions Montaigne’s essays, especially “Of Cannibals,” were attempts to celebrate

cultural pluralism, and were often concerned with the problems of equity and social

justice. Justice in the legal system of the times was often a judgement against the poor,

and against the outsider. For Montaigne, justice was to be found more universally in

harmony with nature and with natural laws. Fundamentally, for Montaigne, the

assumption that human-made laws were universal and applicable to all people in all

circumstances was suspect. Laws, and the application of them in any society, seemed

arbitrary and were often a source of flagrant injustice.87

Montaigne’s humanism, and his celebration of cultural diversity and the pluralism

of custom was his attempt to find a more universal critical posture. In the final analysis,

Montaigne was at war with custom and thought it to be “a treacherous schoolmistress.”88

Montaigne wrote:

But the principal effect of the power of custom is to seize and ensnare us in such a way that it is hardly within our power to let ourselves back out of its grip and return into ourselves to reflect and reason about its ordinances. In truth, because we drink them with our milk from birth, and because the face of the world presents itself in this aspect to our first view, it seems that we are born on condition of following this course.89

Montaigne’s skepticism was the other side of the coin of his argument for the

acceptance of diversity and cultural pluralism. He was suspicious that the pretension of

superiority on the part of Europeans was but an excuse for domination and was a method

87 Frederick Rider, The Dialectic of Selfhood in Montaigne (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973) 14. 88 Ibid., 57. 89 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 83.

Page 45: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

44

used to justify inequality. Many Europeans labeled the cultural practices of others as

barbaric, savage, pagan, magical, and yes, even cannibalistic. Montaigne does not

wander too far from this perspective, except to say that Europeans in many ways were

also barbaric. Montaigne’s appreciation of diversity enabled him to accept the

particularity of customs over the portended transcendence and universalism of law. For

Montaigne, a pluralistic world would not allow him to universalize any particular culture.

All cultures and customs were legitimate in their own right, although he universally

eschewed the practice of cruelty in any culture.90

Montaigne wondered if the “pagan” cultures in Brazil were really any more pagan

or barbaric than those of other European groups such as the ancient Scythians, or even

Montaigne’s contemporary Portuguese. Montaigne of course lived in an era that was

associated with the Inquisition, and later with the conquest and extermination of pagans,

“witches,” and other barbarians or savages in both the old and new worlds. His mother’s

family was forced to escape the Inquisition in Spain for a more tolerant France. For

many in Montaigne’s world, the best way to deal with the other was to eliminate them.

How utterly contemporary.

It was Portugal that invaded Brazil, and Portuguese became the European

language of dominance. Yet, Montaigne crossed the line at points, presenting aspects of

an alternative point of view held by some intellectuals. This was the naïve, romantic

view of Brazilian peoples as noble, even enlightened savages, based as much on

invention and hearsay as scientific observation. What matters of course was first of all

Montaigne’s estimate of European society; and secondly his appreciation of the virtues of

indigenous cultures elsewhere.

90 Tetel, Montaigne, 44.

Page 46: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

45

Montaigne challenged the clear instances of barbarism in Europe, but also the

obvious social inequality and injustice that persisted in so-called “advanced” societies.

Inequality and injustice was often justified by local custom. Montaigne believed that the

legalization of any local custom and the consequences of repression was as barbarous as

any action of the aforementioned “cannibals.” He wrote: “what is more barbarous to see

that a nation where by lawful custom the charge of judging is sold, and judgments are

paid for in ready cash, and where justice is lawfully refused to whoever has not the

wherewithal to pay.”91

Montaigne provides us with an alternative perspective. He believed that all

human beings were capable of cruelty. He lived in an era that was characterized by

cruelty and hatred fed by the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics. Both

groups demonized the other, and both could slaughter the other mercilessly, even in

defiance of religious traditions held by each group. Montaigne’s critical realism was the

product of his understanding of the human condition, resulting from his own experience

in France. In this respect, Montaigne’ essay was clearly the product of his sense

experience. Yet, when it came to an evaluation of cultures beyond his own, his

articulation of the ideal of detached scientific observation based on direct sense

experience was more theoretical than actual. The ideal is there, but not quite the

practice.

Instead, what we find in Montaigne is predominantly a critique of European

culture and civilization. The presumption of superiority and the assumption that one’s

culture, any culture, was transcendentally normative, were challenged. Instead,

Montaigne’s conclusion is that all cultures are relative, and that all laws and polities are

Page 47: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

46

socially conditioned. Montaigne is perhaps the first serious writer to argue that reality is

socially constructed. 92

The “cannibals” in turn present not just an alternative to European society, but in

a sense represent the ideal way to live in harmony with nature. This belief, for

Montaigne, was the first complete presentation of the “noble savage” idea that became

identified later with the writings of Rousseau.

Whether or not the cannibals lived a utopia in reality is subject to question.

Montaigne’s use of his sources, and his lack of direct empirical observation prevents us

from accepting his critical realism as a valid scientific methodology. Yet, the notion and

the ideal of a critical realism is clearly present, at least in theory. For David Quint, there

was enough in the cultural milieu that allows one to accept much as true in Montaigne’s

portrayal of the cannibals. For one thing, argues Quint, there really is no scientific

objectivity that is possible anyway, and the intermingling of fact and interpretation is not

only probable, but inevitable, especially for a writer in 16th century France.

The ideal of an objective or transparent reporting of the practices of an alien culture—just the facts, please—is indeed utopian. There are no ‘facts’ without interpretation, since ‘facts’ are constituted by the language that describes them….93 In short, not everything was lost in the interpretation. Indeed, while there may be

much “invention” in Montaigne’s portrayal of the cannibals, in the end it doesn’t really

matter. Montaigne’s attention is really more directed at France. This may indeed be the

case that Montaigne’s story is a matter of “a humanist sitting in his study, not to the

91 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 85. 92 See for example, Eric Aaron Johnson, Knowledge and Society: A Social Epistemology of Montaigne’s Essais (Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1994): 47-69. 93 Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon,” 77-78.

Page 48: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

47

eyewitness testimony of his ethnographic sources.”94 Yet, the public rumor and the

discussion about the cannibals across the ocean was in the air. Indeed, we conclude that

his portrayal of the cannibals is at least as consistent with what was presented by many of

Montaigne’s contemporary travelers.

As Quint includes in ironic contrast: “perhaps only by confronting the New

World culture from the vantage point and preoccupations of his own could Montaigne put

the right words in the mouth of his valiant cannibal.”95 If one accepts this conclusion,

one would have to admit that in the final analysis Montaigne succeeded. His project of

self-analysis and rhetorical self-disclosure ultimately was the disclosure of the human

condition that most troubled him. In the final analysis, we are all cannibals. We are all

humans who have the potential to be both noble and savage, depending on the

environment that has nurtured us. In practice, Montaigne’s thoroughgoing skepticism

and his belief in the universal shortcomings of human nature and of any human culture

was based on his experience of living amid the decadence of an advanced European

society, which he then projected on his contemporary global society as a consequence. In

this respect, his essay on the cannibals suited his purposes perfectly.

94 Ibid., 101. 95 Ibid.

Page 49: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

48

Bibliography

Ancekewicz, Elaine M. Critical Connection: The Question of History and the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. New Orleans: University of the South Press, 2002. Anzai, Tesuo. Shakespeare and Montaigne Reconsidered. Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1986. Auerbach, Erich. “L’Humaine Condition.” In: Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Edited with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987): 11-39. Benson, Edward. Money and Magic in Montaigne: The Historicity of the Essais. Geneve: Droz, 1995.

Berven, Dikka, editor. Language and Meaning: Word Study in Montaigne’s Essais. Vol. 4. New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995.

_________. Montaigne: A Collection of Essays: A Five-Volume Anthology of

Scholarly Articles. Vol. 1. New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995. _________. Montaigne’s Rhetoric: Composing Myself to Others. Vol. 3. New

York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995. _________. Reading Montaigne. Vol. 5. . New York: Garland Publishing

Company, 1995. _________. Sources of Montaigne’s Thought. Vol. 2. New York: Garland

Publishing Company, 1995. Blanchard, Jean Marc. “Of Cannibalism and Autobiography.” MLN 93 (1978):

654-76. Bloom, Harold, Editor. Michel de Montaigne’s Essays: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Brown, Freida S. Religious and Political Conservatism in the Essais of Montaigne. Geneve: Droz, 1963. Cameron, Keith, editor. Montaigne and His Age. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1981.

Page 50: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

49

Certeau, Michel de. “Montaigne’s ‘of Cannibals’: The Savage ‘I’.” In: Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. (Edited with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987): 119-132. Coleman, Dorothy Gabe. Montaigne’s Essais. London: Allen and Unwin, 1987. Compayrac, Gabriel. Montaigne and the Education of the Judgment. Translated by J. E. Mansion. New York Crowell, 1998. Cottrell, Robert D. Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991. Desan, Phillippe, ed. Montaigne Studies: An Interdiscplinary Forum. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989. Duval, Edwin M. “Lessons of the New World: Design and Meaning in Montaigne’s Des Cannibales (I:31) and ‘Des Coches’ (III:6),” in: Montaigne: Essays in Reading, edited by Gerard Defaux, Yale French Studies 64 (1984): 95-112. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Montaigne: Or, the Skeptic.” In: Representative Men. (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1849): 147-86. Feis, Jacob. Shakespeare and Montaigne: An Endeavor to Explain the Tendency of Hamlet. New York: AMS Press, 1995. Frame, Donald M. Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters. 1980.

_________. Montaigne: A Biography. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965. _________. Montaigne’s Discovery of Man: The Humanization of a Humanist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

_________. Montaigne’s Essais: A Study. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969. Friederich, Hugo. Montaigne. Edited and with an Introduction by Phillippe Desan. Berkeley: University of California, 1991. Gauna, Max. The Dissident Montaigne. New York: P. Lang, 1994.

_________. Montaigne and the Ethics of Compassion. New York: Edward Mellen Press, 2000.

Page 51: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

50

Gournay, Marie Le Jars De. Preface to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne by his Adoptive Daughter. Translated by Richard Hillman and Collette Quesnel. Tempe: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998. Gray, Floyd. “The Unity of Montaigne in the Essais.” Modern Language Quarterly 22 (1961): 79-86. Hallie, Philip Paul. Montaigne a Philosophy as Self-Portrature. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1966. _________. The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay on Personal Philosophy. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1966. Hamlin, William M. The Image of America in Montaigne, Spencer and Shakespeare. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Heitsch, Dorothea B. Practising Reform in Motaigne’’s Essays. Brill’s Study in Intellectual History. London: E.J. Brill, 1999. Holyoake, John. Contextual and Thematic Interference in Montaigne’s Essais. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1986.

_________. Montaigne Essais. London: Grant and Cutler, LTD., 1983. Ives, George B., Editor and Translator. A Handbook to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. New York: The Heritage Press, 1946. Johnson, Eric Aaron. Knowledge and Society: A Social Epistemology of Montaigne’s Essais. Charlottesville: Rockwood Press, 1994. Jourdan, Serena. The Sparrow and the Flea: The Sense of Providence in Shakespeare and Montaigne. Salzburg: Universitat Salzburg, 1983. La Charite, Raymond. Ed. Essays on Montaigne in Honor of Donald M. Frame. Lexington: French Forum, 1977.

_________. From Marot to Montaigne: Essays on French Renaissance Literature. Lexington, Ky.: Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 1972. Laursen, John Christian. The Politics of Skepticism in the Ancients: Montaigne, Hume and Kant. New York: E.J. Brill, 1992. Leschemelle, Pierre. Montaigne, or the Anguished Soul. Translated by William Beck. New YorkP. Lang, 1974.

Page 52: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

51

_________. Montaigne: The Fool of the Farce. Translated by William Beck. New York: P. Lang, 1995. _________., editor. Montaigne Entire, and Entirely Naked: An Anthology of Essays. Translated by William J. Beck. New York: Vintage, 2001. Locher, Caroline. “Primary and Secondary Themes in Montaigne’s ‘Des Cannibales’ I, 31.” In: Montaigne: A Collection of Essays. Vol. 2. Edited by Dikka Berven. (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995): 155-162.

Lopate, Phillip. The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical to the Present. New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1994.

MacFarlane, I.D. and Ian Maclean, eds. Montaigne: Essays in Memory of

Richard Sayce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. McGowan, Margaret. “Montaigne: A Social Role for the Nobleman?” In:

Montaigne and His Age, edited by Keith Cameron (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1981): 87-96.

Marchi, Dudley M. Montaigne Among the Moderns: Receptions of the Essais.

Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1994. Martin, Daniel. Montaigne and the Gods: Mythological Key to the Essays. Amherst: Hestia, 1993.

_________., ed. The Order of Montaigne’s Essays: A Selection of Articles Presented at the International Montaigne Conference, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1989.

Mijolla, Elizabeth de. Autobiographical Quests: Augustine, Montaigne,

Rousseau and Wordsworth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1994. Montaigne, Michel de. The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne. Edited by Marvin Lowenthal. Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1935. _________. The Essays: A Selection. Translated and Edited with an Introduction by M.A.Screech. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. _________. The Essays of Montaigne. Translated by E. J. Trechman, with an introduction by the Rt. Hon. J.M. Robertson. London: Oxford University Press, 1935. _________. In Defense of Raymond Sebond. Translated with an introduction by Aurthur H. Beattie. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1959.

Page 53: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

52

O’Neil, John. Essaying Montaigne: A Study of the Renaissance Institution of Writing and Reading. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Owen, John. Skeptics of the French Renaissance. New York: MacMillan, 1893. Popkin, Richard H. “Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de.” Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol V. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Quint, David. Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy: Ethical and Political Themes in the Essais. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. _________. “The Culture that Cannot Pardon: ‘Des Cannibales’ in the Larger Essais.” Chapter three of Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy, by David Quint. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998): 75-101. Rendell, Steven. “Dialectical Structure and Tactics in Montaigne’s ‘Of Cannabals.’” In: Reading Montaigne. Vol. 5. Edited with introductions by Dikka Berven (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995): 32-40. Rider, Frederick. The Dialectic of Selfhood in Montaigne. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. Robertson, J.M. Montaigne and Shakespeare: And Other Essays on Comparative Questions. New York: Benjamin Franklin Press, 1969. Sayce, Richard Anthony and David Maskell. A Descriptive Bibliography of Montaigne’s Essais, 1580-1700. 1984. Sayce, Richard Anthony. The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972. Schaeffer, David. The Political Philosphy of Montaigne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. Shaeffer, David Lewis, ed. Freedom Over Servitude: Montaigne, LeBoetie on Voluntary Servitude. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Schiffman, Zachrey. “Montaigne and the Rise of Skepticism in Early Modern Europe.” Journal of the History of Ideas 3 (October-December, 1984): 499-516. Schneewind, J. B. Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Small, Andrew. Essays in Self-Portraiture: A Comparison of Technique in the Self-Portraits of Montaigne and Rembrandt. New York: P. Lang, 1896.

Page 54: “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,docshare01.docshare.tips/files/17485/174850745.pdf · “Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel de Montaigne’s Essay,

53

Smith, Malcolm C. Montaigne and Religious Freedom: The Dawn of Pluralism. Geneve: Droz, 1991. Starobinski, Jean. Montaigne in Motion. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Taylor, George Coffin. Shakespeare’s Debt to Montaigne. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1974. Tetel, Marcel. Montaigne: Updated Edition. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990. Tilly, Arthur Augustus. From Montaigne to Moliere: The Preparation for a Classical Age of French Literature. New York: Russell and Russell, 1970. _________. Studies in The French Renaissance. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1922. Watson, R. A. Language and Human Action: Conceptions of Language in the Essais of Montaigne. New York: P. Lang, 1997. Young, Charles Lowell. Emerson’s Montaigne. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1976.