Michel de Montagne 1533 1592 Of Barbarians What

Michel de Montagne 1533 -1592

Of Barbarians �What is a barbarian? �Judge by reason, not by popular say. �Discovery of the “noble savage” of the new world. �Is Antarctic France actually the long lost Atlantis? �How simple people see the world differently from clever people. �Clever people interpret, bend, disguise things, add their own matter.

Of Barbarians �Because they know one thing, clever people pretend that they know many things. “From this vice spring many great abuses. ” Recall Socrates searching for someone wiser than himself. �Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice. �Wild vs. Civilized �Those people are wild like the wild fruits of nature, which are natural. Civilized man is artificial, thus not natural.

Of Barbarians �Art can only imitate nature: “No art with artless bird song can compare. ” Properitus. �No civilized man compare to natural man. �Natural man is closest to the original naturalness. �They are governed by the laws of nature, uncorrupted by civilized man. �Natural man has no words for lying, treachery, envy, etc. �They live in perfect climate, “one with nature”. �Their diet is perfect.

Of Barbarians �Men and women get along perfectly well. �Perfect religion. Preacher recommend only two things: valor against the enemy and love for their wives. �Souls are immortal. There is heaven and hell. �Abuse of divination by falls prophets gets them punished. �Warfare and the treatment of prisoners. �Importance of revenge. Learned how to be more cruel from the Portuguese.

Of Barbarians �We notice the barbarous horror of others, but are blind to our own horror. �They roast and eat a man. We torture him on the rack, send dogs to attach him, burn him on a stake “on the pretext of piety and religion”. �We surpass those men in every kind of barbarity. �Their only basis for war is their rivalry in valor. They don’t fight for the conquest of new lands. They desire only as much as they need.

Of Barbarians �“The worth and value of a man is in his heart and in his will; there lies his real honor. ” �“Valor is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul. ” �There are triumphant defeats that rival victories. �Thermopylae. �The honor of valor consists in combating, not in beating.

Of Barbarians �Response of their prisoners knowing they will be eaten. My muscles are the substance of your ancestors. �They never stop defying their enemies by word and look. �Men there have many wives. Wives concerned with their husband’s honor. No jealousy. �Three of their men come to France, ignorant of the fact that it will be their ruin. �Asked what they find strange in France.

Of Barbarians �Why big, strong soldiers submit to a child (the king)? �Why are there beggars, why is there injustice, and why don’t they rise against the rich?

Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions �“Nothing is harder for me than to believe in men’s inconsistency, nothing easier than to believe in their inconsistency. ” �“Bad is the plan that never can be changed”. �Man does not set a constant course in his life. �Man does not always will the same thing, nor always oppose the same thing. �We follow the inclination of our appetite. �We think of what we want only at the moment we want it.

Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions �We often change what we have planned. �We wish nothing absolutely, nothing constantly. �Story of the girl who tries to commit suicide. �Story of Sultan Mohammad and Hassan. �Adventurous today, cowardly tomorrow. �Two powers drive us, one toward good, the other toward evil. �“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. ”

Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions �I am a contradiction: bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever, stupid; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant. �I see all this in myself depending on how I feel. �There is nothing absolutely true about myself. �Try to write all this on a dating site and see how much luck you’ll have in finding someone!

Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions �One good deed does not make a hero. �“We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. And there is much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others. ” �“In view of this, a sound intellect will refuse to judge men simply by their outward actions; we must probe the inside and discover what springs set men in motion. But since this is an arduous and hazardous undertaking, I wish fewer people would meddle with it.