An examination of virtue and normativity in Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals.”
Introduction and Purpose
What I intend to pursue is an examination of the normative aspects of Montaigne’s description of the inhabitants of the New World in “Of Cannibals.”
An analysis of this account will be contextualized within a larger project [1], the aim of which, I argue, is to critique contemporary European civil society, values, and culture, by means of these philosophical and anthropological conceptions of natural man.
Montaigne’s critical stance is elucidated by his attempts to demonstrate the infeasibility of cross-cultural comparison, specifically that regarding the inhabitants of the New World and Western Europeans, a stance I will hereafter refer to critical realism [2] of culture.
This analysis of Montaigne’s normative descriptions will be centered around the following two questions:
i) What is the nature of a human being in a state of nature, and in civil society (is there a difference)?
ii) Is the human being [3] in a state of nature (as opposed to being situated in the context of a society or civil state) normatively better off [4] (with respect to questions of the state of his freedom, affective quality of his passions and desires, and cultural expression) than in a state of civility?
Of Cannibals and Customs
“[E]ach man calls barbarism… whatever is not his own practice” (152).[5]
Such is the pithy epitome of Montaigne’s views on the feasibility of cultural comparison as made apparent in his Of Cannibals. His stance is that which I will refer to as “critical realism”, as it takes a middle ground in contemporary European views on the nature and relative status of the inhabitants of the New World (Stockwell 4).
These views can be generalized into two opposing camps:
The first (i), that the native inhabitants occupy a cultural, societal, and even sometimes anthropological position which is inferior to that of their European contemporaries, leading to their being characterized as savage or barbarous (i.e., non-European).
Thesecond view (ii)holds that the native inhabitants occupy a position which is superior by comparison, in that this mode of being is the original normative ideal of human community, exemplifying an idyllic state of being which is more natural than that of their European contemporaries (i.e., “civilized” society).
Critique and Cultural Anastrophe
Montaigne’s critique of contemporary European society, aside from being obliquely supported by positive claims in line with the second view to be later discussed, utilises aspects of the first view in order to bolster claims made by proponents of the second.
This critical technique I will refer to as cultural anastrophe [6], and takes the following form:
(i) Superiority Claim (SC): Montaigne’s restatement of a commonly espoused European claim about the savagery of the native inhabitant, generally expressed in the form, “The inhabitants of the New World are savage on account of… [X, Y, or Z] native practice.”
(iia) Superiority Counter-Claim (SCC): Montaigne’s indication of a contemporary European practice which, utilizing the logic internal to the first claim, is similar or worse by comparison, generally expressed in the form, “[Superiority Claim], but [X, Y, or Z] European practice is… more savage by comparison, worse, or indicative of the same, on account of…”
(iib) Inferiority Claim (IC): The conclusion to be drawn, implicit to Superiority Counter-Claim, that the logic internal to Superiority Claimentails European barbarity, and thus a position of cultural and societal inferiority or equality. [7]
It is through this cultural anastrophe that Montaigne challenges the prejudicial claims of native barbarity founded in European ethnocentrism. By demonstrating that Europeans (Montaigne namely cites the Portuguese as an example) are perpetrators of the very same practices which supply the basis for claims of barbarism and cultural inferiority against the native peoples, Montaigne effectively dismantles the supposed inferior-superior divide predicated upon these claims.
These prejudicial claims differ with respect to individual content (of those that are explicit), but cohere thematically: all are founded on perceived differences in culture and value.
Of those things practiced by the natives which are (or would be) deemed barbarous or savage, the eponymous practice is that of cannibalism (155). Montaigne contrasts the ritualized cannibalism of the natives, practiced on enemy prisoners-of-war, with the method of torture utilized by the Portuguese (against these natives, which the natives themselves thereafter adopted).
The Portuguese practice of burying a man up to the waist, shooting him with arrows, and afterwards hanging him, it is claimed, surpasses the cruelty of the native cannibalism by far (155). While the ritualized cannibalism possesses a purpose which accords with the natives’ system of values (that it is an exhibition of extreme revenge in accordance with their warlike virtue), the method of torture employed by the Portuguese has, as its primary purpose, the suffering of the individual being tortured (155).
In suit Montaigne quotes a number of other European practices which are by comparison, it is claimed, much more savage than those practiced by the ostensible savages: stretching on the rack, being burned at the stake, and being fed to wild animals (155).
With respect to cannibalism itself, Montaigne notably mentions its permissibility in the eyes of two preeminent and defining Stoic philosophers, Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus, as well as the forced, desperate cannibalism of the inhabitants of Alesia in Gaul, the rationale behind which serves a normalizing effect (155).
Montaigne raises these examples in order to demonstrate, if not a similarity in culture, at least incidents of similarity in practice, wherein the practice of the natives deemed generally barbarous is that which has been, at one point in history, condoned or perpetrated by Europeans.
Of Savagery and Civility
Montaigne’s normative descriptions accord with his overall critical project, and, while they must be understood in this context, also stand independently of it. These normative claims are separable from the pointed critique which permeates and defines the essay, and in a regard provide the very basis for this critique.
The sentiments evoked by Montaigne’s use of cultural anastrophe in reply to claims of native savagery and European cultural and societal superiority are echoed in his descriptions of the culture and society of the native population.
Whereas his critique of European society, culture, and value is explicit in these instances, as attempting to rebuke attempts at cultural comparison and the invention of a superior-inferior value dichotomy between natives and Europeans, much of the substance of his critique goes unexpressed, it being implicit in these descriptions.
That these descriptions contain within them an implicit critique is elucidated when the inconspicuous comparisons between the natives and Europeans are evoked, these comparisons taking the form of normative claims (or at the very least utilizing terms which denote difference in value).
Of these claims the general sentiment finds its expression in the following quote:
“These nations… have been fashioned very little by the human mind, and are still very close to their original naturalness. The laws of nature still rule them, very little corrupted by ours.. [W]hat we actually see in these nations surpasses not only all the pictures in which poets idealized the golden age and all their inventions in imagining a happy state of man, but also the conceptions and the very desire of philosophy [8]” (153).
Montaigne thus seems to advance a position, not simply of critical realism, but of a humanism which subverts the notion of civilization (and the value inherent to civilization) in favor of what is claimed to be the natural state of man (Stockwell 1, 42–43).
The dichotomy upon which he founds these normative claims is made clear through the following analogy: “Those people[the natives]are wild, just as we call wild the fruits that Nature has produced by herself and in her normal course; whereas really it is those that we have changed artificially and led astray from the common order, that we should rather call wild” (152).
Montaigne’s distinction creates a stark division of value between that which arises through the mechanisms and intentions of “Nature“, and that which arises through processes which are artificial, even contrary to, Nature (152). Though what exactly he conceives of Nature as being requires explanation, the distinction is such as to create a dichotomy between the natural and nonnatural (152).[9]
The nonnatural state [10] of such artificial fruits Montaigne describes as debased, and such fruits as being manipulated for the purpose of gratifying a corrupted palate; in this process they are led far from their once “genuine… and natural” qualities (152).
By the extension of this analogy to the native population, it is clear that Montaigne conceives of their natural way of being, of their natural society and culture, as the normative state of the human being (152). That this distinction in value is founded on the nonnatural-natural divide has been established, but where it is substantiated as a series of normative claims in opposition to contemporary European society and culture is found in Montaigne’s descriptions of the culture and society of the native population. Points of conspicuous difference between the two sets of cultural and societal values as emphasized by Montaigne are the native conceptions of virtue and happiness [11].
Of Virtue and Vice
The virtues of the native population, as portrayed by Montaigne, are simple [12] in that they directly correlate to social needs (e.g., protection, community) and societal pressures (gender roles, social responsibilities). Social roles and responsibilities are segregated along gendered lines: the young men hunt and conduct warfare, the old serve as jussive elders or paragons of virtue, and the women occupy a caretaking role (154).
The virtue of the individual consists in their adherence to, and fulfillment of, these social roles (154). Men are exhorted to be valorous in war, to love their wives, and women in turn to be subservient and diligent to the needs of their husband (154, 158). Though the conception of virtue as befitting a male in the native society is grounded in warfare (i.e., that the value of a man is directly correlate with his prowess in battle, courage, fearlessness), Montaigne describes their warfare in sport-like, almost playful terms.
It is not predicated upon conquest or the desire for more land, but only that the victorious party might become the superior of the vanquished, both in valor and virtue (156). Prisoners of war, though taken captive by the victorious, demonstrate a courage and magnanimity of character in accordance with this warlike ideal, in keeping with the conviction that to show fear at the promise of death or torture is to betray one’s virtue (156–157).
The natives uphold a kind of polygamy, where each man has several wives, yet there is concord among them (which Montaigne contrasts with the jealousy inspired by European monogamy); each woman even goes so far as to scheme on her husband’s behalf, as to increase his number of wives is to increase his valor (158). This kind of polygamous union Montaigne praises as a kind of matrimonial virtue, comparable to relationships of the Old Testament or Greek and Roman antiquity (158).
It is not, I think, that Montaigne intends to laud the virtues of the natives as inherently desirable (e.g., that valour, prowess in warfare, and polygamy are characteristic of virtue itself), but that he lauds the simplicity and immediacy of the native conception of virtue. Virtue is predicated on social values which are in accordance with natural desires (e.g., sociality, individual well-being, communal welfare) and relationships (e.g., the relationship between men and women, old and young), and is easily fulfilled (the relationship between value and practice is direct and immediate). Virtue is also intimately connected with the native conception of happiness, which, owing to the natural state of the native society, is equally as readily obtained.
On the Blessedness of Man’s Natural State
That Montaigne is at liberty to describe the native society as happy, blessed, or ideal, is due to its condition, both of civilization (i.e., technological advancement, state of arts and sciences) and state of nature (that the natives exist in a primitive state of the human being where the passions are weak, and desires simple and in accordance with nature).
The state of civilization of the native population is culturally and scientifically primitive: there is no knowledge of letters (literature), nor science (153). There is no political superiority, no disparity in wealth (a division between wealth and poverty), a common kinship, and no occupations (accordingly there is no industry) aside from those dedicated to leisure (153).
The natives have no agriculture, nor metallurgy (153).13 That the natives are technologically and culturally simplistic is in accordance with their disposition (their human nature). They are devoid of the serious passions[14] and desires which foster social competition, deception, and discord (153). Their desires are limited to that which is required by nature (e.g., that which is required by life), and in so being are fulfilled easily (156). Anything beyond these needs dictated by nature is superfluous and beyond their desire (156).
Arguments from Evidence: A Meeting of East and West
That these descriptions possess a normative and critical quality is evident in Montaigne’s closing recollection of the journey of three native men to Rouen, and their views on European society (158). He laments their ignorance regarding the impending loss of their once-possessed happiness and repose, in that their ignorance of European customs and desires is itself a kind of blessing (158). Their having traveled to Europe (France) in fulfillment of their desire for novelty has set the course for their ruin, in that this exchange will have corrupted them, tainting or spoiling their former serenity through contact with an alien and corrosive way of life (158–159).
Upon being asked for those things which they found astonishing, the first was the unchallenged power of king Charles IX (159). Though any of his guard could overpower and subdue him, nonetheless he ruled. That this was strange to the native men consisted in their conception of masculine (warlike) virtue, that the most able-bodied and skilled warrior should rule (159). The second, at the great (unnatural) disparity between social classes, the great deal of suffering caused by this gross disparity, and how little of a cause for outrage this was among the lower classes (159). That this seemed an intolerable injustice to them is evident from the nature of their community, that therein is a common kinship and a unanimity, as halves of the same whole (though obviously the Europeans did not realize this).
These men, Montaigne might claim, were they to have remained in Rouen, would have exchanged the blessed condition of their natural state in the New World in pursuit of a modern life. One much more appealing ostensibly, yet in actuality much less valuable – even if it does come with breeches.
Footnotes
[1]This project becomes apparent when Of Cannibals is taken alongside other of Montaigne’s essays, as well as the work of his contemporaries and other adherents of philosophical primitivism (e.g., Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality).
[2] This term and my understanding of it is borrowed from Clinton E. Stockwell’s 2002 MLA Thesis which will be referenced and cited further on.
[3] Meaning to say, the “nature” of the human being in a state of nature. It seems to be the case that Montaigne thinks of there as occurring some accidental shift in human nature, though not an essential one.
[4] Meaning to say, is one state of being for the human subject preferable to the other?
[5] All in-text citations, unless designated otherwise (e.g., I cite Stockwell later on), are from Montaigne’s Of Cannibals.
[6] My own coinage, after the poetic/literary technique.
[7] This claim is suppressed, in that it is entailed by (SCC) but more often than not goes unexpressed. That Montaigne would conceive of the contrast between Europeans and natives in terms of superiority and inferiority is doubtful (I certainly don’t think that he conceives of it as such, rather that he dismisses the idea of cultural comparison all-together), but given that such terminology is utilized and set by the larger, ecollective discourse, I will employ these terms.
[8] Though I do not pursue it in the course of this paper, I think that Montaigne has a Stoic or Cynic conception of “the very desire of philosophy”, a life in accordance with nature(kata physin, secundum naturam), as conceived in these philosophical traditions.
[9] I would think that he also has in mind the Stoic conception of nature (physis, natura).
[11] Though the analogy and Montaigne’s comments are ostensibly about fruits or produce (this much is made explicit, except where the natives are specifically mentioned), I think I am justified in claiming that his utilization of the adjectives “useful and natural” in describing their “virtues and properties” applies likewise to the natives (152).
[10] Montaigne only makes reference to virtue, but I use the term “happiness” to denote notions of purpose, well-being, and social desideranda.
[11] By “simple” I mean teleologically simple. The needs and desires of individuals are easily fulfilled.
[12] It appears by Montaigne’s references to Plato and Lycurgus that he thinks this no great absence.
[13] Passions understood as affective states of consciousness (e.g., jealousy).