John Vespasian

The hidden message in Michel de Montaigne’s literary legacy

Learning to fish is more valuable than getting a free meal, because the former can feed us for a lifetime. Methods are far more valuable than objects, because objects are finite. Methods are not limited in time. We can simply employ them to arrive at our goals once and again. The essays by Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) include an important hidden message: Keep your eyes open and stay alert. Don’t accept things without questioning, especially if they look too good to be true. Look beyond the obvious, especially when people tell you that there are no alternatives. Montaigne’s hidden message is about self-reliance, alertness and method. His essays illustrate his thought patterns and help readers acquire the habit of looking at the whole picture. I find it particularly impressive when Montaigne applied his method to seemingly innocuous subjects. Take for instance Montaigne’s essay “On Names” where he starts with the anodyne remark that some heirs fail to honour their family name. Their ancestors had become famous thanks to their heroic or courageous actions, but the heirs do not care. Would it not make more sense, asked Montaigne, to name individuals after their own deeds. Montaigne points to a Central African tribe called Yoruba, where children are named after something that they have done themselves or after the circumstances surrounding their birth. For instance, the Yoruba could name a child “the one that came first” (the primogenitor), indicating that he was the first child to be born to those parents. Montaigne’s disquisition starts quietly, but then his method kicks in and widens his field of vision. Why should we judge a person at all by the name he carries? Should we not rather rate each person according to his own merits? Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/the-hidden-message-in-michel-de-montaignes-literary-legacy/

Tradition versus change in Michel de Montaigne

I view Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) as one of the most realistic philosophers in history. He was remarkably talented at analysing problems, reviewing possible solutions, discarding the unworkable, and selecting the most promising amongst the rest. Let me underline the step “discarding the unworkable.” It is something that most philosophers forget to do. They will fall in love with their favourite plan and keep defending it long after it has become obvious that it cannot possibly work. Plato (427-347 BC) did so in his work “Republic,” where he put forward that totalitarianism under the rule of philosopher-kings is the best political regime. History has proven Plato wrong a thousand times. His ideas about politics are atrocious. In fact, he could have avoided his errors if he had analysed the history before his time. By then, it was already clear that totalitarianism always ends in bloodshed and misery. Montaigne did not get everything right, but at least, he kept dire mistakes at bay. Compared to Plato, Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas, he was far ahead of the game. Why? Because he had a much wider experience of life. Montaigne was particularly adverse to proposing abrasive, harsh social changes even when they seemed advantageous. His extensive experience of the world had made him distrust things that look too good to be true. The deep study of the biographies written by Plutarch (46-120 AD) had made Montaigne suspicious of drastic changes. I agree with him that very rarely does history deliver successful examples of radical changes. More often than not, those lead to unintended consequences that prove worse than the problem. Montaigne had learned the lesson the hard way in his own life. Let me recall a few instances that made him distrust harsh changes, harsh decisions, and harsh actions in general. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaignes-biography-tradition-versus-change/

Michel de Montaigne and the art of living

When I analyse the biography of great individuals, I always focus on one question: What did they do to become great? My objective is to figure out exactly what they did differently than everybody else. The difference is what counts. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) made it particularly clear that he wanted to differentiate himself from his peers. His vast literary achievements are not the result of luck. His philosophy is not the outcome of random circumstances, but of persistence and determination. I view Montaigne as a master in the art of living because of his unusually high productivity. Even with a busy professional life as a lawyer in Bordeaux, he read extensively and raised a family. Montaigne even found the time to travel abroad (Germany, Italy) for a year, and later occupied public office for four years. All those activities did not prevent him from becoming highly productive as an author. I’m going to summarise Montaigne’s art of living, especially the lessons that we can put into practice here and now. Montaigne limited the number of activities or tasks that he undertook. During his studies at the College de Guyenne, he did not spread himself too thin. Most of his study subjects revolved around Latin language, Latin authors, the basics of ancient Greek, history, philosophy, and arithmetic. Montaigne graduated at thirteen and enrolled in Law school, where he completed his legal studies in three years. He started working at sixteen as a legal apprentice, and five years later, he had qualified to practise as a lawyer. If Montaigne had consumed large amounts of entertainment or practised sports daily, he would have delayed his career by a long stretch. If we want to achieve important goals, the first we need to do is to focus, just as Montaigne had done. Over time, Montaigne grew extraordinarily self-reliant. I must underline that his self-confident mentality was as unusual in the sixteenth century as it is today. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaigne-and-the-art-of-living/

Michel de Montaigne’s art of living quietly

In our century, the protection of privacy has acquired crucial importance. I cannot even count the number of celebrities that have seen their life disrupted because a journalist has intruded in their privacy. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was aware of the dangers associated with popularity. He also knew the financial advantages that one can draw from it, but after careful reflection, he opted for a quiet lifestyle in the countryside. I find Montaigne’s choice remarkable because it entailed a series of drastic changes; he had lived for decades in a sizeable city, pursued a demanding career, and interacted with hundreds of people; why did he choose to leave behind his professional ambitions? There is a key philosophical lesson in Montaigne’s decision to embrace a quiet lifestyle, a lesson that has become very hard to learn in our century of social media around the clock. Even for Montaigne, it took a while to analyse his own thoughts and record his arguments in writing. Montaigne conveyed his reflections in his essay titled “Not to Communicate a Man’s Honour.” Actually, the essay has little to do with honour and very much to do with lifestyle choices. I would have given it a different title, for instance, “Why we should remain discreet about our own achievements” or “Why it is wise not to blow our own trumpet.” Montaigne employs the term “honour” as a synonym for our professional and ethical reputation. In sixteenth-century France and in the rest of Europe, an impeccable reputation was crucial particularly in commerce and banking. The question raised by Montaigne is whether we should do our best to enhance our reputation. How much effort should we devote to responding to attacks against our honour? Should we seize every opportunity to increase our popularity? Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaignes-art-of-living-quietly/

Michel de Montaigne’s key lesson on the art of living

The biographies of great individuals teach us many lessons, but I am always seeking the common thread between them. In the case of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), it requires some work to figure out the key lesson. Montaigne’s essay titled “On the inequality amongst us” is conveying the key lesson from his life, namely, that we should accept without complaints the fact that each person is different, and that all attempts to homogenise people are doomed to fail. Individuals are unequal in intelligence, agility, beauty, skills and personal interests, just to mention a few aspects. Luckily, Montaigne accepted inequality as a fact early in life and spared himself lots of trouble. In sixteenth-century France, the monarch deployed massive efforts to homogenise the ideas in the country, but his attempts proved a dismal failure. In fact, he achieved exactly the contrary. Instead of having all citizens share the same ideals, he destroyed social harmony. Instead of having everybody accept the same beliefs, he only generated discrimination, hatred and war. Montaigne did not praise enough the wisdom of adopting a realistic stance. Not only is it a fact that individuals are all unequal, but that life rarely delivers perfect justice or fairness. We all know of people who, in their profession or business, have profited from personal connections. It is certainly unfair, but I wouldn’t waste a minute worrying about those situations. Montaigne commends self-made individuals like Spartacus (1st century BC) that rise to positions of leadership, and has no good words for incompetent aristocrats like the Ancient Roman senator and consul Claudius Pulcher. While Spartacus led a revolt that defeated Roman armies on two occasions, Claudius Pulcher ordered a foolish attack which exposed the flanks of his ships. As a result, he lost seventy-five per cent of the Roman military fleet. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaignes-key-lesson-on-the-art-of-living/