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Catholicism, Cicero, deism, Epicureanism, Essays, Fideism, How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne, Judaism, Julian Barnes, Life, Michel de Montaigne, Montaigne, Philosophy, Plato, Platonists, Renaissance, Sarah Bakewell, Socrates, stoicism, The Complete Essays of Montaigne
“When I dance, I dance. When I sleep, I sleep; and when I am strolling alone through a beautiful orchard, although part of the time my thoughts are occupied by other things, for part of the time too I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the delight in being alone there, and to me…
To enjoy life requires some husbandry. I enjoy it twice as much as others, since the measure of our joy depends on the greater or lesser degree of our attachment to it. Above all now, when I see my span so short, I want to give it more ballast; I want to arrest the swiftness of its passing by the swiftness of my capture, compensating for the speed with which it drains away by the intensity of my enjoyment. The shorter my lease of it, the deeper and fuller I must make it.”
__________
A section excerpted from “On Experience” by Michel de Montaigne, featured in his Complete Essays.
More and more recently, I see thinkers I admire cite Montaigne as one of those unassailable luminaries – like Augustine, Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, or Dr. Johnson – whose voice is wise enough, and work compendious enough, to cut through our frenetic cultural discourse with the weight of a primary source.
Julian Barnes calls Montaigne our philosophical link to the Ancient World. He was also the man who said “Philosopher, c’est apprendre à mourir,” or “To be a philosopher is to learn how to die” – a vital reflection that is also perhaps the most misunderstood sentence in philosophy (until Marx started to talk about religion as an opiate…).
The reflection is especially essential to the excerpt above, sourced from perhaps the most seminal of Montaigne’s many celebrated essays. Montaigne had imbibed the Platonists, and thus in linking the practice of philosophy to eventual peace with mortality, was not claiming that we can learn to feel comfortable with the fact of death if we simply muse enough on the subject. Rather, as a Catholic of Jewish origins who flirted with Deism, Montaigne was merely reframing a claim made by Socrates and later Cicero: namely, that in death you are finally unfettered from your corporeal chains, so you better get your mind – or, if you prefer, your soul – in shape because that’s all you’ll have when your star finally sets. Montaigne’s quasi-Deism (which consistently reads like Fideism to me) factors into this equation in an essential way. While a convinced Catholic may take his next existence for granted, brooders like Montaigne often struggle with a concept so uniquely divorced from empirical confirmation. Cicero was one of these thinkers; as an Epicurean he doubted a life-to-come, but as a devotee of Socrates, he thought that perhaps he would outlast his mortal coil. So a convenient compromise arose in his mind. We are heading towards either transcendence or nothingness, he thought, so why fret? Neither option is bad. And you can’t decide the course anyway.
In my reading, Montaigne replaces this rigid Stoicism with a penchant for falling into spectacular daydreams about issues of life and death. Perhaps his most stunning feature is how anti-melancholic he remains despite the weight of his preoccupations, as Ciceronian coolness gives way to warm reveries about the things we humans care about but cannot know for certain. This is not to say that Montaigne had some palpably intense joie de vivre (he didn’t), rather that as a Christian humanist he felt the force of life in a powerful way – a force catalyzed by contemplation, reflection, and an ability to perceive variances of light, even in the shades and shadows of existence. He is a thinker who is continually elated by the sunlight that silhouettes clouds.
I just finished Sarah Bakewell’s fantastic biography How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. I cannot recommend the book enough, especially to those who are, like me, interested in both the work and the life, as well as that looming question of how we should live.
Below: Montaigne’s chateau in Bordeaux. His study was in one of the towers.
mimijk said:
I just ordered this book last week – cannot wait to read it. Loved this post – it was quite timely for me..thank you.
jrbenjamin said:
Glad to hear it. I think you’ll really enjoy the book — there’s something worthwhile on every page, and it’s very readable and creatively organized.
tedrey said:
Socrates said (yes, I paraphrase) either death is the deepest sleep you’ll ever know, or an endless good time with the best company you can imagine.
Confucius said (and again I misquote) “Why worry about death until you’ve first got straight about life?”
And Montaigne says “Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”
I frequently chat with all three and am always the better for it.
jrbenjamin said:
Not bad conversationalists, I have to say. I like all of the above quotes, though Socrates belief — from what I understand — was that those who consciously shake off the ideological shackles of the mind will lead a purely disembodied existence after death. Those who don’t accomplish that daunting feat have an innumerable number of future terrestrial go-arounds to get it right.
Also worth mulling over — Julian Barnes, at the end of chapter 51 of ‘Nothing to Be Frightened Of’:
“Maybe all this Montaignery, this pit-gazing, this attempt to make death, if not your friend, at least your familiar enemy—to make death boring, even to bore death itself with your attention—maybe this is not the right approach after all. Perhaps we would do better to ignore death while we live, and then go into strict denial as life approaches its end; this might help us, in Eugene O’Kelly’s grotesque phrase, to ”succeed’ at death.’ Though of course by ‘do better,’ I mean “help our lives pass more easily’ rather than ‘discover as much truth about this world before we leave it.’ Which is the more useful to us? Pit-gazers may well end up feeling like Anita Brookner heroines—those dutiful, melancholy truth-adherents perpetually losing out to jaunty vulgarians who not only extract more brash pleasure from life but rarely end up paying for their self-delusions”
tedrey said:
Of course one must spend some time thinking seriously about death, planning for it, finding one’s own way to live with its approach. But on the other hand, death will take up only a fraction of a percent of one’s life, and then be over. I think it more important to deal well with the huge extension of life that is meaningful living, than hover constantly over the brief inevitable end. Just because it’s the last moment, doesn’t mean it’s the most important. I’d rather bring life to my death, than let my death poison my life.
The death of others, however, is a far different and more intractable matter.
jrbenjamin said:
Here I think you’re conflating death with dying. The former is what is existentially petrifying, for some people, because of its eternity and implacability. There is just no bargaining with it; death is on-call 3 consecutive 8-hour shifts, 7 days a week. On the other, dying, which I don’t think any brave human being should be too mortified by, is a moment within life. It’s actually part of the process of living; namely, the last moment.
I’ve written a little bit about this. More importantly, there’s a great debate on this subject with Christopher Hitchens, Rabbi David Wolpe and others. Very worth listening to when you have some time — not only deep, but amusing:
https://jrbenjamin.com/2012/12/15/the-undiscovered-country/
jrbenjamin said:
And I agree about the deaths of other people. That’s where it really, really stings.
tedrey said:
I’ve already watched it, thanks to you.
One last thought, which I wrote last fall, and then I’ll sign off for now.
Ted at 8, agonizing all night about death: I can’t stand the thought of dying. It’s just too awful.
Ted at 74: It’s not so bad. You’ll get used to it.
Ted-8: Never! To stop living, not to be any more. I’ll never accept that!
Ted-74: Your body might have something to say about that. I can sense the time when my body will tell me “It’s that time, Ted; are you ready to go?”
Ted-8: I’ll never be ready. I want to keep doing things, thinking, loving, living–
Ted-74: As long as God? Think you could handle that? But if you play it right, you’ll pass the best of your memories and thoughts on to others you will love, others who will be as conscious and feeling and creative and eager to live as you are.
Ted-8: But they won’t be ME.
Ted-74: Actually, they will be every bit as ME as you are. I see you don’t get that. But you will.
Ted-8: I’ll never give up like you have. You’re betraying life!
Ted-74: I’m haven’t given up . . . Look, I’ll tell you what; in 65 years we’ll discuss this again, and see if either of us has changed his mind. But now, let’s sneak down to the kitchen and swipe some ice cream from the frig. Take care Mum/Mama doesn’t hear us.
Ted-8: It’s a deal.
deborahbrasket said:
Love this post, the quotations and your reflections. It seems I’m not as acquainted with Montaigne as I should be. I’ll need to catch up. Do you have a favorite work of his I should check out first?
jrbenjamin said:
Read his essays on ‘Friendship’ or ‘Experience’ — that’s where I’d start. He was purely an essayist, writing about an almost absurd range of topics; so find one that piques your particular interest and go for it.
I would though recommend Bakewell’s book, first, because it’s just a much easier read and it gives you a lot of information about both his work and life. In terms of how many minutes you spend reading either, Bakewell’s book will show you much more about Montaigne than even Montaigne’s essays do, given that they are so compendious and dense.
jrbenjamin said:
By the way, here’s Gutenberg’s full version of the essays:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600?msg=welcome_stranger
jmeqvist said:
Reblogged this on jmeqvist and commented:
A great excerpt from a philosopher I admire, and some insightful analysis of his thought.
librarylady said:
Great post. I’m always up for a good book recommendation. I’ll track that down.
jrbenjamin said:
It’s a very solid read. Worth a look.
grotmanharry said:
Very Very Nice
navigator1965 said:
This certainly constitutes another fine educational post here at The Bully Pulpit.
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Peter K said:
“as an EPICUREAN he doubted a life-to-come, but as a devotee of Socrates, he thought that perhaps he would outlast his mortal coil. So a convenient compromise arose in his mind. We are heading towards either transcendence or nothingness, he thought, so why fret? Neither option is bad. And you can’t decide the course anyway.
In my reading, Montaigne replaces this rigid STOICISM…”
Do I misunderstand this passage, or there is some confusion on your part?