{"id":3305,"date":"2009-01-26T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T10:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3305"},"modified":"2009-01-24T11:01:19","modified_gmt":"2009-01-24T16:01:19","slug":"monday-morning-montaigne-of-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-coaches","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

As near as I can tell, this is Montaigne’s progression in Of coaches<\/em> (pp. 831-849):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I don’t like riding in coaches; I’m much more comfortable on horseback.<\/li>\n
  2. Some ancient kings and emperors sure used some strange and extravagant means of conveying their coaches.<\/li>\n
  3. Kings and emperors tend to spend their subjects’ money liberally and ostentatiously.<\/li>\n
  4. People sure were inventive in the days of old, and the past is like a million foreign countries.<\/li>\n
  5. Boy, have we committed some awful atrocities on the natives in the Americas.<\/li>\n
  6. The king of Peru never used a coach, but was borne in a throne of gold by his subjects.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It’s that second-to-last section that M. focuses on, detailing a number of grotesque abuses that the Spanish inflicted on the natives in the new world. Reflecting on the ill treatment of the natives, he laments that America wasn’t discovered in the time of Alexander, who could have brought out the better aspects of their souls, rather than push them into darkness and war as the explorers did. I was caught up on that point, as it seemed to indicate that M. thinks the world would have been better off without a Catholic church.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, I was fascinated by the notion that, in his time, the Americas\u00c2\u00a0 really were<\/em> a new world. I’m not sure I ever considered how Columbus’ discovery was understood in that era (the first century or so after 1492). M. writes:<\/p>\n

    Our world has just discovered another world (and who will guarantee us that it is the last of its brothers, since the daemons, the sibyls, and we ourselves have up to now been ignorant of this one?) no less great, full, and well-limbed than itself, yet so new and so infantile that it is still being taught its A B C; not fifty years ago it knew neither letters, nor weights and measures, nor clothes, nor wheat, nor vines. . . . If we are right to infer the end of our world, and that poet is right about the youth of his own age, this other world will only be coming into the light when ours is leaving it. The universe will fall into paralysis; one member will be crippled, the other in full vigor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    I’m sure there’s some cutting remark to be made here, contrasting America with Europe, but I’m not the guy to make it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As near as I can tell, this is Montaigne’s progression in Of coaches (pp. 831-849): I don’t like riding in coaches; I’m much more comfortable on horseback. Some ancient kings and emperors sure used some strange and extravagant means of conveying their coaches. Kings and emperors tend to spend their subjects’ money liberally and ostentatiously. … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Monday Morning Montaigne: Of coaches”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45],"tags":[118],"class_list":["post-3305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-montaigne","tag-montaigne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-Rj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3342,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-the-disadvantage-of-greatness","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":0},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of the disadvantage of greatness","author":"Gil","date":"February 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"With Of the disadvantage of greatness (pp. 849-853), Montaigne counters Mel Brooks' wisdom that \"it's good to be the king.\" M. concedes that the actions and effects of kings are awesome, but the tradeoff is that they'll never have a measure of themselves because of the deference of their subjects.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1409,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-cannibalism","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":1},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of Cannibalism","author":"Gil","date":"March 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's essay was Of Cannibals, which raised all sorts of expectations. Unfortunately, Montaigne's depictions of man-eating tribes in Brazil (or 'Antarctic France') were pretty much in the \"noble savage\" mode. On the plus side, he never went into a rant about how Europe needs to bring them religion. If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2730,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-evil-means-employed-to-a-good-end","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":2},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of evil means employed to a good end","author":"Gil","date":"October 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to skip some of the short ones in this segment, such as Of riding post (pp. 626-7) and Of thumbs (pp. 634-5), on the grounds that I couldn't come up with anything funny to write about them. If anything, they bolster the Montaigne-as-blogger argument, because we all have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3118,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-break","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":3},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: BREAK!","author":"Gil","date":"December 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Due to travel schedules, and my unwillingness to lug a 1,300-page hardcover around with me, Monday Morning Montaigne is off until January! Enjoy!","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3034,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-brain-cloud","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":4},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of brain-cloud","author":"Gil","date":"December 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I know the news will break your heart, but there's no Montaigne post this week. My headcold rendered me even less comprehensible this weekend. I'll try to write about the first few essays of Book Three next week.","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3549,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-cripples","url_meta":{"origin":3305,"position":5},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of cripples","author":"Gil","date":"March 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't invent reasons to explain every fact. For example, just because you had really good sex with a crippled woman, it does not validate a proverb that says cripples are better in bed. Seriously. That's the example he chose. On to Of physiognomy!","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3305"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3307,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3305\/revisions\/3307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}