{"id":2838,"date":"2008-11-03T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T12:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2838"},"modified":"2008-11-03T08:37:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T12:37:00","slug":"monday-morning-montaigne-of-virtue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-virtue","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of virtue"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m perplexed, dear reader. Of virtue (pp. 646-653) starts with a promising thought \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that it is not<\/em> in a crisis that we learn who a man is, but through his day-to-day actions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and somehow evolves into a celebration of assassins. In between, we learn that the ritual suicides of Indian wives and Gymnosophists is a “miracle” because of their “constant premeditation through a whole life.”<\/p>\n

Montaigne appears to contrast this will-to-death with Christian peoples’ professed belief in fate. That is, while M.’s contemporaries paid lip service to the idea that your number was called long in advance, they still panicked like chickens with their heads cut off during battles.<\/p>\n

I suppose M.’s point is that it’s one thing to say you believe something, but another to integrate it into your life:<\/p>\n

Except for order, moderation and constancy, I believe that all things are achieveable by a man who in general is very imperfect and defective.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ha-ha. And I didn’t even go into his celebration of men cutting off their own junk out of spite or abnegation.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Bonus!<\/em> To paraphrase Of a monstrous child<\/em> (pp. 653-4): “A couple of days ago, I saw a particularly messed-up Siamese twin. I also know a farmer who was born without ‘nads. Must be God’s plan. And quit being so provincial; if it happened, it must be part of nature!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m perplexed, dear reader. Of virtue (pp. 646-653) starts with a promising thought \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that it is not in a crisis that we learn who a man is, but through his day-to-day actions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and somehow evolves into a celebration of assassins. In between, we learn that the ritual suicides of Indian wives and Gymnosophists … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Monday Morning Montaigne: Of virtue”<\/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-2838","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-JM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2704,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/montaigne-update","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":0},"title":"Montaigne update","author":"Gil","date":"October 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmm. Maybe I should have pushed my Montaigne-as-blogger idea, floated a few weeks ago when I wrote up Of presumption in my Monday Morning Montaigne series. Here's a piece from Andrew Sullivan's article \"Why I Blog\" in the new ish of The Atlantic: But perhaps the quintessential blogger avant la\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1424,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-cato-the-younger","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":1},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of Cato the Younger","author":"Gil","date":"April 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, yeah, I know: who cares about what Montaigne has to say about Cato the Younger? Well, as usual, M. uses the occasion of a brief (3+ pages) essay on Cato to digress into the nature and impact of poetry. The essay begins with a gorgeous little passage about M.'s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3226,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-on-okay-i-didnt-finish-this-one","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":2},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: On okay I didn’t finish this one","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's Montaigne essay, On some verses of Virgil (pp. 774-831), turned out to be really good. However, I didn't have time to write about it, so I'm going to reread it this week and try to put something together for you by next Monday. Suffice to say, my worries\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2411,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-back-next-week","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":3},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Back Next Week","author":"Gil","date":"September 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was too busy\/addled this weekend to write my Monday Morning Montaigne post, dear readers. But I did finish the Apology for Raymond Sebond, and have (what I think) are some neat observations about it. I was gratified to see that M. loosened up a bit more in this last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1354,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-5","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":4},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne","author":"Gil","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorta undermining my whole Montaigne-project, but then bringing it back home, this passage is from On Pedantry: In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgment and virtue, little news. Exclaim to our people about a passer-by, \"Oh, what a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3118,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-break","url_meta":{"origin":2838,"position":5},"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":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2839,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/2839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}