I’m always puzzled when I meet individuals unable to make up their minds. They stay put in losing situations and keep going in the wrong direction. They say yes when they do not mean it, because they cannot gather the strength to say no.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was also puzzled by this situation. He correctly blamed it on a lack of self-awareness. In those cases, the victims are not alert or awake enough to resist manipulation through third parties.
What’s the underlying reason for indecisiveness? Montaigne pointed to a lack of individualism. He also proposed remedies to the problem, namely, solitude, introspection and meditation.
Montaigne remarked in his essay “On Solitude” that regular periods of solitude enable people to gain self-reliance. Instead of focusing on popularity and third-party endorsement, they’re developing a strong, independent willpower.
When it comes to education, Montaigne similarly favoured the cultivation of critical, individual thinking. His essay titled “On the Education of Children” calls for independent thinking and character development; he regarded memorization as a bad educational practice.
Society is important, recognised Montaigne, but in reality, it consists of individuals. Each person must live his own life and remains responsible for his acts and omissions.
Montaigne’s examples of individualism
Unfortunately, Montaigne failed to illustrate this key insight with the right historical examples. In his essay “An Apology for Raymond Sebond,” he points to Socrates (469-399 BC) as an allegedly great individualist.
Montaigne could not have chosen a worst example because Socrates failed to think critically when it was most necessary.
On the one hand, Socrates let Athens convict him of some trumped-up charges in a trial that was ridiculously unfair. He should have escaped and gone into exile.
On the other hand, Socrates accepted a death sentence and executive it himself. Plato recounts that Socrates did not seize the chance to escape, a chance secured by one of his friends.
By using a convoluted logic, Socrates chose to die instead of going into exile. His trial and death are clearly not examples of individualism. They represent the opposite principle.
To make it worse, Montaigne equates individualism with a life of poverty and rebelliousness. He recounts the encounter in Corinth (336 BC) of Alexander the Great and the philosopher Diogenes, who lived in abject poverty.
When Alexander offers financial support, what response did he receive from Diogenes? A wisecrack. An outright rejection. Montaigne implies that Diogenes was a great individualist, but I can only see that he rejected a once-in-a-lifetime chance. His behaviour shows more hubris than wisdom.
Montaigne’s conception of individualism
Montaigne goes on and on, giving examples that present the opposite of individualism. He praises Cato (95-46 BC) for his decision to commit suicide because he did not want to accept Julius Caesar as a consul, or possibly a dictator, in the ancient Roman Republic.
I fail to see what good Cato did by killing himself and how suicide makes him a great individualist. Would it not have been more intelligent to seek some kind of arrangement with Julius Caesar and retire to the countryside, waiting for things to calm down?
Despite his poor choice of examples, Montaigne had a deep understanding of individualism. He had learned from Aristotle (384-322 BC) not only the correct definition, but also the path towards individualism.
Aristotle had outlined the concept and the path in his essay titled “Nicomachean Ethics.” At the time of writing this essay, Aristotle was in his late thirties.
He regarded individualism as the natural path to fulfilment of one potentialities. Individuals possess talents and skills, but those need development. Goals must be set and pursued year in year out, so that they can be achieved.
Montaigne’s path to individual happiness
Montaigne agreed with Aristotle that the path to happiness, irrespective of the historical period, is an individual path. Each person is responsible for improving his own life, but not for saving the whole world.
Aristotle described happiness (“eudaimonia” in Greek) as a process of individual flourishing or thriving. He acknowledged that circumstances can help or hinder happiness, but all in all, each individual remains free to seek the best circumstances to achieve his dreams.
For what concerns the method for achieving happiness, the essays of Montaigne are replicating the Aristotelian method. It calls for the practise of virtue (pro-activeness, self-discipline, honesty, moderation, etc.) as the individual path to happiness.
Montaigne notes that the individual practitioner is the first beneficiary of virtue. He reaps what he sows. His life becomes better because he is choosing the right course of action. There is a strong causal relation between what one does and what one gets, at least in the long term.
Although Montaigne was less individualistic than Aristotle, he accepted all the Aristotelian premises in this respect. I find it disappointing that Montaigne could not come up with better examples of individualism.
In my view, Montaigne placed an exaggerated emphasis on serenity, and tolerance to the detriment of tangible success.
He was right when he wrote in his essay “On Vanity” that “I care for other people’s opinions of me much less than I care about my own self-regard.”
That’s an attitude that should show in our daily actions. It should not remain a philosophical statement. We should choose our goals wisely and pursue them assiduously. In Montaigne’s own words “No wind will favour ships that lack a destination.” I could not agree more.
If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all sort of situations, I recommend you my book “Against all odds: How to achieve great victories in desperate times.”