When reading this essay, it’s important to keep in mind that the spoken word was king back in Montaigne’s day. The art of rhetoric was a cornerstone of classical education, especially for the Greeks and Romans. So while he says some very harsh things in this very short piece about orators and, I would assume, speechwriters, I’m not taking any of it personally. Remember that there weren’t even newspapers when Montaigne wrote his essays, never mind our modern mass media.
Speeches today have taken up a fairly quaint corner of the communications world, and while yes, you could apply Montaigne’s harsh criticism of eloquence and persuasion to contemporary speech craft, his attacks should land with even greater weight on the modern tools of public communications.
He had some harsh words for rhetoric:
It is a means invented for manipulating and stirring up the mob and a community fallen into lawlessness; it is a means which, like medicine, is used only when states are sick; in states such as Athens, Rhodes and Rome where the populace, or the ignorant, or all men, held all power and where everything was in perpetual turmoil, the orators flooded in.
Montaigne prefers men of action over men of words—which is ironic, considering that he was a failure as a public official, but a historic figure as a writer. About halfway through this piece, he shifts the attention away from us poor rhetoricians and takes on everyone who hypes. First, he goes after cooks who feel obligated to describe every part of a meal in excessive detail instead of letting the meal do the talking. And then he takes aim at the language of architecture:
I cannot tell if others feel as I do, but when I hear our architects inflating their importance with big words such as pilasters, architraves, cornices, Corinthian style or Doric style, I cannot stop my thoughts from suddenly dwelling on the magic palaces of Apollidon: yet their deeds concern the wretched parts of my kitchen-door!
That’s an objectively funny line, and as much as I might feel an instinct to defend words from Montaigne’s linguistic attack, I have to admit that I agree with much of what he writes in this piece. I hate nothing more than being manipulated. I’ll often let an online scam play out for a while just so I can see exactly which grift was being employed so that I can spot it more quickly in the future.
If I need to—or more specifically, if I’m asked to — I’ll create some appeal to emotion in a speech. But anyone who thinks that I’m therefore susceptible to such a tactic would make a tragic error. A speechwriter can prioritize action, too. I prefer to show care and attention to people in my time and in a manner that I choose, not as manipulators tell me.
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