Montaigne returns to the matter of him walking away from public life and argues that the ability to give up power is the greatest sign of internal strength:
In general high rank has one obvious advantage: it can lay itself aside whenever it wants to; it is virtually free to choose either condition. All forms of greatness are not brought low uniquely by a fall: some there are which allow you to stoop low without falling. It does seem to me that we set too high a value on it, as we also do on the determination of those whom we have seen or heard refusing it or resigning it at their own volition. In its essence the advantage of it is not so self-evident that it takes a miracle to reject it.
Heavy wears the crown and many, Montaigne included, are unsuited for it:
I have never found myself wishing for imperial or royal rank nor for the prominence of those high destinies where men command. My aims do not tend that way: I love myself too much for that. When I think of growing in constancy or wisdom or health or beauty, or even wealth, it is in a modest way, with a timid constricted growth appropriate to myself; but my imagination is oppressed by great renown or mighty authority.
Serving a leader requires a certain mindset — knowledge of your middling rank. Overstepping your authority, or worse, circumventing authority, is the greatest sin. Montaigne held positions like this throughout his professional career and seemed perfectly suited by nature to the jobs:
I want neither to be a wretched nobody arguing with doorkeepers nor one who causes crowds to part with awe as I pass through. By lot and also by taste I am accustomed to a middling rank. In the conduct of my life and of anything I have undertaken, I have shown that I have fled rather than sought means of stepping above the degree of fortune in which God has placed me at birth. Anything established by Nature is as just as it is pleasant.
These middling jobs, however, can also be extremely demanding. Montaigne understood that this is probably the only course a ruler can take, which is why he eventually retired to his estate:
I have a soul so lazy that I do not measure my fortune by its height: I measure it by its pleasantness. But though I do not have all that great a mind, I do have one which is correspondingly open, one which orders me to dare to publish its weaknesses.
The emotional challenge of working within any system is accepting a level of domination. Unless you are on top—and Montaigne has already clarified that he doesn’t like such lofty heights—then you have to accept a role within the bureaucracy, which is something that Montaigne couldn’t accept freely. He even wishes for a certain “bargain” with power, where he’s freed from ruling if the rulers will just leave him alone:
I dislike all domination, by me or over me. Otanes, one of the Seven who had rightful claims to the throne of Persia, took a decision which I could well have taken myself. To his rivals he abandoned his rights to be elected or chosen by lot, on condition that he and his family could live in that empire free from all domination, and from all subordination except to those of the ancient laws, and should enjoy every freedom not prejudicial to those laws, since he found it intolerable both to give or to accept commands.
Words like these lend credence to the argument that Montaigne, not Etienne La Boetie, was the author of the infamous anarchist essay Montaigne felt obliged to defend. I’m not a Montaigne scholar, so I have no learned opinion on the matter … I would think that Montaigne was merely sympathetic with his dear friend and had enough insider knowledge to be skeptical of all authority.
Despite this skepticism, Montaigne is unusually sympathetic to rulers and the challenges they face. I agree with him here — despite the cliches about politicians, I find them mostly to be likable, ethical people doing the best they can in a system they didn’t create:
The harshest and most difficult job in the world, in my judgment, is worthily to act the King. I can excuse more shortcomings in kings than men commonly do, out of consideration for the horrifying weight of their office, which stuns me. It is difficult for such disproportionate power to act with a sense of proportion.
This position has become increasingly difficult to support or believe, however.
This brings me to Montaigne’s last point: one of the worst things about being a ruler is that no one has the courage to speak or act truth to power … and this lack of challenge, while seemingly deferential, is actually disdainful and insulting:
The disadvantage of great rank (which I have taken as the subject of my remarks here since some event called it to my attention) is the following: nothing perhaps in the whole of our dealings with others is more pleasant than those assays which we make of each other as rivals for honor in physical sports and for esteem in those of the mind – and in which a sovereign can take no real part. It has often seemed true to me that the force of respect leads to our actually treating princes disdainfully and insultingly.
I worked for elected officials at a relatively young age and I didn’t always hold up my end of this bargain. But this is comfort I have gained with age and have no problem telling people of authority hard truths. If I did any less, I wouldn’t be doing my job.
Leave a Reply