The real field and subject of deception are things unknown: firstly because their very strangeness lends them credence; second, because they cannot be exposed to our usual order of argument, so stripping us of the means of fighting them.
These are provocative thoughts Montaigne uses to open this short but memorable essay. He elaborates on these concepts a bit towards the end:
God, wishing to teach us that the good have something else to hope for, and the wicked something else to fear, than the fortunes and misfortunes of this world, handles and allots these according to his occult disposition, and deprives us of the means of foolishly making our profit of them. And those people delude themselves who try to take advantage of them by human reason. They never score one hit but they receive two. Saint Augustine gives a fine proof of this against his adversaries.
I looked to City of God to try to find that Augustine reference and couldn’t find it. The closest I came was this:
For who would doubt that it is better to have a good mind than even the most extensive memory? No one is evil who has a good mind, but some of the very worst people have the most marvelous memories, and they are all the worse because they cannot forget the evil they have contrived.
This fits somewhat with Montaigne, who writes often of his lack of memory, but it still feels like an odd proof of Montaigne’s point. Which is perfect for this essay, at least in the form I have crafted it through the years. In various forms, this has been the messiest in my collection, ranging over numerous disconnected thoughts that are close to Montaigne–attributing success in battle to providence, trying to determine God’s will–to a wide range of my own tangential views on free will, finding purpose through helping others, and providing progress reports on the status of my project. In the majority of Montaigne’s essays, I look for ways to make them more easily digestible, here I feel obliged to offer many sides and desserts.
Odd, because Montaigne’s is a short and simple essay. He argues one should never attribute the outcome of a battle to the favors of God:
What I consider wrong is our usual practice of trying to support and confirm our religion by the success or happy outcome of our undertakings. Our belief has enough other foundations without seeking sanction from events: people who have grown accustomed to such plausible arguments well-suited to their taste are in danger of having their faith shaken when the turn comes for events to prove hostile and unfavourable.
The modern instinct is to dismiss the foolishness of a religious war altogether—anyone daft enough to fight one is also foolish enough to believe in outcome provenance. But our age has no advantage over Montaigne’s in this matter. If our senseless wars lack religious elements before we enter them, we often find ways to insert religion into them.
And there is no lack of religious zealotry on the sidelines rooting for war at all times. The current nominee for Secretary of Defense dons numerous tattoos backing a Christian crusade against Islam. The American Christian Right is staunchly pro Israel only because the Book of Revelations mentions Israel as one of the combatants at Armageddon and Evangelicals are actively rooting for the end of the world. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
A larger portion of Donald Trump’s supporters already believed he was somehow God’s chosen candidate, even though when asked his favorite Bible verse, in an interview where he was hawking his own Bible for profit, can only come up with “there are so many that are great.” The failed assassination attempt on him was definitive proof for many of these people.
But even for the less religious, a large segment of the population still believes in some sort of destiny guiding the outcome of events. And it should be remembered that while Montaigne actively opposes divination and any belief in some kind of mass, understandable “God’s hand” in the world, he is a firm believer that there is some kind of inexplicable unconscious force in the universe that has guided him personally towards better decisions.
Still, Montaigne is a firm opponent of mass delusion, especially in cases of religion, and find the customs of some non-European cultures wise in this regard:
In one Indian (Native American) tribe they have a laudable custom: when they are worsted in a skirmish or battle they publicly beseech the Sun their god for pardon for having done wrong, attributing their success or failure to the divine mind, to which they submit their own judgment and discourse.
I like this custom very much. No matter the will of God or lack of absolute will in humans, we still have the ability to take responsibility for the world around us and shape our actions to our values.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe expressed it well through his characters in the novel “Young Wilhelm’s Apprentice.” It comes in a scene where the protagonist has proposed marriage to a woman, Therese, but finds himself forming a deep connection to her friend and fellow teacher Natalie. This quote is in a letter Therese writes to Natalie telling her why she will accept the proposal, but Therese is writing here about Natalie:
“When I say that I have hopes we will suit each other, my belief is based primarily on his similarity to you, dear Natalie, whom I treasure and respect so greatly. Like you he has that noble seeking and striving for betterment which enables us to do good where we think we perceive the possibility. I have often blamed you in my mind for treating this or that person differently and reacting to this or that situation differently from how I would have; and yet the outcome usually showed you were right. ‘If we just take people as they are,’ you once said, ‘we make them worse; but if we treat them not as they are but as they should be, we help them to become what they can become.’
Goethe, through his characters, speaks of the importance of not just seeing what other people are capable of becoming, but helping them down that path. And this ties back well to the indigenous people Montaigne highlights. We can dismiss all of the random acts of good or bad fortune. Some people luck out, some never seem to be able to catch a break. That will never change and we can’t reason ourselves out of that predicament. But we can do all we can to help others succeed regardless of luck. And as we take on this mission for others, we find meaning for ourselves.
I also have a soft spot for a kind of love that emerges when two people recognize shared values and a desire to do good for others together — not one borne of necessity or interpretation of some random event as the will of God.
However, I am also a fan of “Pulp Fiction,” and I present this scene towards the end of that film as my close, not because I believe a word of it, but because Jules did and, even if it was a misinterpretation, I’m willing to accept the origins of anything that leads someone down a noble path.
JULES
I just been sittin’ here thinkin’.
VINCENT (mouthful of food)
About what?
JULES
The miracle we witnessed.
VINCENT
The miracle you witnessed. I witnessed a freak occurrence.
JULES
Do you know that a miracle is?
VINCENT
An act of God.
JULES
What’s an act of God?
VINCENT
I guess it’s when God makes the impossible possible. And I’m sorry Jules, but I don’t think what happened this morning qualifies.
JULES
Don’t you see, Vince, that shit don’t matter. You’re judging this thing the wrong way. It’s not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my fuckin’ car keys. You don’t judge shit like this based on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch, God got involved
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