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Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
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President Camacho wrote:
On Friday I'll be discussing Book 1, Chapter 9: On Liars
For those who don't have a copy of Montaigne's essays - they can be found online.
Ummm, did you mean as in a live chat? What time?
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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Montaigne begins this Chapter apologetically. He's set it up where he is able to both explain why others might perceive him to be a liar and why he really isn't - or is he? The first thing wants everyone to take notice of is his disregard for obligations such as social engagements with friends brought about, totally beyond his own control, through a lack of memory. Through this laughable excuse he takes us on a camouflaged, though amusing, story-telling of his disingenuous way of conveniently "forgetting".
The way that Montaigne lets on about his memory leads me to believe that he in fact has a poor memory but that does not excuse anyone for broken promises. If something was so important - he could have someone remind him. Montaigne was not a poor man.
After confessing about his intellect, I'm sure he could have thought of a remedy for his ill memory.
So, in my opinion, Montaigne begins this Chapter on lying by lying.
But - Montaigne opens up a hornet's nest of feelings regarding memory. It's pretty funny, as I'm sure most of you know, when he talks about how men with good memories are able to make bad stories out of good and are not able to forget bad stories or do not have the good sense not to bring them up. He goes on describing more painful conversation like when people won't stop talking even though the conversation is "trailing and maundering" and old people who tell stories over and over.
Montaigne also delineates a lie from a untruth - saying that an untruth is something false that is supposed to be true and a lie goes against the conscience.
His stance? "Lying- and in a lesser degree obstinacy - are, in my opinion, the only faults whose birth and progress we should consistently oppose.
Montaigne recognizes that lying is a learned skill and one that is hard to correct. "...some otherwise excellent men subject to this fault are enslaved by it." I fear that he should have also written that not only the liars are enslaved, but the lied to.
I want everyone to read this because it's wisdom:
"If, like the truth, falsehood had only one face, we should know better where we are, for we should then take the opposite of what a liar said to be the truth. But the opposite of a truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field."
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Could Montaigne be saying that his lack of memory keeps him honest? And maybe in jest: An empty head (void of all the clutter of memory) affords more room for thinking.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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I'd say no to the first and yes to the second.
Montaigne cites his poor memory as a reason that he's unable to keep promises. He's using it as an excuse for lying.
He does say, though, that nature has heightened his judgment much like blind people are said to have better hearing than those with sight. So he's traded feeble memory for better judgment.
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