To: Solon who wrote (23433 ) 5/7/2006 1:50:57 AM From: 2MAR$ Read Replies (1) | Respond to ** I'm sure that Montaigne would have rather used a different example of other human societies than "cannibalism" to make his point here , but the sexual habits of another people were still just too completely unmentionable & taboo , while he had to keep it sufficiently morose & morbid for the point to be made for his antagonists liking , but the power comes from the very enrichment that comes from accepting to study the diversity with discernment of all human groups with respect and oneself with circumspect ....which is a powerful legacy living still today :Michel de Montaigne, in a much more quiet and modest but ultimately more subversive way, asked a single question over and over again in his Essays: "What do I know?" By this he meant that we have no right to impose on others dogmas which rest on cultural habit rather than absolute truth. Powerfully influenced by the discovery of thriving non-Christian cultures in places as far off as Brazil, he argued that morals may be to some degree relative. Who are Europeans to insist that Brazilian cannibals who merely consume dead human flesh instead of wasting it are morally inferior to Europeans who persecute and oppress those of whom they disapprove? This shift toward cultural relativism, though it was based on scant understanding of the newly discovered peoples, was to continue to have a profound effect on European thought to the present day. Indeed, it is one of the hallmarks of the Enlightenment. Just as their predecessors had used the tools of antiquity to gain unprecedented freedom of inquiry, the Enlightenment thinkers used the examples of other cultures to gain the freedom to reshape not only their philosophies, but their societies. It was becoming clear that there was nothing inevitable about the European patterns of thought and living: there were many possible ways of being human, and doubtless new ones could be invented...
