I’m always puzzled when I meet individuals unable to make up their minds. They stay put in losing situations and keep going in the wrong direction. They say yes when they do not mean it, because they cannot gather the strength to say no. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was also puzzled by this situation. He correctly blamed it on a lack of self-awareness. In those cases, the victims are not alert or awake enough to resist manipulation by third parties. What’s the underlying reason for indecisiveness? Montaigne pointed to a lack of individualism. He also proposed remedies to the problem, namely, solitude, introspection and meditation. Montaigne remarked in his essay “On Solitude” that regular periods of solitude enable people to gain self-reliance. Instead of focusing on popularity and third-party endorsement, they’re developing a strong, independent willpower. When it comes to education, Montaigne similarly favoured the cultivation of critical, individual thinking. His essay titled “On the Education of Children” calls for independent thinking and character development; he regarded memorization as a bad educational practice. Society is important, recognised Montaigne, but in reality, it consists of individuals. Each person must live his own life and remains responsible for his acts and omissions. Unfortunately, Montaigne failed to illustrate this key insight with the right historical examples. In his essay “An Apology for Raymond Sebond,” he points to Socrates (469-399 BC) as an allegedly great individualist. Montaigne could not have chosen a worst example because Socrates failed to think critically when it was most necessary. On the one hand, Socrates let Athens convict him of some trumped-up charges in a trial that was ridiculously unfair. He should have escaped and gone into exile. On the other hand, Socrates accepted a death sentence and executed it himself. Plato recounts that Socrates did not seize the chance to escape, a chance secured by one of his friends. By using convoluted logic, Socrates chose to die instead of going into exile. His trial and death are clearly not examples of individualism. They represent the opposite principle. To make it worse, Montaigne equates individualism with a life of poverty and rebelliousness. He recounts the encounter in Corinth (336 BC) of Alexander the Great and the philosopher Diogenes, who lived in abject poverty. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaigne-and-individualism/

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