Although it would appear as a product of of the French Wars of Religion (1561-1598), On Voluntary Servitude was allegedly written prior to this period by Etienne de la Boétie, Montaigne’s greatest friend who is mentioned in his own famous Essays in the chapter “On Affectionate Relationships”. The significance of On Voluntary Servitude is both that it is too little known and that it offers a pro-republican and Catholic theory of resistance predating the first Huguenot (that is, French Calvinist) theories of resistance, which originate clearly from the French Wars of Religion.[1] Perhaps the problem is that too many English-speaking historians of thought are Protestant, and not enough are Catholic, which is why On Voluntary Servitude goes largely unappreciated, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world.[2]
At any rate, La Boétie died at age 32 of the plague in 1563, with Montaigne (about 3 years younger, born in 1533) at his bedside, yet he left behind no original copy of his text. We do not know the precise circumstances as to why the text was written in the first place, but there is a certain youthful ardour to the work, and according to Montaigne it was written when La Boétie was a student, about 16 years of age (in other words, perhaps too neatly, halfway though his life).[3] It is also interesting to point out that Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596), the intellectual architect of the French absolutist state (who helped pave an early way for the likes of Louis XIV), was about the same age as La Boétie – and perhaps the latter was writing against the former, or at least in spirit. [4] Montaigne’s significance (from among many) was that he helped transmit On Voluntary Servitude via his own Essays (but note that he declined to reproduce the text itself), and in their professed friendship, a common theme to both authors (see below), we see the “liberal” tendencies of Montaigne, yet some might still think of La Boétie as a subversive “anarchist”.[5]
One received estimation of Montaigne as some sort of Burkean conservative (as presented by Quentin Skinner) [6] is questionable, and my argument contrary to Skinner is supported by Montaigne`s relationship with La Boétie and by Montaigne’s deep interest in the idea of the “middle”, a very Ciceronian theme – much neglected. Not unlike the Latin poet Horace, Cicero espoused the classical notion of the “golden mean” and held to “the middle ground between the weakness of a single person and the rashness of many.”[7] Montaigne quoted Cicero 312 times, and both authors are clearly “middle-of-the-road” thinkers.[8] Each espoused scepticism, endorsed moderation from extremes and - consequently - saw the world as an imperfection, learned from the entrance to the Delphic Oracle which announced: “Know thyself”. In Montaigne’s time Catholics were slaughtering Protestants in France, and the other way around, too – “massacre” being a neologism following the St. Bartholomew’s Day carnage in 1572. “Middle-way” thinking not only aspires towards notions of “balance” and “compromise” (ideas which are presumed by its critics on the ‘outside’ to be effete and politically unprincipled), it anticipates a model of human cooperation, and without it there can be no conception of a “common ground”.
When Montaigne writes that “Reason is a two-handled pot you can grab it from the right or the left,” he is expressing a quintessential idea that a person of the “middle” applies both the left and the right, though not necessarily at the same time, hence the easy inclusion of La Boétie.[9] In order to prevent the reader from being over-exposed to too many textual examples of Montaigne’s “middle-way” thinking let us point to a lovely quotation from the Essays, which is also the title of a recent book, published in 2011: When I am playing with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me?[10] Not knowing if I am playing with my cat or if my cat is playing with me is suggestive of connectivity – a reflexive or reciprocal bond - between pets and their “owners” – not a master-slave dichotomy, and, again, this can be found in Montaigne’s relationship with his closest friend, La Boétie. Another such example might be in the “serve and return” exchange one finds in the game of tennis, a sport Montaigne encouraged among youth (especially over reading and academic studies), despite the fact his own brother died from a tennis accident. (The tennis balls were heavier then and not so kind when in contact with the human skull).
In the Essays Montaigne writes of La Boétie: “I was already so used and accustomed to being, in everything, one of two, that now I feel I am no more than half.”[11] Elsewhere Montaigne writes how “La Boétie and I made a brotherhood of our alliance.”[12] Compare this to the late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze who writes (in his Dialogues with Claire Parnet): “We do not work together, we work between the two... We don’t work, we negotiate.”[13] It is this notion of something existing “in between” or “between the two” (in other words, that there is something “in common”, which one finds in affectionate relationships) that is significant here. An appreciation for the idea of the “middle” and the notion of having something “in common” are both conceptually and personally linked throughout history. Cicero had his friend and confidant Atticus, Montaigne was close to La Boétie, and Deleuze wrote most famously with Guattari (with apologies to Parnet) – and they all espoused notions of the “middle”. It should also not go without mention that that Deleuze and Guattari refer to “Voluntary Servitude” in their classic work A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.[14]
Why present readers with On Voluntary Servitude? It is interesting because it is a non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Calvinist, non-violent (almost Gandhian) theory of resistance that emphasizes Christian inner freedom taken in the collective sense as a path to liberty.[15] It presumes a model of human cooperation, the middle as veto, the non-silent and non-acquiescing majority, certainly predating 19thcentury “individualism” – and so it rebuffs Margaret Thatcher’s bold empirical claim that “there is no such thing a society,” for the bond existing between individuals is also real, just less measurable. In other words, the “community” is considered to be a cohesive expression of possible contradiction against tyranny, distinct from our “modern” conceptions of liberty which is in turn much more “atomized” (and thus vulnerable to different types of domination, as well as some of the same).
As theories of resistance go, On Voluntary Servitude resonates with the Arab Spring, sharing a certain “early-modern” tone that characterizes La Boétie’s world and the apparent political development of the Middle East (that is, something not “modern” and distinct from Western “individualism” but still a unique expression of opposition: “a people enslaves itself”). It also resonates in Canada against our ideologues. One such “individual” - Stephen Harper - excludes “the middle” and hence has little appreciation for what we have “in common” – aside from legislated reverence for the Canadian “flag”, a notion picked up from Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations.[16] (Again, parenthetically-speaking, the more Canada’s constitution decentralizes under Harper’s rule, the less we can conceive of Canada itself as a single “space” – and the less we find “common ground,” a “middle”, thus issues become localized, in the end micromanaged). And finally On Voluntary Servitude resonates with the “Occupy Wall Street” movements that reject the apparent tyranny of our economic systems, and the disparity of wealth (characteristic of American “society”, assuredly, now polarized by extremes and the waning of the middle classes) which works towards the subversion of democracy (here and there).
Here are a number of excerpts from On Voluntary Servitude (circa 1547, again, only if we can believe Montaigne):
For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no power other than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation.[17]
... but when a thousand, a million men, a thousand cities, fail to protect themselves against the domination of one man, this cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not sink to such a depth, any more than valor can be termed the effort of one individual to scale a fortress, to attack an army, or to conquer a kingdom. What monstrous vice, then, is this which does not deserve to be called cowardice, a vice for which no term can be found vile enough, which nature herself disavows and our tongues refuse to name?[18]
Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it. If it costs the people anything to recover its freedom, I should not urge action to this end, although there is nothing a human should hold more dear than the restoration of his own natural right, to change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so to speak. I do not demand of him so much boldness; let him prefer the doubtful security of living wretchedly to the uncertain hope of living as he pleases. What then? If in order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to long for it, if only a simple act of will is necessary, is there any nation in the world that considers a single wish too high a price to pay in order to recover rights ...[19]
Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will increase and blaze ever higher as long as it finds wood to burn; yet without being quenched by water, but merely by finding no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a flame. Similarly, the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any violence they are simply not obeyed, they become naked and undone as nothing, just as, when the root receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies.[20]
He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you? How would he dare assail you if he has no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if they were not traitors to yourselves? ...[21]
... From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, by not taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces? ...[22]
It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement....[23]
Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance proudly beneath their trappings. Similarly men will grow accustomed to the idea that they have always been in subjection, that their fathers lived in the same way; they will think they are obliged to suffer this evil, and will persuade themselves by example and imitation of others, finally investing those who order them around with proprietary rights, based on the idea that it has always been that way. ...[24]
The fact is that the tyrant is never truly loved, nor does he love. Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing; it is never developed except between persons of character, and never takes root except through mutual respect; it flourishes not so much by kindness as by sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the knowledge of his integrity: as guarantees he has friend’s fine nature, his honor, and his constancy. There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are mere accomplices. ...[25]
[1] The classic Huguenot text Vindiciae contra Tyrannos appeared in 1579. See Martin van Gelderen “So merely humane: theories of resistance in early-modern Europe” in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ed. Annable Brett, James Tully and Holly Hamilton-Bleakley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 151
[2] See also Warren Boutcher, “Unoriginal Authors: how to do things with texts in the Renaissance” in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, pp. 73-92.
[3] Montaigne, The Complete Essays, tr. M.A. Screech (Toronto: Penguin, 2003), p. 218.
[4] See website by Saul Newman, Voluntary Servitude Reconsidered: Radical Politics and the Problem of Self Domination as of 29 October 2011. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Saul_Newman__Voluntary_Servitude_Reconsidered__Radical_Politics_and_the_Problem_of_Self-Domination.html
[5] Ibid.
[6] Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 2: The Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 275-284.
[7] Cicero, On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. James E.G. Zetzel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 23.
[8] Cicero, Selected Works, tr. and intro. Michael Grant (Toronto: Penguin, 1979), p. 29.
[9] Montaigne, Essays, p. 656.
[10] Saul Frampton, When I Am Playing with My Cat, How Do I Know She is Not Playing with Me? Montaigne and Being in Touch with Life (New York: Pantheon books, 2011. In a translated version of the Essays, the line reads : “When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her.” Montaigne, The Complete Essays, p. 505. The cat quotation appears early in Montaigne’s largest chapter, “An Apology for Raymond Sebond.”
[11] Montaigne. Essays, p.217.
[12] Montaigne, Essays, p. 208.
[13] Gilles Deleuze and Claire Paret, Dialogues, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 17.
[14] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateau’s: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, tr. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 460.
[15] Sarah Bakewell, How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer (London: Vintage, 2011), p. 99.
[16] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 20.
[17] Etienne De La Boetie, The Politics of Obedience : The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, tr. John Lothrop Motley (Kessinger Rare Reprints), p. 2.
[18] Ibid., p. 4.
[19] Ibid., p. 5.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid., p., 6.
[22] Ibid., p. 7.
[23] Ibid., p. 11.
[24] Ibid., p. 14.
[25] Ibid., p. 26.
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