Why Do We Do What We Do?

 

Which is more offensive: blowing your nose out with your fingers; catching your load in a cloth, putting it in your pocket and carrying it all day; or, blowing into a paper tissue and dropping it into public trash? Why is it disgusting for one to wipe his hands and face on his loincloth while eating, but we make ready use of the napkin that rests on our lap? Which is worse: cannibalism (actually eating people) or religious/racial/social strife (figuratively eating people)? 

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) modeled in his essay titled, “Of Custom, and that We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received,” the discipline of questioning presuppositions. Why do we hold certain ideas and traditions? When is custom good or bad? Why are the acceptable practices of one culture offensive to another? 

Drawing on life experience, reading, and travel, Montaigne is as personal as Augustine though his interest lies in ideas, not spirituality. Through his speculation, Montaigne reveals what his world is like with first-hand testimony, a view Augustine does not provide. Some hold that Montaigne influenced Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” on the subjects of “good and evil and the opinion we have on them.” In short, Montaigne is concerned about human behavior. 

How much does custom inform our opinion of good and evil and what becomes of the role of moral judgment, even conscience? What do customs impose on our judgements or beliefs?  “‘Tis by the mediation of custom, that every one is content with the place where he is planted by nature.”

Deepest thought from this reading: “Miracles appear to be . . . according to our ignorance of nature, and not according to the essence of nature . . . “