By Eve Poirier – Winner of Philosophy in the Wild
‘This book was written in good faith, reader. It warns you from the outset that in it I have set myself no goal but a domestic and private one.’1
On 16 March 2022, Twitter user @nicolerichle tweeted: ‘just saw someone w 52.9k tweets and 3 followers’2. The replies are full of people in a similar position – thousands of tweets despite followers numbering only in the tens or twenties. @kosovobabe replies: ‘That is not a Twitter that is a Diary’.3 There is, however, one important difference between a Twitter page and a diary – tweets are public. I wonder what the two of them would make of Montaigne. Writing in France in the sixteenth century, Montaigne published one hundred and seven essays, which (including his travel journal) comes to about 336,000 words4 – this would equate to more than 6,100 tweets.5
People tweet about their breakups, anxieties, day to day challenges and more – at each turn leaving behind a little hint of who they are.
Montaigne has more than three followers of course – his writings inspired many great European philosophers – but his aim was never to become famous or popular through writing the essays: they are simply ‘for a nook in the library, and to amuse a neighbour, a relative, a friend, who may take pleasure in associating and conversing with me again’.6 Twitter user @httphases (who incidentally has over 25,000 tweets)7 follows this tradition: ‘i tweet for myself and the 3 depressed mfs that agree w every deranged thought i have’.8 Granted, there are many people who don’t follow this style, and use Twitter for less personal purposes, but there are also those for whom, despite the lack of privacy, tweeting is a very personal experience, often portraying an honest and vulnerable image of themselves. People tweet about their breakups, anxieties, day to day challenges and more – at each turn leaving behind a little hint of who they are.
The same is true of Montaigne – he warns the reader from the outset that ‘I am myself the matter of my book’.9 The essays are full of his jokes, turns of phrase, and self-deprecating honesty, which all come together to illustrate a self-portrait. But then this self-portrait is examined and re-examined again and again across the essays – the evaluation of each topic Montaigne writes about is also an evaluation of his own character. From cannibalism to death, drunkenness to leadership10, he questions his own natural inclinations and preconceptions, and in doing so reaffirms his core beliefs. Montaigne explores the world not for the sake of the world, but because to him, it is ‘the mirror in which we must look at ourselves’.11 Ultimately the writing of the essays helps Montaigne understand who he really is – and the reader gets to share in that journey too. This is beautifully summarised in one of Montaigne’s most famous quotes: ‘Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colours clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me – a book consubstantial with its author’12.
The public diary is a little stamp on history: ‘I was here – and I am still here in the words I left behind’.
Twitter has capacity for the same purpose: a person’s tweets are just little snapshots of their mind which together create an echo of who they are. If you read through all 52,900 tweets posted by that individual, is it not likely that you would get a pretty good picture of their personality? Just as Montaigne’s book is consubstantial with its author, so are the tweets consubstantial with their tweeter. The average twitter user may not pay as much attention to the process as Montaigne has – but even the act of writing out your thoughts and feelings teaches you a little about who you are.
This does beg an interesting question: if the point of the tweeting or writing down your thoughts is personal, and not for a wide audience, then why publish those thoughts at all? Why didn’t Montaigne just write a diary? Why didn’t the person with 52,900 tweets write a diary?
Writing a public diary is like shouting into the void – you don’t necessarily expect a response, but somehow the idea that somebody could hear, that somebody could agree, is more comforting than locking your thoughts away for your eyes only. Montaigne expresses some hope that his descendants will look over the essays fondly as they might do an heirloom.13 The public diary is a little stamp on history: ‘I was here – and I am still here in the words I left behind’. In the words of @cxldhvnds: ‘I tweet for myself and the scientists hundreds of years from now who will study our posts like ancient texts’14.
It seems contradictory that a printing press or social media would be the appropriate place for self reflection – but there is clearly an urge towards it felt by both Montaigne and people on twitter today. Maybe it is the idea of giving people a way to remember you, or to have friends to share in your personal journey. Or maybe it’s simply vanity. Either way, it turned out to be a great reward to the rest of us that Montaigne didn’t choose to keep his thoughts secret. So in Montaigne’s honour, let us all keep our diaries public. Philosophers of today spend hours studying, evaluating, and drawing meaning from the works of Montaigne – perhaps in 400 years we will be studying the philosophy of some currently undiscovered tweeter instead.
1 Michel de Montaigne, Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Works, trans. by Donald M. Frame (London: Everyman’s Library, 2003), p. 2.
2 Joyci Schecter (@nicolerichle, 16 March 2022), ‘just saw someone w 52.9k tweets and 3 followers’ (tweet), <https://twitter.com/nicolerichle/status/1504057505764290561> [accessed 8 May 2022].
3Mirjeta (@kosovobabe, 16 March 2022), ‘That is not a Twitter that is a Diary’ (tweet),
<https://twitter.com/kosovobabe/status/1504145414747959298> [accessed 8 May 2022].
4 Estimate based on: Reading Length, Michel de Montaigne – The Complete Essays,
<https://www.readinglength.com/book/isbn-0140446044> [accessed 8 May 2022].
5 Based on an estimate of 55 words maximum per tweet from: Writers Write, How many words is that? (2018), <https://www.writerswrite.com/how-many-words-is-that-41620181> [accessed 8 May 2022] (para 4 of 13). 6 Montaigne, p. 611.
7 Twitter, Profile of @httphases, <https://twitter.com/httphases> [accessed 8 May 2022].
8 Lexi (@httphases, 28 March 2022), ‘i tweet for myself and the 3 depressed mfs that agree w every deranged thought i have’ (tweet), <https://twitter.com/httphases/status/1508328060608679937> [accessed 8 May 2022]. 9 Montaigne, p. 2.
10 See: Montaigne, p. 182-193, Montaigne, p. 67-82, Montaigne, p. 296-305 and Montaigne, p. 726-740.
11 ibid., p. 141.
12 ibid., p. 612.
13 ibid., p. 612. 14 (@cxldhvnds, 2 April 2022), ‘I tweet for myself and the scientists hundreds of years from now who will study our posts like ancient texts’ (tweet), <https://twitter.com/cxldhvnds/status/1510309529166229505> [accessed 8 May 2022].
Pharos. 