The problem of toleration: Tacitus, Foucault and governmentality

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel interpretation of Montaigne’s and Bayle’s comments on Tacitus. My contention is that their Tacitism is a Foucauldian discourse on toleration. Toleration is an example of governmentality, a strategy to govern a population, not a genuine call for religious diversity. This novel reading applies to Michel de Montaigne’s Essays and Pierre Bayle’s Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet and his Historical and Critical Dictionary. Montaigne’s essay On the Useful and the Honourable, he shows that there is a difference between his public and private persona. The author discusses ideas of toleration in a Tacitist style. This happens in his essay Something Lacking in Our Civil Administrations, where the author laments the death of Sebastian Castalio and, indirectly, he supports his commitment to religious pluralism. As I will show, Montaigne embraces a Gallican belief system, which is more conciliatory Bayle a century later, discusses the same issues. In his Various Thoughts, he makes a case for toleration as a tool to manage a population. Ultimately, it will be clear how this plea for toleration is not a product of the Enlightenment, but it is rather a discourse to achieve societal compliance.

KEYWORDS:

• Tacitus
• Tacitism
• Montaigne
• Bayle
• Foucault

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Tacitus, 41.

2 Hammer, Roman Political Thought and Modern Theoretical Imagination, 136.

3 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 42.

4 Foucault, Security, Territory Population, 108, emphasis mine.

5 Walters, Tazzioli, Handbook on governmentality, 3.

6 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 109.

7 I am going to challenge the Lockean understanding of toleration. Locke claimed that religion is private matter which should not be regulated by the state. Therefore, on Locke’s account, there should no interference (cf. Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 5). Foucault, through his notion of governmentality, shows the opposite: religious allegiances are not a private thing, but they are actually an important component of public life. In order to minimise any disruption of public order, then it is for institutional bodies to govern a country in such a way that social cohesion will not be imperilled.

8 Giuseppe Toffanin distinguished between ‘Red’ and ‘Black’ Tacitists. On Toffanin’s account, Machiavelli is a Black Tacitist for his endorsement of ruthless political choices for the sake of the state (cf. Toffanin, Machiavelli e il “Tacitismo” 1433–44, 167). Machiavelli, in the fifteenth chapter of The Prince, argues that focusing on the on reality and eschews utopian political blueprints. On Machiavelli’s account, leaders ought to focus on the example provided by the ancient exemplars. Graeco-Roman figures are, therefore, a repository of political wisdom.

9 Burke, ‘Tacitism, Scepticism, and Reason of State’ 485.

10 Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651, 41.

11 Waszink ‘Your Tacitism or mine? Modern and early-modern conceptions of Tacitus and Tacitism’, 375. De Bastiani, ‘Spinoza against political Tacitism: reversing the meaning of Tacitus’ quotes’ 1045, argues that Tacitism is political realism in action. Grafton claims that Tacitean works help to reorientate society. On Grafton’s account, Tacitism underscores the fact that ‘cultural life changes, radically, in response to changes in its political and social environment’ (Grafton, ‘Tacitus and Tacitism’ 920).Tacitus’s political views, according to Daniel Kapust in his article ‘Tacitus and Political Thought’, 525 claim that reading Tacitus affords leaders to ‘navigate the murky and dangerous waters’ of politics.

12 Momigliano ‘The First Political Commentary on Tacitus’, 101.

13 Hazard, The Crisis European Mind: 1680–1715, 32.

14 Di Carlo, The Self-Analyst and the Doctor, 38.

15 Farquhar, ‘Michel de Montaigne’, 202.

16 Ibid.

17 Montaigne, The Essays, 113.

18 Ibid., 1886.

19 Mellor, Tacitus’ Annals, 212.

20 Montaigne, The Essays, 1887

21 Ibid., 2050.

22 Ibid., 370.

23 Tacitus, 1. Emphasis in the original.

24 Panichi, Les liens à renouer, 161.

25 Montaigne, The Essays, 1573.

26 Ibid., 1574.

27 Ibid., 409.

28 Mortimer, Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1571–1625), 199.

29 Tacitus, 135–36.

30 Ibid., 136.

31 Fontana, ‘The Political Thought of Montaigne’, 585.

32 Shishimi, ‘Le gallicanisme et les réflexions politiques de Montaigne dans’ De la liberté de conscience (II, 19)187. My translation.

33 Ibid., 187–88. My translation.

34 Montaigne, The Essays, 2151.

35 Hoffmann, ‘Montaigne et la pensée social du parti gallican au temps de guerres de religion’, 1–2.

36 Foucault, Omnes et Singulatim, 227.

37 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 89.

38 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 4.

39 Cf. Foucault, Governmentality, 202.

40 O’Brien, ‘Slavery and Freedom in a Time of Civil War’, 5-6. Emphasis in the original.

41 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 84.

42 Montaigne, The Essays, 538.

43 Friedman, Early Modern Epistemologies, 53.

44 MacPhail, Religious Tolerance, 221.

45 Salmon, Cicero and Tacitus in Sixteenth-Century France, 307 makes a similar point by claiming that works of Tacitus, in early modern France, epitomised ‘public and private prudence’. Prudence, on Salmon’s account, had therefore become central to exercising power.

46 Montaigne, The Essays, 807.

47 Ibid., 332.

48 Tacitus, 227. My emphasis.

49 Montaigne The Essays, 951.

50 Lipsius Politica, 97.

51 Remer, Ethics and the Orator. The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality, 113.

52 Tacitus, Germania, 313.

53 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 95.

54 Tacitus, Annals, 326.

55 Although this goes beyond the scope of this article, I think that it is important to highlight a similar observation made by the Chancellor of France Michel de l’Hospital. He was of the opinion that any endeavour should be made to ensure the survival of the commonwealth because it was for de constituenda republica (the setting up of State institutions and customs) rather than for de constituenda religione (the establishing of a state religion) in order to avoid making unilateral decisions (cf. Natale, ‘Michel de l’Hospital’, 6–7). Robert J. Knecht makes a similar point by arguing that de l’Hospital could not act unilaterally because ‘Protestantism was too powerful to be eradicated peacefully’ (cf. Knecht, Hero or Tyrant? 8). Montaigne and de l’Hospital were the opinion that religious diversity was an element which could not be overridden easily. Therefore, it is better to target the security of the population rather than blindly accepting theological principles.

56 Desan, Montaigne. A Life, 92.

57 Montaigne, The Essays, 1529.

58 Creppell, Toleration and Identity. Foundations in Early Modern Thought, 68.

59 Ibid., 68

60 Tacitus, 97.

61 Mori, Bayle philosophe, 15.

62 Van der Lugt, Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, 19.

63 Ibid., 23.

64 Stoll, ‘Empirical History and the Transformation of Political Criticism from Bodin to Bayle’, 315.

65 Bayle, Political Writings, 165.

66 Ibid., 166.

67 Bayle, Political Writings, 288.

68 Tacitus, 196.

69 Ibid., 153

70 Bayle, Political Writings, 58.

71 Simonutti, ‘Absolute, Not Arbitrary, Power’. 53.

72 Hooks, ‘Pierre Bayle and Richard Simon’, 3.

73 Van der Lugt, Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, 133.

74 Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary, 65.

75 Ibid., 66. ‘My design is to make a Commentary […], built on Principles more general and more infallible […] (emphasis mine)].

76 Ibid., 80.

77 Tacitus, 41–2.

78 This millenarian and apocalyptic imagery was common in intellectual discussions in the seventeenth century. Hugo Grotius was one such intellectual (cf. Larsen, ‘My friendship with her is by no means an ordinary one’: the friendship alliances of Christian Hebraist Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678)’, 265). Bayle was familiar with apocalyptic imagery, as he criticised those who exploited such imagery ‘for political aims’. (cf. Bernier, ‘Pierre Bayle and Biblical Criticism’, 254).

79 Bayle, Political Writings,176.

80 Ibid. emphasis in the original.

81 Ibid. 233.

82 Ibid. 233–4.

83 Tacitus, 36.

84 Ibid. 39.

85 Ibid., 78.

86 Tacitus, 205.

87 Ibid. I,28.

88 Mori, Bayle philosophe, 18.

89 Ibid, 19

90 Ibid, 69.

91 Ibid, 70–1.

92 Ibid, 97.

93 Hui, ‘Enlightenment Toleration’, 102.

94 Bayle, Political Writings, 193.

95 Balsamo, ‘Des essais’, 304. My translation.