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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 211 KB, 800x1091, Portrait_of_Michel_de_Montaigne,_circa_unknown.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18675135 No.18675135 [Reply] [Original]

Is Montaigne right that a man of character should not devote too much attention to games?
>Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and
drinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do? Or, if he played at chess? what string of his soul was not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it, because it is not play enough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much better uses. He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition into the Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which depends the safety of mankind. To what a degree does this ridiculous diversion molest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon this trivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every one to know and to make a right judgment of himself? I do not more
thoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion are we exempted from in it? Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement
desire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable to be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the common rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour. What I say in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, every employment of man manifests him equally with any other.

>> No.18675145
File: 1.27 MB, 1243x1027, ichise.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18675145

God damn it, I fucked the formatting up again.

>> No.18675146

hurts to get beat at chess and he probably wasn't good. needed some cope to refuse games

>> No.18675165

>>18675146
Montaigne was anything but a coper.

>> No.18675177

>>18675165
>goes bald
>writes an essay about how going bald is a chad move
okay anon sure

>> No.18675671

>>18675135
>Trivial persons are most competitive for the trivial prize of games, where the standard of victory has been set up to neglect, and further enfeeble, all judgment about motives.
>Preference in activity weighs the substance of a man.
>Be the one who weighs others, not the one who's weighed.
Montaigine was consistent in his unlimited preference for the aesthetic aptitude, and it doesn't take a genius to guess what he would have made of gamers, or practitioners of shitposting as a team E-sport rather than for pure lulz.

>> No.18675719

>>18675135
This isn't just a Montaigne thing. It was the standard Renaissance attitude.

There's a famous little book from the 1500s called something like "The Education of a Young Nobleman", talking about what you should be good at, etc. It says, you shouldn't be terrible at chess, because that's lame, but you shouldn't be too good, because that suggests you've spent too much time on it. Best is to be good but a bit slapdash, suggesting you have loads of talent but never really studied it.

(Half of the book is about trying to fake the appearance of stuff. There's a term "sprezzatura" that's used a lot. This means, doing stuff without effort, or APPEARING to do stuff without effort. The book says, you should work really hard at things, but pretend you don't, so people think you're just oozing with talent but you're not tryharding, haha.)

>> No.18675747

>>18675145
It's okay, OP. I can't answer your query but I just wanted to recognize a fellow Texhnolyze chad. I wish we could thoughtfully discuss it on the board.

>> No.18675869

>>18675719
A similar attitude toward "the sporting life" prevailed among the rich for most of the 20th century, but Montaigne is talking about talent in a less arbitrary sense of the term.

>> No.18676154

>>18675671
But does he really not recognize that games that stimulate the intellect can be ''worthwhile'', to use such a pragmatic term?

>> No.18676733

>>18676154
Doubtless he does, provided one doesn't make a career of it, or oneself into a a kind of performance circus out of devotion to them, just as Alexander had contempt for athletes but not for athleticism.

>> No.18676807

>>18675135
Which essay is this?

>> No.18677510

>The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life
paul morphy, 19th century american chess, possibly the best of his era, who abandoned the game

>> No.18677513

>>18677510
*19th century american chess master