For Reading 17.7, Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals”: What is Montaigne’s point of view on the relationship between nature and culture, and how does that point of view inform his understanding of cultural difference?

What will be an ideal response?

Montaigne argues that culture is something that makes one wild. He suggests that to live in accordance with Nature is the highest form, but people distort it through odd tastes that are created in a cultural milieu. He suggests that it is actually wilder that we should consider our taste for the arts to be greater than “mother Nature.” He, therefore, considers the natives of the New World to be barbarous but uncorrupted.