2. I have been reading Montaigne while listening to the podcast. He's astonishingly an Enlightenment-ish figure. Or, one could conclude that people in the 16th century had all schools of thought and many of these thoughts simply wouldn't be admitted into the mainstream for a long, long time. Justice towards minorities and the right state of mind often come so late. Along the same line, Marlowe made Tamburlaine die by burning a Quran and showed many Christians betrayed their alliance with Muslims and were then punished by Jesus for the betrayal. At the same time, in the theatre next door, Shakespeare questioned whether Jewish people had feelings like Christians did and continued to portray that all Jews were monstrously avaricious.
Montaigne asked whether the Europeans were truly superior to the "savage" cannibal North American natives and pointed out that burning hearsays alive or shredding traitors into pieces alive didn't make it better than (technically) eating your enemies' corpses. Nevertheless, there were two more centuries of "native Americans were not people! They were like monkeys!" discourse after Montaigne's death.
Additionally, Montaigne’s philosophical thoughts did not immediately become heresy in his lifetime. Actually, once he brought some of his books to Rome for advertisement when he visited the Pope! His works were only banned several years after his death, when more and more progressive free-thinkers associated with radical movements openly declared that they were inspired by his works. Montaigne is undoubtedly a radical figure for the 16th century, but people in his life time might be deceived by his nonchalant attitude towards his own philosophy. He wrote extremely radical materials and got away with it because he looked like a gentleman contented with his life and didn’t asked no social change. However, in a society heavy with all kinds of repression, even expressing one’s thoughts in a casual manner and persuing a simple life in accordance to one’s conscience can manifest as radical. Texts expressing such tendencies can be incendiary.