“It seems to me that things in themselves are neither pure nor impure. I cannot conceive of any inherent quality in objects which could make them so.” Montesquieu, Persian Letters.

“. . . Asia, where despotism is, so to speak, naturalized.” Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.


The above citations are from Montesquieu’s two major works, and in which the tension between Montesquieu’s possible cultural relativism and his use of socially damning language can be observed in full view. The tension that arises makes one wonder if Montesquieu is a cultural relativist, and if so then why does he use socially disabling terms, namely the morally laden term “despot”; or is it possible for Montesquieu to maintain cultural relativism while using a language that to some may seem socially scarring, but with a more intense look may explain a fluidness of Montesquieu’s employment of language. Despotism has been a classification employed, not only with argumentative energies, but also with the rationale to categorize and demean political cultures presumed to be contrary to the notion of freedom and is often directly linked to a particular understanding of liberty (Richter, 1973, p. 1). Forms of political management thought to be incompatible with liberty are symbolized as a simple structure, in comparison to a more complex government, which presumably fosters autonomy. Montesquieu’s literary sources need to be assessed because it is his historical methodology that may have created a way for despotism to become his metonym for Asiatic.

Montesquieu’s exploration into cultural relativism is evident mostly in Persian Letters, where he attempts to find why it is that we find certain rituals, values, and beliefs as “good”; and his investigation leads him to an assessment of cultural normalcy as a social construct. Persian Letters, although not novel, uses the mechanism of presenting Montesquieu’s own culture as it might seem to spectators coming from a civilization structured on a different ideology, in which he displays an incredible ability to evaluate his own beliefs, society, and government as phenomena to be examined. His detached view of France allowed for extraordinary compassion, elasticity, and sympathetic balance in his exploration of cultural difference as he questioned the cultural practices of his own country. The objective of Persian Letters, as Melvin Richter (1977, pp. 34-35) argues, was to devise categories, which would group similarities between various societies regardless of time and space. Montesquieu’s work was an achievement of curiosity, research, and objectivity over provincial intolerance.

Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws is more complex than Persian Letters, and is not a writing that can be cheapened by reducing it to any one single “ism,” such as “liberalism” or “republicanism,” nor can it be analyzed strictly as the alleged ideology of his class. In this text Montesquieu makes his most exhaustive account, both of the French Constitution and of its negative equivalent, monarchy as despotism, a system of absolute authority founded on fear that does not include safeguards or rights over the despot. Although Montesquieu’s concept of monarchy altered between the writing of the Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws, his concept of despotism remained remarkably constant (Richter, 1977, pp. 36, 60).

The complexity of Montesquieu’s outlook is found in his choice of sources for both Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws, which are constructed entirely from literary sources, mostly travelers’ reports. Readers of Montesquieu must make several assumptions on his utilization of traveler’s narratives to decide on the reliability of his historical methodology. First, he assumes that the writers were writing with the purpose of exploration, absent as possible of the over-orientalized exoticisms that viewed differences as more prevalent than similarities. Second, Montesquieu took for granted that the writers he used are not simply constructing a reality that has fantasy interlacing itself into an over-stimulating hybrid of historical fiction. Third, readers of Montesquieu must assume that what he presents in his writings were not selectively chosen so that only a fragment, of the possibly already fragmented travel narrative, is left for the reader who may be taking Montesquieu’s text as a lofty step towards cultural relativism. Finally, in order for the reader to accept Monstesquieu’s argument for oriental despotism, the reader must assume that Montesquieu was capable of detaching himself from his own historic existence. This assumption would mean Montesquieu was able to free himself from his own racial prejudices common to his era, through which he could have unknowingly inherited the view of the Asian world as despotic. The first two assumptions are very difficult to assess, but not impossible, what is needed are the journals, letters, and other correspondence of the authors Montesquieu utilizes. The second two assumptions, because of their focus on Montesquieu’s ideological account of his time and most especially his possible selective perception in his reading of the travel narratives he quotes from, will be discussed further by means of going to the sources he used in his text.

In Montesquieu’s reflections on Persia, in both Persian Letters and The Spirit of Laws, he utilizes the travel account of Jean Chardin who wrote extensive from his first hand experiences of his journeys to both the Middle East and Far East. In reviewing Chardin’s travel descriptions Montesquieu’s use of religion to define a despotic order appears to be inconsistent to Chardin’s. Religion, in Montesquieu’s evaluation, was a means of social control in a despotic state that was responsible for limiting human passions, motivation, and imagination. He keenly observed the multifaceted and various ways in which the political and social systems interact. Montesquieu saw religion and the civil laws as both principally aimed at creating good citizens. Whenever either religion or civil laws fail to make good citizens, one sees then that the other should be employed, so if religion is used as a form of social control then civil laws would be required on less and vice versa. For Montesquieu, the less oppressive religion was the further the civil laws should inhibit. Once religion establishes the doctrine of the need for action, the punishments by the laws need to be more rigorous and the law enforcement more attentive so that those, who possibly without the strict policy would let themselves become disinhibited, would instead base their choice on these other reasons, civil laws.
Montesquieu (1748/1989, pp. 468-469) argues that religion offers the rewards in the next life, which allows an escape from the legislator because if a person believes that the greatest penalty the courts could inflict, death, would end, then the reward from faithful servitude would lead to a new contentment with their heavenly reward. This part of Montesquieu’s theory is particularly momentous because it stresses the importance of social determinants of behavior, in this case religion, rather than strictly legal sanctions. Montesquieu believed that the religions of Asia, principally Islam, tended to maintain despotic governments, although he also conspicuously argued that religion presented the only available check on arbitrary power in those governments. Montesquieu’s use of religion in a despotic state must assume a lack of religious diversity within that state because effective control could only be sustained through a ruler who sanctioned or favored one religious belief over another; if the population was diverse religiously, then the imagination could be challenged, which would be a direct threat to the despot himself.

The lack of diversity assumed by Montesquieu was dissimilar to Chardin’s text, which Montesquieu used as his European observer in the Middle East and Far East. Chardin’s (1689/1978, p. 58) Coronation of Solyman III offers an account of a recently deceased Persian king who observed that those who “most laid to heart the mournful death of the deceased king, were the Christians.” Chardin explains the complexity of view in Persia as well as the reasoning the king gave for his acceptance of Christians:

That Prince had always fhewed himfelf kind and favourable to their Religion, fhewing them extraordinary Civilities, and rebuking the Minifters of the Law, and Interpreters of the Alcoran, when they fought to exafperate him againsft the Profeffors of our Religion. . . . The Armenians would fay one among another, that he was more a Chrisftain than a Mahometan. Not that he was very much devoted to his own Religion, even as much as the moft zealous of his Predeceffors; only he thought that the violence of Princes toward the liberty of mens Confciences was a thing neither Acceptable to God, nor conformable to Reafon (Chardin, 1689/1978, p. 58).

Chardin’s travel writing here demonstrates not only the allowance, but also the embracement of diverse religious views, which directly challenges Montesquieu’s notion of despotism as it pertains to religion, especially Non-Western religions. The direct refutation that a Prince’s violence against “the liberty of men’s consciences” was not only unacceptable to God, but most interestingly it was not within the bounds of reason. Montesquieu’s selectively evasive account of the Middle East was lacking its nuances, making the reader question his intention on the selection of his examples as well as the usage of the morally laden word “despot.” Other flavors can also be extracted from the above passage such as the dialogue assumed between the Prince and the Persian religious intelligentsia where instead of sanctioning the Professors of Religion for questioning his judgment, the Prince opts to challenge these officials by questioning the usefulness of constricting men’s consciences through means of violence or unnecessary limitations. Montesquieu’s supposed despot was not only open to the idea of religious diversity, but also to a dialog with his subordinates, challenging his aides’ adherence to violent methods of political domination that limited the autonomous conscious of the individual.

Montesquieu made the geographic assumption of despotism outside the known world of Europe and because of this he may have dismissed some of the non-despotic subtleties available in Chardin. Within Chardin’s manuscript are direct refutations of the stereotypic orientalized despot:
That if Providence had exalted him to a Throne, it was that he fhould carry himfelf like a King, and not like a Tyrant: and that there was nothing more Barbarous nor Tyrannical, than fuch a Conduct as not only violated the Law of nations, but of Nature alfo; whidh desire that men fhould live in Society one with another, fo far from being at Enmity that they fhould be mutual Affiftances one to another (Chardin, 1689/1978, p. 59).

Chardin’s advocacy of the Persian government as non-tyrannical goes so far as to tell the reader that the reason why a barbarous or tyrannical nation is not tolerable is because of its direct violation of the law of nature, which he understood as men striving to live in society with each other, far enough from hate that a common support would be considered the norm. The subjectiveness of how one rules can again be found in Chardin and this time in reference to Turkish policy in comparison to that of Europeans:

Turkish policy did very much furpafs that of the Europeans: That it was not confin’d within Maxims and Rules; but confifted altogether in Senfe and Judgment, as being grounded altogether upon Reafon, and never acting but according to Reafon (Chardin, 1686/1985, p. 51).

If given these passage of Chardin’s, Montesquieu might respond, “The imagination adjusts itself automatically to the customs of the country that one is in” (Montesquieu, 1761/1993, p. 158). Even if someone was under a despotic rule their mind is regulated by the customs, values, and norms of a given nation; or Montesquieu’s response might be that because despotism is an ideal type it is not possible to have all aspects of despotism present in one single state. Just prior to this last citation, Montesquieu addressed the subjectivity of penalties within a state whether despotic or not, “However cruel penalties are in the state, they do not make people more obedient to law. In countries where punishments are moderate, they are as much feared as where they are despotic and terrible” (Montesquieu, 1761/1993, p. 58). If various cultures can only be evaluated within the socially normative schema of a given culture, then under Montesquieu’s cultural relativist stance, it makes one wonder if he believed in a tangible despotic state or was the extreme created as a touchstone for his own French culture to question the direction of the French monarchy. Further analysis of the concept of despotism, as it relates to the East but especially the Middle East, must be examined before investigating Montesquieu’s possible intentions.

The conception of despotism originated with the Greeks with their use of the model of the master-slave relationship in describing what they considered oriental rule, which was for the most part mysterious to the Greek city-states that were threatened by the prospect of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (559-330 B.C.). The Greeks used this belief to build solidarity and in turn assemble themselves against the distant irrational enemy. Despotism was deeply repulsive to the Greeks who considered themselves as possessors of reason, which for them followed in recognizing their own capability and the practice of governing themselves. From the time of the Persian Wars, the Greeks attached despotism to characteristics of non-Hellenic or barbarian peoples who were thought to be slaves by nature, a form of kingship they thought to be practiced by Asians (Richter, 1973, p. 2). Montesquieu’s version of despotism went beyond the Greeks’ master-slave relationship and was viewed as a system of government that could be known, at least as an ideal type.

Despotism for Montesquieu was not simply the way a state was structured; instead despotism was a system that sought social control driven by fear.

The initial understanding of despotism by Greeks is maintained through Montesquieu’s assumption of Middle Eastern orientalized despotism, where despotism becomes synonymous with Asiatic governments. It is here that “knowledge no longer requires application to reality; knowledge is what gets passed on silently, without comment, from one text to the next” (Said, 1979, p. 116). Montesquieu holds to the Greek notion of a despotic Middle East and in his content analysis of the various travel narratives he excludes possible accounts or instances that might nuance Middle Eastern government out of the classification of despotism and into the classification of monarchy. Within Montesquieu’s text a detachment occurs when he makes reference to Greeks and how they perceived the Persian Empire, a despotic monarchy. It is necessary for Montesquieu to not allow the Persian Empire maneuverability outside the bounds of despotism because this would directly challenge his categorization of government into three convenient boxes – republic, monarchy, and despotism. In The Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu (1748/1989, p. 168) discounts Aristotle’s conception of monarchy, which included the empire of the Persians and the kingdom of Lacedaemonia, questioning “the ancients, who did not know of the distribution of the three powers in the government of one alone, could not achieve a correct idea of monarchy.” Montesquieu here is not simply questioning Aristotle’s conceptual difference of monarchy and despotism, but instead is suggesting Aristotle was unaware of the strict difference of Western and Eastern government; one is allowed the flexibility of monarchy based on virtue, while the other is confined to a small immovable space defined by fear. The broadening horizons, during Montesquieu’s time, had Europe firmly in the privileged center, as main observer. Europe’s cultural strength was fortified as it moved itself outwards, as travelers’ ethnocentric writings were consumed, repeated, and secured (Said, 1973, p. 117). Frederick G. Whelan (2001, p. 628) makes the argument that the strong theory of despotism presented by Montesquieu is portrayed as a system of rule, not merely inherent of the individual personalities of specific abusive rulers. Asian political affairs should be detached from moral classification, despotism, which is for the most part alien to Europe, and instead discourse should be brought within the realm of political analysis that allows the same fluidity Westerners grant to the Western political experience.

Montesquieu’s possibly selective reading of travel narratives and his adherence to the Greek notion of a despotic Middle East does not cheapen the cultural relativism of the Persian Letters, namely the seraglio system. I believe it is here that Montesquieu’s intention of using a despotic orientalism can be practically examined. The climactic transition in the Persian Letters occurs when Usbek, the master of the seraglio, send a message to his First Eunuch giving “unlimited powers over the entire seraglio” to the eunuch, and asserts to him to “let fear and terror be your companions . . . everyone must live in dread, everyone must weep before you . . . purify this place of infamy, and bring back virtue from its exile” (Montesquieu, 1761/1993, p. 271). The transition is notable because prior to this Usbek in his writings speaks of the inherent checks on the respective positions of the eunuchs and his wives in his absence, but as Melvin Richter (1977, p. 49) detects, the balance of power does not depend upon the virtue of the parties, but instead on the honor of all involved. The seraglio here resembles the intricate workings of a monarchy, which according to Montesquieu, can easily degenerate into despotism. When the wives feel that their monarch has neglected them, their honor to him begins to wane. When the honor is removed from the harem, Usbek feels the only way to retain order is through what he describes as “savage commands.” In the end it is only his Roxana who has remained loyal and continues to behave with modesty, the eunuch Solim writes to Usbek (Montesqueiu, 1761/1993, pp. 270-273). Roxana’s letter to Usbek illustrates the transition from a monarchy to despotism,

Horror, darkness, and dread rule the seraglio; it is filled with terrible lamentation; it is subject at every moment to the unchecked rage of a tiger. He has tortured two white eunuchs, whose only confessions have been confessions of innocence He keeps each of us shut up in her apartment, and although we are alone there he makes us wear veils. . . . the only freedom we are allowed is to weep (Montesquieu, 1761/1993, p. 280).

Others in the harem also write to Usbek, “I can no longer endure the humiliation which has overtaken me. If I am innocent, come back and love me” (p. 278). “Your soul has lost its nobility, and you are becoming cruel” (p. 280). In the final letter Roxana reveals to Usbek that she also has deceived him and has taken part in making the “terrible seraglio into a place of delightful pleasures” and adds that she may have lived in servitude, but she has always been free, as she tells him, “My mind has always remained independent” (p. 280).

When Usbek does grant unchecked power to his eunuch, it is the use of this power that generates the collapse, rather than the reestablishment of order. The wives pronounce that when subjected to such maltreatment they no longer love Usbek. Richter (1977, p. 50) points out that the wives’ compliance depended in the end, not upon fear of absolute power, but upon love. By showing the transition of the seraglio, Montesquieu illustrates the rule that the reader assumes as despotic, the Asiatic, which may not be the case at all, but instead that despotism is possible to all monarchies when honor is devoid. Montesquieu in the Persian Letters often refers to virtue, since the reference point is to a monarch, it could be that Montesquieu is speaking of honor, which he explains in his later work The Spirit of the Laws, or possibly that virtue is not limited strictly to republics and that mutual affection and benevolence should be assumed in either a monarchy or a republic due to human sociability.

If Montesquieu is making a direct connection with monarchy and despotism, and he maintains that all are simply connected to the custom of their sociality, then he can retain his cultural relativism because although the word despotism is negatively laden, it is for him potentially interchangeable with monarchy. If one of Montesquieu’s intentions in The Spirit of the Laws was to critique the French government ruled by Louis XIV, then utilizing a distant other as a group who limits the liberties of their citizens is a way for him to express his cultural relativism. The possible interchangeability of monarchy and despotism would allow his readers to critique the culture they are a part of versus reading The Spirit of the Laws as a text that critiques distant and diverse Asiatic governments, so by working with the assumptions of his time, he is able to construct an argument that effectively challenges his own government. Only by creating or at least reaffirming an “other,” whether it is by a selective reading primary sources or the recapitulation of a handed down narrative that treats those from the supposed East as directly juxtaposed to those in the West can Montesquieu prove the point of the pending dangers of an unhonorable monarchy.

Montesquieu’s treatment of Usbek’s seraglio in Persian Letters speaks well to this point, in that monarchies are always teetering on verge of morphing into despotisms, but the Persian Letters do more than just explain his views of government; they also provide a candid view of the subjectivity of what is often assumed by each culture as a sort of universal objective standard, and instead offers a version of difference that has more similarities than what may have been previously assumed. Political and cultural difference though for Montesquieu was used only when it best supported his argument and it was his realization that moral language could be tied to a direct location, such as the East, that freed him from having to manage his terminology. Foreign political affairs should be disconnected from moral categorization, such as the use of the term despotism, which is for the most part alien to Western political systems, and instead discourse should be brought within the same sphere of political examination that allows the variability Westerners grant to the Western political experience. Modern politics in a global arena often finds itself marking some as tyrants, totalitarians, dictators, and despots instead of the non-biased terms president, monarch, or prime minister. Not allowing our political discourse to easily attach pejorative labels is a step toward a dialogue that would offer non-Western nations the same cultural fluidity that Western nations grant themselves.


References

Chardin, Jean. (1978). Coronation of King Solyman III. The Present King of Persia.
Reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International. (Original work published 1689).

Chardin, Jean. (1985). The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the East
India. Reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International. (Original work published 1686).

Montesquieu. (1748/1989). The Spirit of the Laws. Ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller,
and Harold S. Stone. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1748).

Montesquieu. (1761/1993). Persian Letters. Trans. C.J. Betts. New York: Penguin
Books. (Original work published 1761).

Richter, Melvin. (1973). “Despotism,” In Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of
Selected Pivotal Ideas, ed. Philip P. Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Richter, Melvin. (1977). The Political Theory of Montesquieu. New York: Cambridge
University Press.


Said, Edward W. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Random House Vintage Books.

Whelan, Fredrick G. (2001), “Oriental Despotism: Anquetil-Duperron’s Response to
Montesquieu,” History of Political Thought, 22, 619-647.