These five stories (non-stories? :-) were written between 1770 and 1772, prior to Diderot pulling off an identity scam worthy of today’s catfishing. Even though it’s completely tangential, I can’t help but starting there. The story goes that knowing that his friend the Marquis de Croismare had a personal interest in a nun who was hoping she could be released from her vows, he and his friends wrote to him as if they were the nun, informing him that she had escaped and needed his help. The letters back and forth between the two intensified so much that, glee aside, Diderot and his friends felt obliged out of mercy to “kill” the nun off. This of course led to his somewhat salacious novel, The Nun finished in 1780, and then published after his death in 1796.

I have to say, The Nun is probably of more interest than these stories, which were originally published in a periodical with very low readership, and in which Diderot, the 18th century French free-thinker, questions conventional morality, and condemns the fickleness of gossip and public opinion. They are reflective of the Enlightenment, and use the interesting literary device of being framed as parts of conversations. Diderot is particularly hard on sexual morality, saying that marital laws binding a man and woman together sexually for life are inherently against human nature, as are the vows of abstinence taken by the clergy. He also asks the philosophical question, when is it better to “do the right thing” even if it’s not lawful, seeming to advocate it, and yet knowing the limits, and dangers of individuals making this determination.

Of the five stories, ‘Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage’ was the most interesting, as Diderot used utopian reports from explorers of Tahitian free love and what practically amounted to communism (all over-idealized) to point out ways in which ‘superior’ European culture was actually at odds with man’s true nature, and therefore inferior. It’s hard to imagine that 250 years ago entirely new worlds of people, flora, and fauna could be discovered on the planet! And I imagined myself in an intellectual at the time, sitting in a mahogany study, reading this ‘supplement’ to the explorer’s reports, and pondering the moral and ethical implications. These stories are not about plot, but they’re not dry and stuffy either, and are worth reading.

Quotes:
On freedom:
“But do you want man to be happy and free? Then do not interfere in his affairs; there are enough unexpected chances in the world to lead him to enlightenment or vice; and always remember that it was not for your sake but for theirs that cunning legislators molded and misshaped you as they have done. Look at all political, civil, and religious institutions; study them with care; and I’m much mistaken or you will find Man, century after century, the yoke-ox of a handful of knaves. Mistrust the man who comes to you praising ‘order’; creating order always means bullying others to their own discomfort.”

On native people; these words inserted into the mouth of an old Tahitian chief:
“This country yours! Why? Because you set foot in it? If one day a Tahitian were to land on your shores and carve on one of your stones, or the bark of one of your trees, ’This country belongs to Tahiti’, what would you think? You are the stronger? Well, and what if so? When one of the wretched trifles your boat is full of was stolen, you made an outcry and took revenge; and in the very same moment, in the depths of your heart, you were planning to steal a whole country! You are not slaves, you would suffer death rather than be one, and you want to enslave us! … Leave us our own customs; they are wiser and more honorable than yours.” ( )