It's All in Your Point of View

A person's perspective on life is what causes him to judge a concept as good or evil, right or wrong, or civilized or barbaric. Obi-wan Kenobi gives one of the best examples and explanations of this in Star Wars when he is explaining to Luke Skywalker that from a certain point of view Darth Vader is not Luke's father and did indeed kill him, yet from another point of view Darth Vader is still Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker. Montaigne recognizes this point when he seeks to discover a true definition of barbarism. For example can cannibals be considered barbarians just because they eat their own species since they wait to do that until after death. Are people that torture any less barbaric. From either of these two groups point of view, their own actions are civilized and the others is barbaric. No culture is going to look at their own actions as barbaric because that is the way that they were raised and their actions are considered the norm for them in their lives. Each culture has ways that make it more or less barbaric than another. The current United States culture is filled with acts of violence against other people such as our torture or sending people to Guantanamo Bay to disappear. These actions are more barbaric than the actual thought of cannibalism from one point of view. From another they may seem perfectly okay and civilized. Perspective is the key element in determining barbarism and since there are so many perspectives, it becomes impossible to define. This point is what Montaigne was trying to bring up in his essay "Of Cannibals."