Here are Montaigne’s thoughts on Libya before The West grew too dependent on valuable oil and prior to NATO’s invasion, when Gadhafi became the tyrant of choice:
What a stupid nation we are. We are not content with letting the world know of our vices and follies by repute, we go to foreign nations in order to show them by our presence! Put three Frenchmen in the Libyan deserts and they will not be together for a month without provoking and clawing each other: you would say that one of the aims of these journeys is expressly to make spectacles of ourselves before foreigners – especially those who take delight in our misfortunes and laugh at them.
Source : Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, tr. M.A. Screech (Toronto : Penguin, 2003), p. 790.
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