In Montaigne's essay On the Cannibals, the critical analysis of European and Brazilian societies through the scope of the "other" establishes the distinction between the two worlds . However, the definitions of "self" and "other" quickly become blurred as Montaigne connects more synonymous aspects of governance and functioning of the two groups of people. By labeling foreigners as "self" and accepting their formalities as the norm, he weakens Europeans as "the other" and uses Barbarians to examine the civilized with an intact perspective, allowing for scrutiny and analysis of the two companies. It is through this definition that Montaigne initially manages to criticize the ignorance of European arrogance and its supposed superiority over the Barbarians. Montaigne concludes that both the civilized and the uncivilized possess aspects that deviate from Nature's idealized state of purity. The Europeans are much more corrupt, but upon further introspection, the Cannibals evolve into the same nature of developing a more inorganic society. Therefore, the definition of "self" offers a deeper understanding of the Barbarians and rejects the importance of Montaigne's society while asserting the inevitability of a transition to a more developed culture like that of the Europeans by the Barbarians. The “foreigner” as defined by Montaigne The essay concerns Europeans who, through ignorance, consider their society as the center and the summit. For cannibalistic natives who rule a much more primitive society than Europeans and who preoccupy themselves with the merely rudimentary aspects of life, European society is special. The Europeans “consent to obey a boy” (p. 240) and experience extreme social injustice where “...... middle of paper ...... uh” becomes the Barbarians. If foreigners were the cannibals, then the status quo of French society would be preserved and the cannibalistic behavior of foreigners would become unconventional. This presupposes the conviction that Europeans constitute the norm. By identifying the "self" and the "other", he first establishes the differences between the two and then blurs them to assert that the universal human has the characteristics of both societies and that one is not necessarily more civilized than the other. As the essay progresses, the meeting of the barbarian and the European suggests that the cannibals are closer to the operations of nature but will eventually progress toward the same structure of society present in Europe . It therefore addresses the universal human by examining the two societies but without proposing an absolute standard for which is the more barbaric..