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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 7 years

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so i recently became lowkey obsessed with Napoleon and started reading up on him and found that he was a really fascinating, complex dude. but there were some things that i found kinda distasteful, like his misogyny, etc., So I was wondering how you reconcile the darker aspects of his personality and stuff? i know its somewhat different with historical figures, but i guess i just feel conflicted about liking him at times. so i wanted to know your thoughts cuz i really respect your opinion

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Aw thank you for the ask! Napoleon is very much a complex human, the way most people are and so he naturally comes with things that aren’t-as-great-as-others. Bless his face (before he trips on a tree root and breaks it).

First, we cannot judge a person born in 1769 by the standards of 2017. No approach to history should come from applying our modern expectations of inter-personal/social behaviour to the past. It will provide an inaccurate reading of historical personages and times and will not allow you, as a historian, to truly understand how things worked and why people behaved the way they behaved.

A different point, but illustrative: We have a letter from, I want to say Gregorio Dati, to a friend instructing his friend to avoid certain seafoods in the spring and to not eat melon as the best way to avoid the plague. From a 21st century standpoint, with our understanding of germ theory, the hindsight of knowing about the spread and pathology of the plague (at least to a much greater degree than people in the 14th and 15th centuries) we can laugh at poor S. Dati who is just trying to help a friend.

However, if you approach Dati without the application of 21st century medical knowledge and understand that his world view is based around the long-standing humour theory, a theory that permeates most aspects of early modern life, then suddenly his advice makes the most sense in the world. It is sound, it is logical, and fits within his personal understanding of life on earth. Applying the 21st century to him would not give a historian a very deep reading of Dati and, frankly, render him ridiculous and he wasn’t ridiculous.

So for Napoleon applying 21st century gender norms and concepts of equality does a disservice both to us as historians as well as Napoleon as a complex human born two-hundred years ago and also does a broader disservice to the multifaceted, multi-layered aspects of society at that time. Not to say that there weren’t people agitating for somewhat-greater equality (and of course the Revolution did much for women before those advances were rolled back) but rather that Napoleon in his views was the norm and not the exception.

The better way to approach Napoleon’s sometimes-not-as-progressive-views is to understand the context. This does not excuse a man for reinstating slavery, for example, but it allows you to understand why he did it, what his motivations might have been and then, later, why he re-abolished slavery. Same for his slaughter of the Syrian prisoners during the Syrian-escapade of the Egyptian campaign and his complex views towards women and a woman’s place within French, and European, society.

Second, understand that he’s human like anyone else and no one is problem free. We all have issues.

A friend came over last night for dinner and we were discussing this very issue where if someone says something problematic, or exhibits a potentially problematic view point, the current consensus is to drop them like a hot potato. You’re not allowed to like them! It’s morally wrong to like someone flawed! You are part of the probleeeeeem. [Ahem]

Which, obviously, when you think about it for ten seconds, is a faulty viewpoint. None of us would have friends. I, personally, am a deeply flawed individual. I have opinions and views that are problematic, and I am sure I have many more that are problematic that I just haven’t been made aware of. Should no one like me because of that? Should no one like any of us?

Part of studying history is understanding that everyone is as flawed as any of us. Because we are human and that’s part of the fascinating, exciting thing is just finding ways in which we were, and always been, so fricking human.

I spent some time studying colonial New Spain (what is now Mexico) and if you want a world that does not fit into any of our 21st c expectations of anything 16th and 17th century Mexico is it. In particular, I was studying the translation works of Bartolomeo de Alva, a mestizo (mixed-race) priest from Mexico valley (near Teotihuacan, for those interested). He was translating the plays of Lopa De Vega into Nahuatl for his parishioners who were predominantly indigenous. In doing so he was participating in the act of colonization because he was encouraging his parishioners to adopt Spanish lifestyles, morals and expectations. Yet, he himself, was Mestizo. He was considered less than human by the Spanish, inherently untrustworthy, and dirty. Yet he was freely participating in their “civilization” project. Should we dump Bartolomeo to the side because he does not fit within the ideal framework of colonial/post-colonial/de-colonial resistance? Or should we understand him as an individual in a certain circumstance, with a life history we know little about, making shift as he best saw fit to? One of these approaches does him justice, the other does not.

The same applies to Napoleon. He is a product of his time who did both great and terrible things, who was progressive and conservative, who was complex and is worthy of a nuanced, careful approach. As with any human you have to take the dark with the light and eventually you have to come to terms with both in your own way.

Basically, my advice would be to really read around and create a context for his existence. Read about 18th and 19th-century French and Italian society. Learn about the public/private division of life, the middle class and the aristocracy and the clashes between them. Read about post-Trent Catholic theology and the place of the Church within French and Italian society. Read Rousseau and read Voltaire. Read about social and gender expectations pre, during and post 1789 France. Do the same for Corsica if possible (although sources are more limited if you only read English there’s more stuff in French and Italian). Understand that as much as Napoleon did his best to sew the French identity into his skin he was always still Other, still an outsider. Learn how he performed Empire and that there was a Private Napoleon and a Public Napoleon and they were often different people. Remember Duroc’s saying about Napoleon, ‘Let him have his way: he speaks from his feelings, not according to his judgement; nor as he will act tomorrow.’

Creating a thorough understanding of the society that produced Napoleon will help, I think, in reconciling the often contradictory nature of his public and private views, his politics and his approach to sovereignty. It doesn’t mean you have to like everything he does, and nor should you, and it does not mean you cannot critique him for his actions, because that’s fine, but it’s really about understanding the world he lived in, the world he was trying to create, and to not judge him as we would judge a ruler today but as someone from his time would. Because he lives on that cusp between early modern and modern and the society he lived in, the events that informed his personality and thoughts, should be respected and understood.

Sorry for the million year long rant! I hope this helps?

TL;DR

1. Don’t apply 21st c standards of morality to a person born in the 18th c.

2. Understand that all humans are flawed and you have to reconcile that however works best for you.

3. Understanding the context of his life, the society he lived in, the background to that society, will hopefully help with the reconciliation of his manifold flaws by providing some insight into who/what/where/when/why of his views and motivations.

FINALLY, he changed. Like all of us. His views at 25 are not those at 45 - he said something along those lines, in that vein of thought, to Joseph in 1806: ‘I am sorry that you think that you will find you brother again only in the Elysian Fields. It is natural that at 40 he should not feel towards you as he did at 12…’ Also, he often spoke contradictory to what he believed. He liked arguments and playing Devil’s Advocate and so that also affected how people saw him and what they heard his espousing. He was always, at the end of the day, a performative person but also a person who changed and shifted his views and was not set in stone.

On St. Helena, circa 1817, Napoleon was conversing with Barry O’Meara, his doctor. O’Meara asked if Napoleon could go back and change something small what would he change? And Napoleon replied that he would listen to women more. That if he could go back and do it again he’d take more time to sit and to listen to what women have to say. Because he didn’t and he believed that he missed a lot of important insights that might have helped him.

[thank you for the ask! apologies again for the massively long rant. If you want to chat hmu I promise I don’t bite and I’m not as caustic or, as a friend said, rispido, as I might appear on here]

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